Evolution, Race and Public Spheres in India by Luzia Savary

Author:Luzia Savary [Savary, Luzia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781351010061
Google: APaODwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-03-27T03:46:29+00:00

The rest of Surajbhanu’s origin tale very much resembled Risley’s: the āryas subjugated the mlecchas but married their women and through this process the caste system had emerged. “Direct” descendants of mlecchas could still be found in India’s forests, and lived on hunting although, with respect to their ancestors, their decorum (tamīz) had improved a lot: the Bhil constituted an example. Nevertheless, Surajbhanu suggested, everywhere in the world savagery was just a result of outer circumstances, it was not determined by race. The Indian Bhangs and Chamars provided an example, which was similar to the one of blacks in the US. They had become sepoys and fought in WWI, side by side with Kshatriyas, showing the same worth (jouhar) in battle. All these examples demonstrated that the human genre (manuṣya mātr) was one and that all humans could do all kinds of works. Caste obstruction (varṇa aur jāti kā aḍangā) was not grounded in nature (prakritik nahin hai).25 In the second part of his pamphlet Surajbhanu emphasized that Jains and Bhuddists had done a lot in the past to liberate the oppressed castes. He lamented the fact that even Jains themselves were disregarding their śāstras, adopting several restrictions with regard to interaction with lower castes, and urged them to revert this tendency and spread the message of equality. In a later philosophical treatise, titled Jīvan nirvāh (1920), Surajbhanu contested the Darwinian principle of the “survival of the fittest.” This interpretative tool, he argued, might be appropriate for describing what went on in the animal world. It could also be applied to human behavior in “ancient times” (prācīn samay), when in places such as Africa and the Fiji Islands man had been eating his fellow beings, when the Aryan invaders of India had brutally subjugated the country’s original inhabitants, or when, in more recent times, Europeans had enslaved “African Negroes” (Āfrikā ke nīgrolog). But after that humans had learned civilization and started to act according to the principles of “compassion” (mahānubhūti) and equality (samāntā). Step by step they have finally understood that the progress of the whole human genre was also in the interests of the individual.26 Surajbhanu’s approach to the caste question was in line with the binary division of the human continuum into civilized and uncivilized and the civilizing mission ideology expressed in the first two sections of this chapter. Also his race concept resonated with this view: it was malleable and grounded upon the pedagogical view of civilization. The equation of caste with race served him as a confirmation that civilization could be learned.

Be it in support of or against caste, the second group of authors prevalently employed the comparison between caste and race within a traditional argumentative framework. In traditional Hindu literature, post-Buddhist authors reflecting on the relationship between heredity and action (karma) often expressed the view that while a śudra who perfectly performed the duty of his own caste (svadharma) could be considered ethically valuable, he would never attain the peculiar ethical potential that belongs only to the Brahman.

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