Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s5.5

c6.s5.5

Speaking generally, we may take it that only those may eat together who are allowed to intermarry. So here also we must interpret caste in the narrow sense. The twelve sections of the Kāyasths of Bengal may no more eat in company than they may permit alliances with one another.³ However, all things considered, the prohibition here is less strict. Many sections of castes between which marriage is unlawful do not refrain from sharing meals together. Moreover, custom in this respect varies from one part of the country to another, still more than do the marriage laws, and even in the same caste according to the districts amongst which it is dispensed.⁴ The law, however, exists everywhere, though it is complicated by distinctions which seem odd but are exceedingly instructive. ‘Broadly speaking,’ says a report quoted by Ibbetson,¹ ‘no superior tribe will eat or drink from the hands or vessels of an inferior one. But the reputed purifying influences of fire, especially as exercised upon butter and sugar, and the superior cleanliness of metal over earthen vessels, are the foundation of a broad distinction. All food is divided into *pakkī rōṭī*, i.e. bread fried dry with butter; and *kachchhī rōṭī*, i.e. bread not so treated. A Gujarat Brahman will eat the *pakki* but not the *kachchi rōṭī* from a Gaur; a Gaur from a Taga; any Brahman or Taga from a Rajput; any Brahman, Taga, or Rajput from a Jat, Gujar, or Ror. With the exception of Brahmans and Tagas, each caste will drink water from a metal vessel, if previously scoured with earth, from the same people with whom they will eat *pakkī* bread, but they will not drink from earthen vessels except with those whose *kachchhī* bread they can eat. Jats, Gujars, Rors, Rahbaris, and Ahirs eat and drink in common without any scruples. These again will eat a goldsmith’s *pakkī* bread, but not in his house. A Mussulman will eat and drink from a Hindu, but no Hindu will touch either *pakkī* or *kachchhī* from any Mussulman, and will often throw it away if only a Mussulman’s shadow falls upon it. Sugar and most sweetmeats can be eaten from almost anybody’s hand, even from that of a leather-worker or sweeper; but in this case they must be whole and not broken.’ These details will, I think, suffice as an example. The reader will not only excuse me but call down blessings on my head for not aspiring to be exhaustive.