Humans have organised themselves economically in varied forms, with the prominent systems being capitalism, communism and socialism. These were primarily founded on Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” and Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”. All modern flourishing economies have evolved out of these basic ideologies into more complex economic systems. But interestingly, 2000 years before these books were written, Hindus had designed a Varna or Caste system without the help of inputs from Karl Marx and Adam Smith. As a Dalit, I want to study, understand and decode my religion’s history desperately. The important questions in my mind are:
- What forms of social organisation did Hindus use before the Varna/Caste system?
- On what socio-economic principles was the Varna system designed?
- Why was the segregation of the Varna system so rigid, with harsh punishments for inter-caste and intra-caste contact?
- How much coercion was used to maintain the rigidity of the caste system?
For a species or a civilisation to survive they need food (Shudras), security from intruders (Kshatriyas), knowledge to progress (Brahmans), and leaders to drive the progress (Vaishyas). Based on this different individuals organise themselves differently. Humans, with social behavioural characteristics, divide responsibilities among themselves. This seems to have been the basic procedure of social organisation before the Varna system, and the founding principle of the Varna system.
But modern history has shown us that every system of social organisation has unevenly distributed privileges, leading to civil wars by the less privileged. And I would like to propose that Hindus in the pre-Manusmriti period had experienced socio-economic revolutions before establishing the Varna system, and this answers the third question of why the segregation was so important.
The sequence that I propose is initiated by a “survival of the fittest – the law of jungle” regime, which precedes a civil war leading to the “rule of commoners” regime. The centrally administrated rule of commoners regime fails due to excessive redistribution of wealth leading to economic revolution, and the establishment of the Varna system. This perception of the Varna system has been depicted in the following picture with a modern counterpart for each regime and their examples.
The only unanswered question is why were there are no Dalit “unrests” or Dalit movements until the 1870’s. Does that imply the use of coercion for the rigid maintenance of Varna was not very widespread? Dr Subramanian Swamy says that the varna system was not originally based on birth. In the 21st century, we find a number of religious books that were the biggest reasons behind killing people. This analysis provides the number of violent words used in each of the major religious texts.
Source: https://timothyrenner.github.io/datascience/2015/12/02/violence-in-religious-text.html
Manusmriti provokes the emotions of dalits, but should political leaders provoke these emotions and martyr dalits?
I would prefer that leaders make a neutral analysis of Hindu religious books because evolution is at the core of Hinduism and evolution of ideas is the only way forward for Hinduism. Hinduism never is and never will be a one-book, one-prophet religion. We have prophets reach out to every time we are in trouble. The caste system is now a blessing in disguise for India, enabling rapid poverty alleviation, decentralisation on demographic, non-geographic lines driving growth. In India, we have virtual Dalit villages, virtual Brahmin villages spread across the country working for their self-progress which is a perfect manifestation of decentralisation.
Caste is no longer an evil word with increasing intra-caste contact. It’s time to distance away from the age-old western perception of the caste system and work through it in the context of the Indian economy. Annihilation of caste in the Indian electoral environment looks unattainable. The optimum modifications or reorganisation for further economic progress could be identified. Till then leftist organisations and students should abstain from provoking dalits. Manusmriti is not promoted by any political organisation but we have over enthusiastic leftist students and politicians wanting to exploit dalit sentiments as shown in the picture.
Hierarchies in societies are inevitable because of varied talents. The british only reinforced on us an English modification of the Caste system. The class hierarchies have only been renamed. 
