Chained From Outside
To the Western mind, understanding South Asian culture and society can be a difficult task. Whether one considers the differences in religion, social structure, ideological perspective, or any other contingency, it is not difficult to perceive that Western and South Asian traditions do not rest on similar foundations. Although one may argue that, indeed, these pillars of civilization are common to all societies, the version which develops in South Asia is probably unique among all the annals of history. What separates South Asian civilization from most others is the rigid and ultra-stratified class system, known to the West as the caste system, although the original terms varna and jati are more true to the actual identity of the system. Indeed, the eminence of varna and jati has been permanently embedded in the fabric of South Asian history, as these classifications of people into myriads of distinct classes have controlled the collective destinies of the South Asian peoples since the settlement of the Indus Valley around four millennia ago. Of course, the extent to which varna and jati classification dictated the lives of the people cannot be concretely determined, as records are incomplete, as well as owing to the fact that the system of social classification itself evolved as it endured. Nevertheless, it is important to delve into the actuality of this intricate system in order to understand South Asian culture, both as it is today and as it came to its present state over time.
In order to come to this understanding, it would be easy to discuss only the larger issues of South Asian society, but to do so would be to ignore the reality of the many causes and effects pursuant to the individual. While South Asian society is not based around the individual, viewing the expanse of society from the viewpoint of an individual allows a more emotive and sweeping understanding of the life of a common man. This is the objective of Mulk Raj Anand's novelette, Untouchable. Anand's book provides a single day insight into the life of a street-sweeper, a Kandala, the lowest of the untouchably low in society. The novel's protagonist, Bakha, comes to life as Anand effectively uses a stream of consciousness to allow the reader to feel Bakha's emotions and thoughts as he goes about his day's routine. The importance here is that the reader will learn from Bakha the intricacies of the varna and jati from the inside, or, more accurately, what the world looks like from the bottom.
Indeed, Bakha is among the dregs of society. As a Kandala, all of society shuns him and his family. The episode at the well in which Bakha's sister Sohini must wait for an upper class Hindu to draw water for her well exhibits this point . All the while she waits, she is harassed by a higher jati outcaste woman, jealous of Sohini's youth and beauty. Even though Sohini has done nothing to the woman, she abuses Sohini nonetheless, primarily because of Sohini's lower social standing. The more important issue in this episode, though, is the fact that the Untouchables, the lowest varna, have to wait around the well for a person of higher class to draw their water for them, out of fear that the outcastes will somehow pollute the well by their mere presence. This sort of profound inequality baffles the modern Western mind, with its lack of justice, on one level, but, more pragmatically, because it serves no apparent use, other than to remind the outcastes again of their base lot in life. However, the Westerner must see this episode, as so many others in the novel, through an unbiased cultural perspective if one is to transcend a feeling of disgust, in order to more fully understand the reasons for this apparently necessary misfortune within the lower levels of South Asian society.
In Western society, one may suggest that social mobility is explicitly tied to education, or at least access to education. From education, the idea follows that opportunities for increased socioeconomic status will be the result. Given this suggestion, which seems to bear out as being ascertainably true more often than not in the West, it is possible to see one of the immediate results of the varna and jati social order in the inherent inflexibility of social status in South Asian society. Where a Westerner may generally hope to better himself or herself by pursuing the channels of education, Bakha has no such recourse, as education is restricted to members of the upper varna, particularly to the Brahmin and Kshatriya, the priests and warriors, respectively. The purpose is clearly to restrict social mobility; with power being solely vested in the higher varna, it would be imperative to keep the lower varna uneducated, so as to preclude any ideas of resistance to the status quo. Bakha ponders this inequality, as evinced in his meeting with the two higher varna children. Bakha seeks to learn to read, offering to pay the boys in return for lessons, although this is forbidden. "...He had wept and cried to be allowed to go to school. But then his father had told him that schools were meant for the babus, not for the lowly sweepers." The social emphasis on separation among classes reinforced feelings of superiority and inferiority among the classes and is obviously reflected here. The Kandala were born to their post because their parents had been, and so on through the generations. The only direct correlation to Western society would be to note that European kings claimed power because their parentage determined it; however, if Bakha's opinions were to be allowed, the fitness of such an argument would rapidly disintegrate, for to him, it is not so much a matter of social mobility or any other tangible benefit, except for the pure benefit of existing as a human being.
It is by the very appellation of Bakha's class, or, indeed, the actual lack of such a varna that instantly cuts to the core of his plight as a human. Kandalas, like all outcastes, are without varna; the term outcaste itself implies that they are outside the social order, bereft of an identity to which they might lay claim. As explained in "The Laws of Manu," "There is no fifth caste...." As if this was not difficult enough, "The Laws of Manu" continue, saying of the kandala jati, "a man who fulfills a religious duty, shall not seek intercourse with them; their transactions shall be among themselves, and their marriages with their equals...." In effect, then, the lowest caste must not strive to better itself, or, in fact, interact with any other higher caste. As a final note of humiliation, "the dwellings of Kandalas... shall be outside the village." Hence, outcastes were physically not part of society, in addition to being legally and religiously excoriated as a part of the social order.
It is quite ironic, then, that the outcastes were not only excluded from the religion of the upper castes, but were constrained by the constructs of that religion; imagine being chained inside a prison that does not exist!
This is exactly Bakha's plight as he reaches the pivotal moment in the novel's first half. He is outside society, with no hope of being a part of society, yet he suffers the indignity of being punished by that society to which he cannot belong, as he, the Untouchable, comes into contact to an upper varna man. All the degradation of being an outcaste quickly comes to Bakha as he receives the insults of the man whom he has unwittingly touched. The core issue is that, as an Untouchable, Bakha will pollute the reborn by his mere presence; to be Untouchable is impurity personified. Upon humbly and penitently accepting his upbraiding, Bakha is given a final insult to his humanity, as the man slaps him with such celerity as to imply the reign of inconsequence in his actions against apparently so low a creature as Bakha. Thus, with this episode, the clarity of Bakha's true value to his society becomes apparent, as the pinnacle of social expulsion shines. Bakha is truly nothing in the eyes of the higher castes, apparently not a member of South Asian society.
However, to assert the idea of membership would be to impose a Western ideology on an obviously unique social order. The Hindu religion itself dictated the exclusion of the outcastes, so to pronounce the social order as being unfair or unjust would be to question the fairness of the precepts of Hinduism, certainly not a task to be done in an analysis of a peoples' culture. Indeed, no task could undertake such an aim, for if one were to do so, that would be to bias the whole of any interpretation one might devise. Here, then, although it may be difficult to reconcile the Western conceptions of right and wrong, fair and unfair, or just and unjust with the apparent inequities inherent in the South Asian social order, one need not make such a reconciliation in order to understand the subject. Instead, the goal should be to gain an insight into how the components of the social order interact, one with another, unto gaining a more complete insight into the overall scheme of the social order. Thus, by looking closely at a particular part, such as at Bakha's struggles at the bottom of society, and slowly withdrawing to a broader perspective, one may find that although the Western and South Asian societies may not be built upon the same foundations, they need not remain sundered in their proximity to one's understanding of the broader society of humanity, that same society to which both South Asians and Westerners do belong.