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
water-tight 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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