On the surface, it sounds like a quixotic enterprise to fight caste system by eliminating thar (surnames). But in retrospection, many things seem to be wrong with surname. A surname is a sign that reveals the caste that it stands for. To retain a surname is to be labeled with a caste category. Adhikari, Paudyal, Acharya, Thapa and Basnet, for instance, are iconic referents of Brahmins and Chhetris while Biswakarma, Pariyar and Darnal go with socially disadvantaged people known as untouchables or Dalits. Brahmin and Chhetri surnames are said to assume some privileges and power. Falling prey to this delusion there was a wave, until recently, among the ‘Dalit’ population of changing their surnames into Brahmin and Chhetris surnames purportedly to de-Dalitize themselves. A thar, in this context, seems to be one of the agents to consolidate caste system.
According to me, problems lie elsewhere too. Caste discrimination in Nepal has been legitimized by pedagogy. For example, caste discrimination was tacitly supported by school education system of the Panchayat era. Panchayat education did not openly advocate perpetuation of discrimination. In fact, no textbooks wrote that “untouchables” should be condemned. The message in the school text books would be “a man should not be discriminated on the basis of his caste.” But hardly one or two students from Damain and Kami (Dalit communities) families, would be present in a class and they too would often be cornered and teachers would not pay much attention to them.
And the school text-books hailed King Jayasthiti Malla for institutionalizing caste principles and for introducing the concept of division of labor. We were told Nepal had long been a caste-based society and that it was one of the defining characteristic of our society. But the textbooks barely had lessons on real history of caste system in Nepal. Most of the bureaucrats, politicians and men in policy making positions have this background of schooling. This is perhaps the reason why despite the decade long democratic (also republican) goals to render the country caste discrimination free society, the attempt is hitting snags even these days.
To make Nepal a caste discrimination free society the nation must educate the school children about the unnaturally of the caste system. It is discouraging that school textbooks of the republic era too have gone unaware of this necessity. They must be taught the critical history of caste system in simplified and lucid rhetoric. And this history should be the part of school pedagogy. History of caste system is not simple enough to be summarized in a paragraph, but I attempt to put a brief outline here.
The south Asian belt is supposed to have been casteless society until the Aryan invasion of (2000-1500 BC) in India. About 1500 BC, powerful nomadic warriors known as Aryans appeared in northern India.
They conquered the Dravidians of Central India and, to distinguish themselves from the vanquished and assume a superior caste, imposed their social structure upon the vanquished. It is hard to tell whether they had had caste hierarchy before they arrived in the Indian continent or was invented to legitimatize their power, but the Aryans divided their society into separate castes. Castes were unchanging groups. At the top of the caste system were the Brahmin – the priests, teachers, and judges. Next level consisted of the Kshatriya, the warrior caste. The farmers and merchants made up the next group known as the Vaisya, and the Sudras, were craftsmen and laborers. Later Manu validated it in his code Manusmriti. It thus took root in India.
To make Nepal a caste discrimination free society the nation must educate the school children about the unnaturally of the caste system. It is discouraging that school textbooks of the republic era too have gone unaware of this necessity. They must be taught the critical history of caste system in simplified and lucid rhetoric.
Having thus been rooted in India it then seeped into Nepal. It is debatable whether early Kiratas practiced caste principles. Caste concepts only entered Nepal for the first time in the beginning of the Licchavi era in the form of Vaishnavism. With the influx of Brahmins from the south in different phases of history; during the Lichchhavis’ and the Guptas’ rules and during the Muslim Conquest in Northern India at the end of the twelfth century, caste principles got even more cemented. According to Dor Bahadur Bista, King Jayasthiti Malla, who ruled between 1380 and 1394, tried to purify religious practice in the Kathmandu Valley by introducing cast principles and conduct according to Manusmrity code of the Hindus. He set rules of caste system including the ones related with wearing of clothing and ornamentation. In the nineteenth century Jung Bahadur Rana upheld the caste principles in Muliki Ain (Legal Code 1854). Nepali caste system has this story in the background.
Caste system is interpreted as having been validated by Hindu religion and scriptures. Fundamentalists have it that caste is in religion. But none of the Hindu scriptures seem to have stood for this system. In Ramayana lord Rama advocates end of discrimination by taking bayar (jujube fruit) from Saubari, a woman ostracized by the sages for being untouchable and who then lives in isolation at the edge of a forest, and by liberating her. And in Bhagwat Gita Lord Krishna ordains that “elephant, cow, dogs, and Brahmins are the same for a wise man,” thus, speaking against discrimination. School education of this era must teach such realities and history to its children. And the products of this education will hopefully be able to eliminate caste based discrimination.
Caste system, to borrow from Dor Bahadur Bista’s Fatalism and Development, has served brilliantly as the major deterrent of economic, political and social development of Nepal. It is rooted into peoples’ psyche like phantoms, like ghosts. So the important thing to consider is removing the ghost from within one’s psyche. And, for me, education is an agent to that end.
mbpoudyal@yahoo.com
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