Origins of the caste system

Formation –

If we shall try to trace back roots of the Indian caste system, we will have to go back to those ancient days when Aryan invasion took place in the Indian subcontinent. Most of the historians & erudites roughly estimate this period & one can go by rough estimates only, around 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C. approximately after 1000 years after death of the Indus valley civilization.

Fair skinned Aryans not only invaded the subcontinent but they disregarded the indigenous culture to a large extent. They were much superior in war-techniques than people over here & locals hardly had any choice rather than to surrender themselves to the invaders. It is difficult to say whether mass killings of the losers took place or not but it is certain that process of accommodating these aboriginals must had been initiated, once initial feeling of the enmity started receding.

Even then the conquerors were not ready to bestow the equal status in community to the losers. Their intellectual mind soon discovered apparently softer solution & they simply divided the society into four parts. Thus, masses of agriculturists, artisans, traders formed a 'Vaishya' fraternity; rulers & warriors formed 'Kshatriya' fraternity & 'Brahmins' used to profess priesthood & thinking. They were supposed to guide a policy & perform rituals during a holocaust. In a social hierarchy ' Brahmins' used to command highest respect, then 'Kshatriyas' & then 'Vaishyas'. 'Shudras' were placed at the bottom of this scale & all indigenous tribes were accommodated in this class. 'Shudras' were the largest in numbers amongst all these classes. They were simple workers & used to perform tasks involving heavy toils & less regard. But still there situation was much better than forest dwellers & nomadic tribes who were not given place in a community & were made outcast. They were treated as 'Untouchables' & they had to do hideous works involving disposal of a sewage & dead bodies, tanning hide etc. Thus, Aryans found a peaceful but tyrannical solution to accommodate the conquered races rather than to exterminate or enslave them directly.

Our first prime minister & freedom fighter Pandit Nehru has given a convincing explanation in his classic 'Discovery of India' for this classification of the community also called as ‘four varna system’. He writes, “The Indian mind was extraordinarily analytical & had a passion for putting ideas & concepts & even life's activities into compartments. The Aryans not only divided society in four main groups but also the individual’s life in four parts. The first part consisted growth & adolescence, the student period of life, acquiring knowledge, developing self discipline & self control, continence; the second was that of the householder & man of the world; third was that of the elder statesman who had attained certain poise & objectivity & could devote himself to public work without any selfish desire & last stage was that of a recluse who lived a life largely cut off from the world's activities.”

Mr. Nehru further explains that it was not only discrimination. It was something more than that. Rather it was an attempt to accommodate all groups of the society so that synthesized community would be formed & indeed it was a synthesized community in initial stages. Rigidity came in much later. It is believed that the ‘four varna system’ was interchangeable & elastic social system at the beginning. Why it became rigid later on would be a different study altogether but as of now we shall focus on some other facet of the subject.

Aspiration to farm & role of Iron –

Probably the ‘four varna system’ was not merely an idea. It was an outcome of the materialistic conditions in those days. One of the references over the internet sheds some more light on another aspect of this discussion. It says that use of iron must have played a vital role in these regards. It says that such a connection was first established by famous Mr. D.D. Kosambi. Indo-aryans used to use iron tools in those days. They penetrated into India through north-western mountain passes & over a period of several hundreds of years they spreaded right up to the fertile and densely forested gangetic plains. Nomadic though initially they were, by the time they reached India they had learnt art of the agriculture. Fertile northern plains were waiting for getting farmed. They cut down the jungles using fire & iron axe & cultivated the land using iron ploughs ensuring them an assured food supply. This devastated forest dwellers whose resource base for living was hampered.

The author says =>
Gadgil & Guha quote Iravati karve to the effect.
“They (Brahmins) served as pioneers establishing their outposts in forests & initiating rituals which consumed large quantities of wood & animal fat. Thus, provoked native food gatherers termed demons or rakshasas would attempt to disrupt the holocaust & save their resource base in order to retain the control over their territory. Specialist warriors, Kshatriyas would then rush to the rescue of the Brahmins.
……….Dushyanta combs the forest with the help of hundreds of assistants, killing wild animals with complete abandon. It appears reasonable to conclude that the purpose of this slaughter was to destroy the resource base of hunting & gathering tribes who lived in the forest.”

Caste Genetics –

While we have sufficiently churned this subject it would make sense to percept it in the light of recent discoveries; especially when we know that there are streams of opinions who completely doubt whether any kind of Aryan migration had taken place in the ancient years.

One such discovery led by the scientist Bamshad et. al. (2001) claims that upper caste Hindus are more similar to Europeans where as lower caste Hindus are more similar to Asians. Mr. Partha Majumdar’s commentary on this study says that Aryan people’s contact with the indigenous Indians must have been progressively lower as one descends the varna hierarchy. The genetic expectation therefore is that, proportion of genomic features that characterized the ‘Aryan people’ goes on decreasing & proportion of genomic features that characterized the ‘Indigenous Indians’ goes on increasing, as we descend the caste ladder. Bamshad’s team’s results are congruent with the expectation and is a landmark, says Majumdar. He further says that results of similar kind of studies done previously were equivocal because of small sample sizes of genomic markers used for the study. Instead Bamshad used a very large battery of genomic markers & DNA sequences spanning three kinds of DNA. They were maternally derived Mt-DNA (i.e. Mitochondrial DNA), paternally derived Y- chromosome & biparentally derived Autosomal DNA. Mt-DNA was overall much similar to Asians than to Europeans & similarity to Asians goes on decreasing as we step up the caste hierarchy. Paternally inherited Y- chromosome was overall much similar to Europeans & similarity to Europeans goes on increasing as we step up the hierarchy. This confirms greater west Eurasian male admixture in the Indian community in those days. To say in simple words migrated Aryans are likely to have been mostly males & might have integrated themselves in the upper castes. Though as per the old Hindu tradition, inter caste marriage was a cultural taboo; women from lower castes used to marry with upper caste men occasionally and step up the caste ladder. This could have taken place because of less number of women in upper castes due to greater Aryan male admixture. Mr. R. Ramchandran in his article ‘Genetics of the caste’ published in the magazine ‘Frontline’ has written that this particular trend caused a female gene flow across the castes. He further writes that according to researchers, this could be the reason for differences in sex specific & caste specific genetic variation in Indian population. Thus, study concludes that Indian populations are of proto-Asian origin with west Eurasian admixture.

Epitome –

It is difficult to judge whether Aryans brought or imposed the stratification of the society or it was already prevailing & being conquerors they integrated themselves in the upper layer of the hierarchy. But later possibility appears more plausible; especially when we know that though Aryan sway never crossed the gangetic planes, all of the southern Dravidic speaking states do exhibit the caste system more or less in a similar fashion. Late Mrs. Karve (1961) has also said that ‘Something very like castes was already there in India even before coming of the Aryans’.

It is also believed that Aryan migration had taken place in successive waves. Period which we are talking about (i.e. 2000 B.C. approximately) deals with most of the recent wave. So it could also be the case that process of the stratification of the community might have been initiated when older waves of Aryan people came to India. All this is entirely baffling & ambiguous though; it appears reasonable that seeds of the stratification of the society might have been sown in even more ancient past.





SAURABH ASHOK JOGLEKAR
E-mail - saurabh.a.joglekar@gmail.com
Date - 18th July, 2009

References –
Reference Name Author
The Discovery of India, PENGUIN BOOKS Jawaharlal Nehru

The Beginnings of the caste system,
© Aharon Daniel.
http://adaniel.tripod.com/origin.htm
Iron in India and the Caste,
http://www.dalit.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67%3Airon&catid=29%3Amicropediadaliticagtol&Itemid=64
Indian Caste Origins: Genomic Insights and Future Outlook, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/931.full.pdf Partha P. Majumdar
The genetics of caste,
Frontline from the publishers of HINDU,
http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1812/18120840.htm R. RAMACHANDRAN
Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations,
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/994.full 1. Michael Bamshad
2. Toomas Kivisild
3. W. Scott Watkins
4. Mary E. Dixon
5. Chris E. Ricker
6. Baskara B. Rao
7. J. Mastan Naidu
8. B.V. Ravi Prasad
9. P. Govinda Reddy
10. Arani Rasanayagam
11. Surinder S. Papiha
12. Richard Villems
13. Alan J. Redd
14. Michael F. Hammer
15. Son V. Nguyen
16. Marion L. Carroll
17. Mark A. Batzer
18. Lynn B. Jorde

Internet

De-regularization of Fuel Prices in India

In India fuel prices are controlled by government. Although government announced the dismantling of Administered Price Mechanism (APM) effective 1st- Apr-2002 in order to move towards market determined prices for petroleum products, it has not taken off its hands from determining fuel prices. This intervention even after dismantling APM was due to unprecedented rise in crude prices since late 2003. Oil marketing companies (OMCs) such as Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum & Hindustan Petroleum, which deal in refining & marketing activities of petroleum products, sell auto fuels & cooking fuels below prevailing international market prices. Estimates say OMCs will have under-recoveries of around Rs.45,000 Cr in this financial year assuming crude oil at $70 per barrel. Out of this Rs.15000 Cr will be on account of Auto Fuels (Petrol-Diesel), Another Rs.17000 Cr will be due to Kerosene & remaining Rs. 13000 Cr will be shaved off on account of LPG. Indian Oil (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) lose Rs 4.69 per liter on petrol and Rs 3.09 a liter on diesel. They sell LPG at a loss of Rs 158.55 per 14.2-kg cylinder and kerosene at Rs 17.15 per lit loss. These under-recoveries will be reimbursed in part by government in the form of oil bonds which would cover losses incurred due to Kerosene & LPG. So government has to issue oil bonds worth Rs. 30,000 Cr to OMCs. Some part of losses will be shared by upstream (e.g. ONGC) & downstream (IOC, BPCL, HPCL) companies. Government will try to offset losses of OMCs on Auto Fuels by asking companies like ONGC to sell crude oil & LPG to retailers (OMCs) at discounted rates. Still part of losses has to be taken care of by OMCs. Some help will come from Rs.3109 Cr which is provided under the head of Petroleum Subsidy in union budget 2009-10. Now let’s look at the other side of the saga. Government earns huge tax revenues from petroleum products in the form of customs as well as excise duties. In FY2008-09 total tax revenues earned from petroleum products was Rs.78373 Cr. If we assume those to be more or less on similar lines for the year 2009-10 as well then government seems to be in green. Tax rates in India on Petroleum Products are irrational. Petrol is highly taxed. Around 50% of the petrol price is made up of taxes if central sales tax & state sales tax are taken into consideration. Diesel taxes are relatively lower in comparison with Petrol. Around 30% of its price will be on account of various taxes. This is the prime reason for diesel consumption to have leapfrogged in India. Diesel forms 85% of the total consumption of auto fuels. Taxes on Kerosene & LPG form a tiny part of their prices. It has been so due to the government’s perception of kerosene & LPG as household’s cooking fuel – more precisely a fuel of poor people. So can Government of India continue with such kind of pricing in future? Is it sustainable? Let’s look at it -
Pricing of these products has always been a political issue than an economic one in India. Those having reins of the country always find it difficult to increase the prices as it has been considered as an unpopular measure. Some feel it will lead to an increase in prices of primary articles leading to a spiraling inflation. Many governments have reduced the prices when elections were just around the corner in order to cash in votes. Governments have set up many committees to formulate a strategy for pricing of petroleum prices, recommendations of which have been hardly implemented. With fiscal deficit looming large at 6.8% of GDP, is India in a position to continue such kind of Fuel subsidies? Government is set to borrow around Rs. 4,00,000 Cr from market to power its various initiatives. Such kind of mammoth borrowing will definitely lead to increase in interest rates. This will in turn affect capital expenditure plans of corporate sector as they will not get capital at lower rates. It will impede employment generation to some extent. De-regularization of fuel prices will help in reducing the ballooning fiscal deficit. Issuing oil bonds to OMCs was thought to be a financial innovation as it facilitates OMCs to cover up their losses & government is not required to pay upfront money as well. But it is anybody’s guess that government has to pay interests on the bonds issued plus at maturity principle amount also has to be returned back. Consider this as your children paying taxes for the petrol or LPG you have used. Does this sound rational by any means? The answer is big NO. Why Indian citizens should pay back, for fuels which we are using now, after 10 years? Is it because we should get fuels are discounted rates? Do people who really require subsidies getting any help by all this? Why people driving Mercedes & BMWs should get subsidies? Going forward - Why Indian middle class should get LPG at a discount of 158 Rs? Let’s churn this aspect out -
Let’s consider a household of 4 members with earnings of 15,000 Rs. per month. How much burden it will be on such households if LPG cylinder is made available at market prices? Is 158 /- Rs. such an enormous amount? Just imagine how much government can save through this. The way people having higher incomes do not get anything through Public Distribution Systems, they will not get LPG at subsidized rate if they fall in high income group. Government just needs to check pan cards of the gas applicants. I really don’t see any major hurdle in implementing this. Pyramid like subsidy structure can be followed for LPG if required. High the income lower will be the subsidy burden. Now let’s focus on petrol & diesel. Petrol & diesel prices are pretty much nearer to market prices. So those can be made fully in line with prevailing rates. But government has to shun its control from dictating prices to OMCs. OMCs should be given a total freedom to increase & decrease the prices at par with international prices. For e.g. when crude oil was boiling at 140 $ per barrel, government intervention to increase fuel prices came too late. At that time OMCs were losing around Rs.500 Cr a day. Such kind of losses affects health of the OMCs. They cannot go ahead with their expansion plans because of uncertainty of under-recoveries. If government de-regularizes these products even private players will come to the fore in retailing business. Then eventually we may get fuels at little lower rates due to competition. Refining companies like Reliance will try to sell products in India because they don’t have to export the same to get free market prices since selling in domestic markets will reduce their freight charges. De-regularization will automatically impact the demand of these products. It is said that people in India are poor so they are entitled to get subsidies. Simple statistics shows that fuel consumption increases with rise the per capita income. Subsidies are not targeted at people who are really poor because they are not using fuels in large quantities. Rich people use more fuels & more subsidies they get. This is not what government intends, Right?
No one likes hike in commodity prices. Human tendency is to use resources available in nature as tools to achieve economic progress. But the way we look at commodities needs to change a lot. These commodities are not available in unlimited quantities. There are going to be supply constraints in future. With current consumption rate we will consume all fossil fuels by 2040. We have not found fuels which can replace them. India imports 80% of its fuel needs. There is a need to maintain austerity. For e.g. If prices are made market driven then people who just manage to maintain cars may shift to public transport. It will modulate the demand of fuels. Government has to break its shackles & de-regularize the prices. It is time to think beyond politics for this issue at least.
Terms Used:
1) Administered Price Mechanism (APM): In an administered price mechanism Price of a good is specified by a governmental or some other nonmarket agency. Sellers are not allowed to sell goods as per supply-demand scenario.

2) Oil bonds: Bonds issued by Government of India to Oil Marketing Companies in order to compensate for losses which they have made by selling petroleum products at government dictated prices. OMCs sell these bonds to mutual funds, insurance companies and other such financial institutions in secondary market so as to get hard cash. Government of India has to pay annual interest rates & principle at maturity to the entity holding these bonds.

3) Upstream & Downstream Companies:
Upstream companies deal in searching of underground or underwater oil & gas fields, drilling of exploratory wells, and subsequently operating the wells that recover & bring the crude oil and/or raw natural gas to the surface.
Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Oil India Limited.

Downstream companies deal in refining of crude oil, and selling and distribution of natural gas and products derived from crude oil.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL).

4) Petroleum Subsidy: Freight subsidy for far flung areas & other related compensation of Rs. 3109 Cr has been provided under the head of Petroleum subsidy in Union Budget 2009-10.

5) Custom & excise Duties: Custom duty is a tax which government imposes for any import into the country from outside. Excise duty is sales tax which government charges on sale of any good.

6) Inflation: It is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation is also erosion in the purchasing power of money – a loss of real value in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy. A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index (normally the Consumer Price Index) over time.


7) Fiscal Deficit: When a government's total expenditures exceed the revenue that it generates (excluding money from borrowings) it is called Fiscal Deficit.
References:
1) Official website of Ministry of Oil & Gas, India :
http://www.petroleum.nic.in
2) News report in Economic Times : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4998275.cms
3) C. Rangarajan Report of the committee on pricing & taxation of Petroleum Products : http://www.petroleum.nic.in/Report1.pdf
4) Union Budget 2009-10, Government of India :
http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2009-10/eb/npe.pdf




Prasanna P. Vaidya
Prasanna.vaidya@gmail.com