Dr John Mohan Razu
Without an iota of doubt and qualm, Indians should be proud of a brand which is truly and wholly Indian, not collaborated or mixed, but 100% made in India and exported from India is the only one is caste. Caste has travelled along with the Indians wherever they travelled and now stamped as part and parcel of Indians. Conspicuously, it manifests in work places, housing retails and in public particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada wherever Indians live. In future, caste would be identified on par with class, race, gender identity, and so on. These categories--social, economic, political and cultural show control and domination
System of caste has originated more than 3,500 years and thus divides the society into hierarchy delineating who should fall in which tier (top, middle, bottom, outside) that has been designated that delineates what kind or type of job/work they should do. Therefore, caste is linked to hierarchy, domination, discrimination, inequality, and oppression. In India, the system of caste has been institutionalized and thus vivified in numerous forms and ways in the Indian society. In recent times, we see the system of caste is also getting globalized. Wherever Indians as group live or work, we see the presence of caste. For example, Seattle, the global tech centre where the highly skilled work is experiencing caste discrimination such as Amazon.
Caste is a hierarchy that functions on a scheme – top-down and so when your boss hails from India be it Seatle or London or Vancouver or section in-charge happens to be an Indian, it is natural and obvious for him or her to operate from that schema and so a number of cases surfaced where those from oppressed castes have been discriminated in overt and covert ways. Use of slur and discriminatory terms and open prejudices takes place when it comes to promotion etc. Caste is insulated in the DNA and thus programmed. Caste for the casteists has a supreme value that adds power, status, and prestige. For those who believe in caste argue that hierarchy is good because it regulates the social order. This is how oppressive systems justify and run and functions like racism in the USA, Untouchability in India, and apartheid in Israel.
Caste identity is thus becoming a wider representation of hierarchy and domination. Hence, it is being carried with them especially Indians wherever they go. It is visible in institutions and organisations—both public and private. Caste has the tenacity of domination and social control. Each caste has the capacity to have its control in a given territorial, and so, it is also spatial. Spatiality of caste should also be taken seriously as castes of different categories have their dominance in given space and location. Therefore, domination of a particular caste or a combination of few castes offers perspectives and castes have its distinct geographical dominance and so having its locationality and spaciality. Studies on ‘spatiality’ in caste will have to be taken into account, since it offers a clear perspective.
Caste system offers the oppressors tools for social control. The way caste system functions in diverse aspects of human life and in the lives of Indians show not just the ways in which how spatial and territorial control is employed, but also works out a clear mechanism wherein it appropriates the social, economic, political and cultural domains. Though the term ‘caste’ originated from Portuguese, the phenomenon of caste hails from India—Rig Veda, denoting hierarchical and asymmetrical divides. Caste existed long before the British came to India and colonized. But British colonialism has transformed caste into a system. At the same time though the Indian Constitution has abolished ‘Untouchability’, but never abolished ‘caste’
Global capitalism via globalization wants a scheme such as race, caste, gender disparity, Islamophobia, Xenophobia and many such divisive constructs. Capitalism uses division of labour for its profit maximization and thus increasing its productive capacities and facilities across the globe. At the same time globalization exploits the value of labour. At this juncture let me bring B R Ambedkar who described the caste system as a division of laborers, rather than just a division of labour. He did nuance in such ways that it is not the same like that of division of labour, in the system of caste it is the division of laborers which denotes graded hierarchy and inequality.
Take the locales of Dalits and the Palestinians living in Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem they are segregated for decades and some centuries being separated with walls and fences or unspecified rule that regulate giving a warning not to ‘cross the red-line’. In any apartheid or caste systems the space determines everything—from identity to existence. The ‘spatial’ dynamic unfolds the existence of binaries such as ‘I-You’, ‘We-They’, ‘You-Me’. All these are pitched one against another. ‘Space’ be it private or public is increasingly being appropriated by the dominant identity. Spatiality only when it is advantageous to global capitalist forces is okay, otherwise when it is suspectable for change or transformation that is detrimental shall never be an accepted norm of capitalism.
Appropriation and apartness go well with the forces of global capitalism as long as either of them helps neo-colonialism and global capitalism. One world, one shopping mall, one roof, one culture and the concept called ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world as one family) are all okay and at the same time apartheid, ‘clash of culture’, wars, conflicts, building walls or ‘clash of civiisations’ can also be accepted. Globalisation and de-globalisation though look different, these two processes are triggered by the forces of global capitalism. And so, colonization, empire building, de-globalisation and globalisation are intertwined with each other unleashing its domination on the vulnerable countries and their populace.
