As I have elaborated before, the Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP) in India is based on the caste system. The caste system in turn is based on the confinement of a particular people to a particular occupation. This requires the intense control of women’s sexuality because if castes are allowed to intermarry, it will destroy the entire caste division of labour of that society. Thus, the fundamental basis for the maintenance of the caste system is through ensuring endogamy, that is, marrying within your own caste/biraderi.
Hence, the very logic of the entire caste system is opposed to love. And those who dare to love are automatically and inevitably propelled against the very grain of the system.
However, the fact that the caste system prevailed for 3000 years can only indicate that love did not conquer. It was the caste system that conquered the lovers. The Asiatic system saw a series of revolts none of which were successful. It was/is the most terrible vise in which the people of Asia were gripped in an unending cycle of subjugation and slavery to the village community. The fact that life outside the community (owing to climatic conditions) was simply not possible meant that the greatest punishment was ostracism from the caste and community. Wasn’t that also the punishment to Muhammed and his followers as well as to the lovers of every period?
No greater violence can be done to the psychology of a people than to disallow the most natural desire of love. Is it not inevitable then that the caste system will be met with a continuous revolt in the name of the freedom to love. Is not inevitable that love poetry would touch the deepest and most sensitive core of the people in a society that violently opposed love?
The caste system relegated love to the lowest and most contemptible position. Was it then not inevitable that rebellions against the case system would raise it to the level of divinity. This explains why Sufi poetry (and later progressive poetry) unites rebellion/love with divinity.
In the opening line of Heer, Waris Shah says:
Awal hamad khuda da vird karye
Ishq kita su jag da mool mian
Pehlan aap hi rabb ne ishq kita
Te mashooq he nabi rasool mian
Translation: “First of all let us acknowledge God (who is self-evident), who has made love the worth of the world Sir, It was God Himself that first loved, and the prophet (Muhammad (SW)) is His beloved Sir”
To put it crudely, if God is the first lover, if God is nothing but love, mortal man commits a sin the greatest sin against God by denying love.
This is the essence of Sufi poetry. And progressive poetry borrows from this tradition.
There is always a material basis for the power of certain cultural ideas. The fact that our culture is dominated by themes of the love story, especially in the rebellious sufi tradition, is indicative of the fact that the caste system so violently denied this very natural and inextinguishable human impulse.
And in contemporary society? What is the basis for arranged marriages? Nothing other than the caste system. It is to ensure that marriages occur within the biraderi or at the worst close to one’s biraderi. It is not for private property (as was the case in the West) but for the patriarchal patronage provided by the beradari. That patronage and fear of ostracism from that patronage is the central binding force for the patriarchal practice of arranged marriages. Thus, arranged marriages directly link back to the caste system (no matter how much of a gloss modern society has put on this practice). At the most, bourgeois families have allowed the liberty to the boy (and in rare cases the girl) the right of choosing a partner from within a related biraderi (it does not even extend to the whole of the bourgeois class).
Thus, the caste system is the most disgusting pile of putrid shit. Rebellion against this system is truly the beginning of a humane existence for the people of South Asia.
The author of the note is a member of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party (CMKP) and pursuing his doctral degree at SOAS.
February 20th, 2009 - 10:04
A good one!
I have always been amazed at the way our popular culture/media has kind of demonized love and marriage with the term “love marriage”.
Marriage is supposed to be an agreement between two consenting adults. One has to ponder how close “arranged marriages” are to this idea.
I think its time that now arranged marriages should be demonized with an exclusive title while the term marriage be reserved for what it stands for.
February 20th, 2009 - 18:19
I hate to play the devil’s advocate, but the following may be of interest to the author.
What does all marriages being based on ‘love’ and free choice lead a society to? Going by all that has been happening in countries where that is the case, the answer appears to include a 60-70% divorce rate, in addition to auxiliaries like a high teenage-pregnancy rate and problems related to the use of narcotics. I am not qualified enough to further elaborte on the impact in the manner that only psychiatrists, sociologists and other such professionals can. However, if I may use an anecdote, the ‘free love’ that is prevalent there appears to have been largely responsible for a 12-year old boy and a 15-year old girl having begotten a girl-child. Not that it ends there though, since 7 other boys in the same age bracket, with whom the 15-year old mother had physical relations at the same time that the child was conceived, have claimed paternity.
Somehow, whenever any one claims that either the ‘arranged’ or ‘love’ route to marriage is superior than the other, I can not seem to agree completely. Perhaps there should be room for both, in a harmonious society.
February 21st, 2009 - 10:25
It all boils down to freedom of choice.In any society there should exist freedom to choose ‘love marriage’or an ‘arranged one”.It is the denial of that choice that has trapped many.
In Indian cities, atleast, now slowly space is beginning to exist for both.It is by no means a tidal wave but surely a begining of sorts.I married 20 years ago,outside my caste with no melodrama or ostracism and my cousins all had arranged marriages within their castes at the same time.20 years later we all are happily married so it is hard to say what really contributes towards a satisfying and happy marriage.
What the author has written about is ofcourse very true for the larger majority of rural (and sometimes even urban) India.Wonder how things are in Pakistan.
February 20th, 2010 - 16:51
AAL IZ NAAT WELL. (All is NOT well). Evil does not recognise “geographical” boundaries., which are nothing but arrangements for purposes of governance and administration. With great regret and heavy heart., here is what happened TODAY 20 Feb 2010, in India. It pains, when evil doers get scot free be it in India or Pakistan. Are these nations “Free” when its poor suffer such indignition 24×7 ?
quote :
Dalit tortured for daring to wear slippers
February 20, 2010, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu
Even after 60 years of Independence, there still exists a side of India that is hard to believe. A Dalit man in Tamil Nadu was forced to eat human excreta because he wore slippers in the presence of upper caste people.
“They said hereafter no one should come in wearing slippers. Arokiasamy told Anbu to put human excreta into my mouth. They hit me severely on my abdomen and shoved it into my mouth,” said the victim Sadayandi.
“Even men who come by cycle have to get down and push it into the village,” said his wife Nagajothi.
The police took more than a week to file the First Information Report (FIR) under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. And even after that, they were not willing to book the accused. Instead, they want the victim – who is in hiding because of fear – to prove that the crime occurred.
“If this has happened he has to come forward to give some clues and explain about the incident. Only then I can go deep into this matter,” said the Deputy Superintendent of Police.
The Madras High Court has now asked for an action taken report.
A few years ago, NDTV had exposed atrocities against Dalits in the state. In many areas they are forced to remove footwear before entering the village, walls deny them access, thorny fences greet them in fields they use as toilets. Even elected Panchayat leaders are forced to quit. Thanks to vote bank politics successive governments seem to have only gone soft on dominant communities.
Politically, Dalits are a divided lot in Tamil Nadu. While the state pampers them with welfare schemes, its tacit support to human rights violations by powerful dominant communities is only making things worse.
– unquote –
Man ceases to respect man. Why ? Over-man-made suppositions. The Master-Slave mentality (as Neitsche says)… Bhadra-lok… (high-born)… versus the Malich (the dirty filthy low born). From where do such evil thoughts get sanction ?
From evil social practices. There were times when SATI had social acceptance too. Such evil has to be condemned… irrespective of geography.
Murder / rape / atrocities are deplorable… whether they occur in India or Pakistan. Jai Ho.