Caste as social capital - S. Gurumurthy

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Caste as social capital - Business Line

S. Gurumurthy

Decades ago, an elderly gentleman speaking at the Gandhi
Peace Foundation in Delhi, asked, �What is it that keeps
the country down�? A young man responded: �Undoubtedly
caste. It has kept society backward�. The speaker
replied, �may be�. He paused for a moment and said �may
not be�.

The young man angrily asked him to explain his �may-not-
be� theory. The speaker calmly mentioned just one fact
that shocked the audience. He said, �before British rule,
over two-thirds � yes, two-thirds � of Indian kings
belonged to what is today known as the Other Backward
Castes (OBCs)� � meaning that the OBCs, who constitute
two-thirds of the population, lost their power, wealth
and status to colonists.

The young man changed for ever after the meeting. The
speaker was Dharampal, a Gandhian, who, like his
preceptor, was in ceaseless pursuit of truth, however
unpopular it was. His assertion was backed by decades of
painstaking study in India, England and Germany. But his
lonely voice was lost in the stentorian chorus dismissing
caste as total evil.

In the absence of rigorous, home-grown intellectual work,
the contemporary Indian leadership, too, conveniently
approved the received western scholarship on India. But
decades after he spoke, is Dharampal proving right after
all? Read on.

Weberians and Marxists

Studies have shown that two great thought leaders of the
West, Karl Marx and Max Weber, neither of whom ever
visited India, have and still continue to exert dominant
influence on Indian thinking on sociology and economic
development. Take Weber first. Modern West is rooted in
Weber�s concept of methodological individualism that saw
society as a collection of individuals, rather than
individuals as components of the society.

This thought founded the concept of social engineering,
which consisted of efforts by government or private
groups to influence popular attitudes and social
behaviour on a large scale. Just as the modern state
rested on individualism, rational choice and efficient
market theories of modern economics were premised on
methodological individualism.

Continues at:

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2013/05/caste-as-social-capital-s-gurumurthy.html

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

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