Religion is truly irrelevant as a category of Power in the sub-continent. Its jati . Even among so-called tribal societies , there is a differentiation among Bhils, Kunbis and many others depending on their chosen lifestyles in a common ecological space. The non-agricultural hunter-gatherers being the lowest , then herders , then the highest being the agriculturists . A very good essay detailing Jatis among the Sikhs, Muslims and Christians of India. Prominent castes among Sikhs are Arora, Khatri, Ramgarhia, Jat, Saini, Kamboh, Mahton, Chhimba, Mohyal , Chamar, etc. Each caste has its sphere of influence and specialization. All of the Sikh Gurus were born in Khatri caste. Guru Nanaks father Mahta Kalu was also a shopkeeper and he tried his best to make his son follow his caste profession of shopkeeping. Brahman , the highest caste among Hindus, does not have the same rank in Punjab, especially among Sikhs. In rural areas most of them are ordinary farmers and generally not as prosperous as Jats, Mahtons and Sainis etc. They also used to work as cooks in villages when they did not have sufficient land for ploughing. In urban area they also do shopkeeping. They gave up their traditional profession of priest craft a long time ago during Mughal era when Hinduism was not allowed to be practiced openly. A clear sign of this state of affairs to have existed was the complete absence of historical Hindu temples in Punjab which were demolished during Mughal rule. Brahmins of Punjab were thus deprived of their traditional means of living and were driven to penury. Some speculate that the word Khatri is derived from the word Khata . Before the partition of Punjab, Khatris were largely concetrated in West Punjab where, according to English writer Barstow, they were employed in a rather humble way by Pathans as their accountants. It is in this reference some derive the origin of word Khatri from Khata or an accounting scroll. It could be that Arora caste which came under patronage of Pathans and Khokhars in NWFP and upper western Punjab as their accountants came to be called Khatri because of maintaining Khatas or accounting books of their patrons. Pathans, according to Barstow, could treat Khatris like personal property , much like the medieval lords in Europe who treated their Jews like chattels. He wrote , In Afghanistan, among a rough alien people, the Khatris are, as a rule, confined to the position of humble dealers, shopkeepers and moneylenders; but in that capacity the Pathans seem to look on them as a kind of valuable animal and a Pathan will steal another mans Khatri not only for the sake of ransom, as is sometimes done in Peshawar and the Hazara frontier, but also as he might steal a milch-cow, or Jews might, I dare say, be carried off in the middle ages with a veiw to render them profitable. Following Sikh castes are essentially agricultural and landowning castes : Jat, Kamboh, Mahton and Saini . In the estimation of British only these Sikh castes were tempramentally and physically suited for active military service and warfare like the hardy Scotish Highlanders back home who also made excellent soldiers. The glorious Sikh Regiment, the most decorated regiment of the Indian Army, consisted of these castes primarily, although Labanas and Kalals were also sometimes recruited. Out of these Jats were the largest in numbers which only reflected their numerical majority in Sikh society. In addition, Mazhbi Sikhs were also recruited in good numbers but were generally denied roles in cavalry because of caste discrimination practiced and promoted by British. Initially, they were recruited only for menial jobs. Ramgarhias are a caste formed by merging of Nais (barbers), Raj (blacksmiths) and Tarkhans (carpenters). Chhimbas are tailors (darzi) and printers (chhipa) who had assumed the title of Tonk Kshatriyas in the colonial era. Suniyaras or goldsmiths call themselves Mair Rajputs. Kashyap Rajput is a reference used for the caste of water carriers or Jheers these days. Jheer is essentially a service caste and not an atrisan caste like the others in the foregoing list . Similarly, Kalals - who could be called both an artisan and a commercial caste- are a caste of distillers or liquor sellers and are also called Ahluwalia, an adoptive name derived from Sikh leader Jassa Singh Kalals village which was called Ahlo. Most of the castes like Kalal, Tarkhan, Jheer, Suniyara, etc who changed their titles have done so for upward social mobility or to escape discrimination which unfortunately continues to exist despite dissemination of Sikh ideas of equality. The roots of Islamic caste system in India can be traced to the 14th century decree called Fatwa-i-Jahandari of Ziauddin Barani who was the official cleric of the Tughlaqs. The decree introduced a formal division of Ashraf and Ajlaf in the Muslim society of India . Ashrafs were the light-skinned Muslims who had come from Central Asia while the term Ajlaf was used for native converts who were generally darker skinned, and proselytized by means both fair and foul mostly from the lower Hindu castes. Largely , this term was reserved for converts to Islam from occupational castes such as Darzi (tailors), Hajjam or Nai (barber), Julaha (Weaver) , etc although the upper caste Hindu converts were also subsumed in the same category. These lower caste Muslims also later invented the tales of foreign origin to escape discrimination from the upper caste Muslims. Upper caste Hindu converts such as Rajputs and Brahmins maintained their caste identities even after adopting Islam. Rajput converts were generally identified as Khanzada, Ghauri Pathan, Kayamkhani, Ranghar, etc. Brahmin converts to Islam generally styled themselves as Shaikhs. These upper caste converts faced less discrimination but they also could not aspire for the status of a Syed, who was the Ashraf of the highest class, supposedly being a direct descendant of Prophet of Islam. The 1901 census of British India actually records a third even lower class of Muslims called Azrals who belonged to the scavenger castes such as Halalkhor, Lalbegi, Abdal , Bediya , etc. These lowest caste Muslims were reportedly even denied entry to the mosques. Historically, within Christianity the theological basis of the hereditary enslavement of Blacks can be traced to the two Papal Bulls of 1452 and 1455 which sanctioned Christian Europeans to enslave Saracens, pagans and any non-believers. Saracens were the Muslims of the time but these bulls were extended by interpretation to include all the Black people or people of colour who were , through theological insinuations, labelled as descendants of the Biblical Cain. Cain, according to the Genesis, had committed fratricide on his noble brother Abel, and was thus along with his descendants cursed forever. Thus Black Africans became a fair game for abduction and enslavement by the White Europeans who were supposedly the representatives of noble Abel. These decrees were Catholic in their origin but they also influenced Protestant churches many of which also actively supported enslavement of the darker races. The ramifications of these Papal Bulls were felt until 1960s when many of the Americans Churches were still not fully desegregated and actively practiced discrimination against Christians of darker colour. In India too low caste converts to Christianity failed to integrate themselves with their European or even upper caste convert counterparts. In fact, the term Indian Christian became a byword for a low caste convert and ended up as just another stratified caste category with a different name. It did not liberate the convert, as had been his real intention, from a pejorative and socially degrading label.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 09:20:18 +0000
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