Now apply the same logic to the Hindu society and you have another
explanation of the “fissiparous” character of caste, as a consequence of
the virtue of self-duplication that is inherent in it. Any innovation
that seriously antagonises the ethical, religious and social code of the
Caste is not likely to be tolerated by the Caste, and the recalcitrant
members of a Caste are in danger of being thrown out of the Caste, and
left to their own fate without having the alternative of being admitted
into or absorbed by other Castes. Caste rules are inexorable and they
do not wait to make nice distinctions between kinds of offence.
Innovation may be of any kind, but all kinds will suffer the same
penalty. A novel way of thinking will create a new Caste for the old
ones will not tolerate it. The noxious thinker respectfully called Guru
(Prophet) suffers the same fate as the sinners in illegitimate love.
The former creates a caste of the nature of a religious sect and the
latter a type of mixed caste. Castes have no mercy for a sinner who has
the courage to violate the code. The penalty is excommunication and the
result is a new caste. It is not peculiar Hindu psychology that induces
the excommunicated to form themselves into a caste: far from it. On the
contrary, very often they have been quite [pg 94] willing to be humble
members of some caste (higher by preference) if they could be admitted
within its fold. But castes are enclosed units and it is their
conspiracy with clear conscience that compels the excommunicated to make
themselves into a caste. The logic of this obdurate circumstance is
merciless, and it is in obedience to its force that some unfortunate
groups find themselves enclosed, because others in enclosing, themselves
have closed them out, with the result that new groups (formed on any
basis obnoxious to the caste rules) by a mechanical law are constantly
being converted into castes to a bewildering multiplicity. Thus is told
the second tale in the process of Caste formation in India.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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