Independence movement and the aim of casteless society

Caste as a central issue

• By the late nineteenth century, caste had become deeply ingrained in the daily lives of Indians. Definitions of caste frequently centered on Brahminical concepts of purity and pollution, with strong opposition to these ideas also emerging.
• Defination of caste shaped by bhramanical notion of purity and  pollution, created rigid social boundries.
• Colonial Government further enterenched these boundaries by various legislations
• In the 1870s, the colonial administration introduced legislation that culminated in the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 in North India, later extending to the Bengal Presidency in 1876 and the Madras Presidency in 1911. This law empowered the colonial government to label entire communities as criminals, a designation that persisted until 1949 when it was replaced by the Habitual Offenders Act of 1952.

Emergence of Anti-caste leaders

• By the onset of the First World War, India had a larger number of English-educated elites than any other European colony. Despite their efforts to articulate the principles of universal human rights, citizenship, and constitutional governance, caste continued to be a significant underlying factor in the national discourse about India’s future.
• As the shadow of colonialism grow,various leaders grew to challange the caste system
• One such leader was Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, a 19th-century Marathi activist and founder of the Satyashodhak Samaj, who became one of modern India’s first anti-caste ideologues. Phule authored Gulamgiri (1873), which detailed the plight of “untouchables” in India and praised Muslim rulers, Christian missionaries, and the British administration for fostering an egalitarian consciousness in Indian society. He also introduced the term “Dalit” (meaning “untouchables” or “broken people”) into the lexicon of anti-caste movements and promoted his version of the Aryan invasion theory, portraying the Vedic and Puranic pantheon of Hindu icons as exploitative and oppressive toward the nation’s indigenous peoples and tribes.
• The first significant 20th-century event in pan-Indian Dalit movements was the All India Depressed Classes Leaders’ Conference in Nagpur in 1926. This conference led to the formation of the All India Depressed Classes Association, with Rao Bahadur M.C. Rajah as president and B.R. Ambedkar as one of its vice presidents. In the Madras Presidency, Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy (Periyar) founded the anti-Brahminical Self-Respect Movement, which later laid the foundation for his leadership of the Justice Party in 1939.
• In 1927, Ambedkar led the Mahad Satyagraha, advocating for the rights of “untouchables” to access water from a public tank in Mahad, Maharashtra, previously restricted by leaders of privileged castes. Later that year, Ambedkar organized a public procession to burn the Manusmriti—an ancient Indian text viewed by both Phule and Ambedkar as a significant source of the caste system and the practice of untouchability.
• In 1930, the year of the First Round Table Conference, Ambedkar founded the All India Depressed Classes Congress. On the streets, Dalit mobilizations called for land reforms, the eradication of caste-based employment, the consolidation of workers’ unions in mills and factories, internal social reforms among depressed classes (such as intermarriage between subcastes), and the elimination of devadasi-type prostitution.
• Meanwhile, a caste uplift movement initiated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and factions of the emerging Hindutva movement also sought to eradicate untouchability and caste divisions by attempting to homogenize ritualistic and symbolic hierarchies among various castes in Maharashtra.

Independence and the partition of caste politics

• As India inched closer to independence,the dream of casteless society clashed with the realities of nation building
• The need to draft a constitution and manage the pressure of partition forced a compromise, fragmenting the once united dalit movements.
• In the following years, Gandhi’s approach to eradicating untouchability and uplifting castes continued under the banner of his organization, the Harijan Sevak Sangh. Initially, this seemed to align him with Ambedkar, particularly with the Poona Pact’s provisions and the tenets of the new Government of India Act of 1935.
• However, this collaboration was short-lived. The Congress party soon formed the All India Depressed Classes League, appointing Dalit leaders Babu Jagjivan Ram as its president and Prithvi Singh Azad as the general secretary. In response, Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party in 1936, further emphasizing his divergence from Gandhian and Congress ideologies.

Lingering legacy of caste in modern times

• The period between 1917 and 1950 witnessed the rise of a new rhetoric, presenting a supposedly modernized version of Hinduism, heavily influenced by Gandhi’s vision of Ram Rajya as an ideal welfare state. With Congress gaining electoral dominance over Ambedkarite and Periyarite movements, Dalit politics had to contend with accusations of allowing cultural and colonial influences to encroach upon traditional ‘Hindu’ ways of life.

The annihilation of caste was perceived as a ‘breach of peace

• In the context of 21st-century caste movements in India and the recent Supreme Court judgment, the relevance of the caste issue today seems to echo back to the era of the Independence movement and its aftermath.
• During the 1950s, as new constitutional protections for reserved sections of Indian society were perceived as advantages for caste identity and politics, a frustrated political leader argued in 1955 that “the politician who desires the disappearance of caste and communal distinctions is simultaneously aware of its vote-catching power, creating a genuine dilemma.”
• As India continue to grapple with caste, the legacy of those early struggles remains ever relevant.

The End of the Blog : Independence movement and the aim of casteless society