From Clans to Caste Abolition: How to Sever the Sanatana Roots of Caste and Untouchability?

1. Global History and the Indian Deviation (The Historical Paradox)

Across the world, human society underwent a natural evolutionary trajectory before transforming into modern civilizations. Humans, wandering as hunter-gatherers in forests, initially organized themselves into 'clans' based on blood relations. With the introduction of agriculture and pastoralism, several clans integrated to form larger 'tribes'.

As trade, urbanization, and agriculture flourished, these rigid tribal boundaries of blood relations dissolved. People united on the basis of shared language and geography, evolving into a unified collective—a civil society or a nation. 

In short, the identity of tribal clans faded, giving birth to the universal identity of a 'citizen'.

However, in India, despite the existence of similar tribal republics during the Indus Valley civilization and early historical periods, this natural course of social evolution was halted upon the infiltration of the Aryan Varnasrama framework. Instead of merging into a broader collective nationhood, these tribes shrank inward, fossilizing into 'castes'.

The primary catalyst for this historical mutation, as highlighted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Marxist scholars, is the iron wall of Endogamy (marrying strictly within one’s own group). Globally, inter-tribal marriages (Exogamy) were the key drivers that dissolved tribal boundaries and merged communities. However, to prevent Varna mixing, Manusmriti institutionalized endogamy as a rigid, inviolable law. Consequently, tribal clans were blocked from mingling, becoming permanently ossified into fragmented caste pieces.

2. The Production of 'Sankara Jatas' (Mixed Castes) and the Genesis of Untouchability

How did occupation become fixed by birth in India? How did untouchability emerge? The answer lies in the theoretical conspiracy of Sanatana Manusmriti regarding 'Sankara Jatas' (Mixed Castes).

The Varnasrama system did not stop at merely creating the four primary Varnas. It classified the offspring born out of marriages that violated the Varna order as 'Sankara Jatas'.

• Anuloma: Children born to a higher-Varna man and a lower-Varna woman.

• Pratiloma: Children born to a lower-Varna man and a higher-Varna woman (which Manusmriti condemned as the gravest sin).

Through generations of subsequent permutations and inter-mixing among these original mixed lineages, thousands of distinct, segregated castes—including Paraiyar, Navithar, Aasari, and Chakkiliyar—were produced across India.

To each of these newly manufactured caste segments, the Sanatana feudal structure forcefully allocated specific, unalterable occupations determined strictly by birth. Activities like weaving, leather-tanning, and scavenging were transformed into hereditary birthrights. This division completely denied class mobility; humans were permanently shackled to their prescribed labor, and some among them were turned into hereditary wage slaves.

According to Manusmriti, the descendants of these 'Sankara Jatas', born in violation of Varna codes, were deemed unfit to reside within the mainstream village limits. This gave rise to the spatial and geographical violence in Indian villages—the physical segregation of 'the main village' (Oor) and 'the ghetto' (Cheri). 

They were forced to live in marginalized, isolated outskirts.

Among those banished outside the village, those born out of the forbidden Pratiloma order—specifically the Chandala (Paraiyar) lineages born to a lower-Varna man and a Brahmin woman—were branded as 'Untouchables'. Cruel mandates dictated that even their shadows or the air passing over them must not taint the upper Varnas. This marks the historical genesis of 'Untouchability'—the ultimate curse of Indian society.

This is precisely why the Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi accurately observed: "Caste is the integration of various tribes into a class society, or rather, it is a state of stagnation where tribes could not mature into a class society but were absorbed as castes within the Sanatana feudal framework."

3. Breaking the Spatial Segregation: How Modern Cities Flattened the 'Oor' and 'Cheri'

As long as the physical structure of 'Oor - Cheri' persists in India, caste and untouchability will continue to survive in one form or another. In a rural feudal setup, a person’s residential location instantly betrays their caste identity. To shatter this discriminatory geography, India’s modern public sector and the Dravidian policy framework introduced a monumental spatial solution.

When Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) were established across India, the residential 'Townships' built alongside them rattled the physical walls of caste for the first time. In these spaces, managers, workers, and individuals from vastly diverse caste backgrounds lived side by side based entirely on their official institutional ranks, leaving no room for traditional caste hierarchies.

In Tamil Nadu, this social engineering was propelled to the next level by Muthamizh Arignar Kalaignar Karunanidhi. The planned modern urban layouts he envisioned—such as K.K. Nagar, Thillai Nagar, and Anna Nagar—along with the public housing developments of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB), created completely caste-neutral living spaces.

Above all, the 'Periyar Memorial Samathuvapurams' (Equality Villages) initiated by Kalaignar stand out as historic revolutionary bastions, constructed via state authority to dismantle the oppressive geography of caste. By offering identical houses, shared public pathways, and a common water overhead tank, the Dravidian model brought diverse communities together to live as neighbors. Such systemic arrangements will put a definitive end to horrific discriminatory atrocities like Vengavayal.

The Transformative Impacts of Spatial Integration:

• Living in close proximity prompted people to interact naturally across caste lines.

• In times of crisis, a sense of working-class solidarity emerged, bypassing caste prejudices to offer mutual aid.

• It paved the way for mutual understanding, enabling neighbors to participate in each other’s life events, joys, and sorrows.

• This physical proximity laid the foundation for cross-caste friendships, natural self-choice marriages among the younger generation, and the collective celebration of common festivals and cultural events.

The Disaster of the New Economic Policy:

However, the onset of the 'New Economic Policy' and aggressive privatization in the 1990s crippled public sector institutions, subsequently dismantling these progressive industrial townships. 

Following Kalaignar's era, progressive housing projects like the Housing Board developments (TNHB) and Samathuvapurams were not pursued with the same revolutionary vigor by successive administrations, leading to their stagnation. 

Therefore, we must persistently enforce state-led interventions to bring about these spatial and residential transformations. 

Modern, integrated public housing complexes must be developed and equipped with top-tier infrastructure. We must create material conditions that incentivize people confined within oppressive rural setups to abandon those Sanatana habitats and migrate toward these modern, egalitarian housing complexes.

Only when the physical layout of 'Oor and Cheri' is rendered obsolete and deserted will the material roots of caste and untouchability be physically uprooted and demolished!

4. The Two-Pronged Strategy for Caste Abolition: A Theoretical Proposal

While restructuring living spaces is crucial, permanently breaking the ideological and economic pillars of caste necessitates a Comprehensive Caste Census that captures all nuanced demographic realities. Based on such data, we propose this two-pronged strategy as a long-term focal point for public discourse:

Proposal 1: Proportional Caste-Based Reservation

The absolute remedy to the resentment, jealousy, and vitriol directed by various communities against each other—under the pretext of unfair opportunity distribution—is Proportional Representation based on population.

According to a meticulous caste census, reservation quotas should be allocated strictly in proportion to population strength for all categories, including the Open Category (OC), Backward Classes (BC), Scheduled Castes (SC), and Scheduled Tribes (ST). By partitioning 100% of seats and opportunities strictly according to demographic proportions, no community can usurp the share of another, eliminating inter-caste animosity. Since competition will be confined within each respective category's pool, quota-based friction will vanish completely. Furthermore, if allied castes wish to integrate into a single collective pool, they can do so; otherwise, they can claim their shares as distinct, individual groups.

Proposal 2: A 'No Caste' Category

A distinct "No Caste Category" must be instituted, comprising children of inter-caste marriages and individuals who voluntarily renounce their caste identity, along with a dedicated quota for them.

• Direct Incentive for Caste Abolition: When a concrete material reality is established—where renouncing caste guarantees children a secure, dedicated quota in public education and employment under the 'No Caste' pool—the middle class will actively discard their caste identities to safeguard their children’s economic future. Caste will gradually lose its social utility, shrink, and wither away.

Solution to Administrative Challenges

To prevent dominant groups from deceptively claiming 'No Caste' status to usurp benefits meant for those striving to eradicate caste, robust socio-legal safeguards must be mandated. 

The comprehensive strategy we articulate today offers an enduring solution. On one hand, it pacifies immediate social frictions through fair, proportional distribution; on the other, it drives a monumental exercise in Social Engineering by incentivizing individuals via integrated housing and a 'No Caste' registry to evolve into modern, casteless citizens.

This is the ultimate intersection where the caste abolition vision of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the social justice dreams of Thanthai Periyar converge!

Regimes may rise and fall, but this long-term theoretical discourse on the annihilation of caste must endure!

P.Sekar

Advocate