IV
It is a pity
that Caste even today has its defenders. The defences are many. It is defended
on the ground that the Caste System is but another name for division of labour
and if division of labour is a necessary feature of every civilized society
then it is argued that there is nothing wrong in the Caste System. Now the
first thing is to be urged against this view is that Caste System is not merely
division of labour. It is also a division
of labourers. Civilized society undoubtedly needs division of labour. But
in no civilized society is division of labour accompanied by this unnatural
division of labourers into watertight compartments. Caste System is not merely
a division of labourers which is quite different from division of labour—it is
an hierarchy in which the divisions of labourers are graded one above the
other. In no other country is the division of labour accompanied by this
gradation of labourers. There is also a third point of criticism against this
view of the Caste System. This division of labour is not spontaneous; it is not
based on natural aptitudes. Social and individual efficiency requires us to
develop the capacity of an individual to the point of competency to choose and
to make his own career. This principle is violated in the Caste System in so
far as it involves an attempt to appoint tasks to individuals in advance,
selected not on the basis of trained original capacities, but on that of the
social status of the parents. Looked at from another point of view this
stratification of occupations which is the result of the Caste System is
positively pernicious. Industry is never static. It undergoes rapid and abrupt
changes. With such changes an individual must be free to change his occupation.
Without such freedom to adjust himself to changing circumstances it would be
impossible for him to gain his livelihood. Now the Caste System will not allow
Hindus to take to occupations where they are wanted if they do not belong to
them by heredity. If a Hindu is seen to starve rather than take to new
occupations not assigned to his Caste, the reason is to be found in the Caste
System. By not permitting readjustment of occupations, caste becomes a direct
cause of much of the unemployment we see in the country. As a form of division
of labour the Caste system suffers from another serious defect. The division of
labour brought about by the Caste System is not a division based on choice.
Individual sentiment, individual preference has no place in it. It is based on
the dogma of predestination. Considerations of social efficiency would compel
us to recognize that the greatest evil in the industrial system is not: so much
poverty and the suffering that it involves as the fact that so many persons
have callings which make no appeal to those who are engaged in them. Such
callings constantly provoke one to aversion, ill will and the desire to evade.
There are many occupations in India which on account of the fact that they are
regarded as degraded by the Hindus provoke those who are engaged in them to
aversion. There is a constant desire to evade and escape from such occupations
which arises solely because of the blighting effect which they produce upon
those who follow them owing to the slight and stigma cast upon them by the Hindu
religion. What efficiency can there be in a system under which neither men's
hearts nor their minds are in their work? As an economic organization Caste is
therefore a harmful institution, inasmuch as, it involves the subordination of
man's natural powers and inclinations to the exigencies of social rules
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