The struggle against the caste system is often launched through the assertion of caste. , photo credit: file photo
When a young female police in the film Kathal Streaming on an OTT normalized the idea of thieves from a lower caste people competing against an upper caste person, which we as viewers saw, is a process of reformation. In the film, a woman cop from the Scheduled Caste says that she does not steal but sends thieves to jail. Here we see the acceptance of the Hindu caste system by a Scheduled Caste police officer. She not only accepts the deeply hierarchical caste system, but also repudiates the stereotypes and prejudices associated with it – in this instance, low-caste individuals being thieves. Not defying the stereotype, she proudly, though implicitly, claims that despite being a lower caste person, she does not steal. Thus caste, which is a socio-religious construct put in place to benefit a small minority of upper castes, gets reinforced. This is a revision of caste. Revision is the transformation of an abstract, abstract idea into a definite belief. It occurs when people begin to believe in the concreteness of a concept, when in reality the concept exists in an amorphous abstract form, and is mostly the result of socio-economic processes.
concept development
The most influential work on revision was developed in History and Class Consciousness by the Hungarian Marxist theorist George Lucas (1923), in which the idea was used to explain the growing hold of technocratic, bureaucratic and capitalist relations on the legal system in the early twentieth century. That is, a belief system or social relationship constructed from larger capitalist structures was being generalized as normal, concrete, and inevitable. The sophisticated individual, the worker, then becomes an automaton working aimlessly within a generalized socio-legal framework of capitalist society. The only way the working class can break out of this framework is through de-refification, which is essentially the attainment of ‘self-consciousness’ or in other words class consciousness.
Andrew Feinberg (2015) in his paper ‘Lucas Theory of Refification and Contemporary Social Movements, Rethinking Marxism’ states that class consciousness occurs when the reformed individual comes to terms with the conflict between labor and life. Since this individual is irrelevant to the economy – an economy dominated by capitalist modes of production – he will eventually encounter capitalist social reality in order to become aware of the class struggle. And it is this self-realization of her mechanical existence, bound by capitalist laws, that will lead to her de-reification as an activist. Then it will accept its existence as part of the working class which has the revolutionary potential to transform society.
It is interesting to note that the idea of reform in a capitalist social reality is essentially a worker defined only by his labor, situated in the techno-legal associations generated in a capitalist system and separated from the product of his labor. In this light, the idea of revisionism is similar to Marx’s theory of alienation from his earlier writings. However, revigilance is a very specific kind of separation whereby the individual separates from the soul of the human mind which is infinite. In other words, revision leads to a very limited and restrictive mind-set, resulting in extremely limited political development, or none at all.
on recognition
Axel Honneth (2008) at work Revision – A New Look at an Old Idea, states that it has been argued by Lukacs that the reform cannot be understood through an economic totality alone. Sexism, racism, fascism and close home, the intimidation brought on by the ubiquitous caste system, operates with or without the wider capitalist social reality. Therefore, Honneth argues that revisionism is a consequential result of ‘oblivion of identity’. Simply put, the lack of identification with other persons affects the individual’s ‘self’, resulting in the formation of a modified persona. Thus modification in the Honnethian scheme of things is essentially a misrecognition or devaluation of an individual.
However, this idea of ’primacy of recognition’ has been criticized by people such as Judith Butler amongst others. While there may or may not be takers for the revision comparison within the wider politics of recognition, it certainly provides a very rich and insightful approach to the subject.
caste conflict
The idea of essentially abstract concepts being put into practice through the ideological hegemony of a socially and economically dominant sector.
In India, caste remains the major precondition of social relations. It is strictly followed in most family rituals, especially in marriages which reflects the endogamous nature of caste groups. Another defining criterion for understanding caste is the underlying hierarchical hierarchy within the caste system, by which caste groups are ranked one above the other in an ‘increasing scale of respect’ and a ‘descending scale of contempt’. This means that individuals belonging to different caste groups are privileged when they move up the caste hierarchy, and are at a disadvantage when they move down the caste hierarchy. One has to deal with the associated caste privileges and disadvantages which were predetermined by chance of birth.
However, the marginalized masses on the periphery of the caste system mobilize around their caste space to counter the upper caste hegemony.
It represents the paradox of caste.
The struggle against the caste system is often launched through a claim to caste – in which lower caste solidarity contests upper caste hegemony. This is a revision which has become deeply entrenched in the sociology of the country itself. Such a claim forms the basis of lower caste politics.
While the normative and assertive aspect of identity politics is liberating, it reinforces caste. An eminent person fighting caste hegemony – however sincere he may be – remains confined to contributing to the annihilation of caste. Thus, reform cannot substitute a genuine revolutionary politics of change and justice.
Moggalan Bharti teaches at the School of Development Studies, Dr. BR Ambedkar University, Delhi