A Dharmic Social History of India

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How India, a land of diverse ethnicities, religions, and languages, has managed to maintain its social cohesion and harmony for thousands of years? How has it managed the forces of social stratification, social exclusion, social stagnation, and social emancipation? Are the institutions of caste and untouchability, jathi and varna peculiar to India? Or is there some other deeper coda to Indian society that sustains it through millennia?

This book explores these questions by tracing the origin and evolution of India's social systems from the ancient Harappan civilization to the present day. It reveals the underlying principles, values, and worldviews that shaped India's social dynamics and enabled it to adapt and thrive in changing times. It also highlights the role of Indian spiritual values, especially the concepts of yajna and bhakti, in fostering social inclusion and emancipation. Drawing on historical data from various Hindu traditions and biographical data of civilizational-spiritual seers, the book challenges the common perception of these seers as mere rebels or social reformers. Instead, it shows how they were agents of self-realisation who also energised society to achieve social transformation.

This book is not only a comprehensive and insightful account of India's social history but also a valuable source of inspiration and guidance for anyone who seeks to create a more peaceful, harmonious, and prosperous world.

Aravindan Neelakandan is a contributing editor at Swarajya. He has worked for more than a decade with the Natural Resources Development Project, Vivekananda Kendra (VK-NARDEP). He has published books on sustainable agricultural technologies and traditional knowledge systems in Tamizh. He is the co-author of the bestseller Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines (BluOne Ink, 2011) and the author of Hindutva: Origin, Evolution and Future (BluOne Ink, 2022).

The study of the history of Hindu society and its dharma has always been dominated by one narrative. The dharma narrative is as follows:

For millennia, Brahminism, functioning as both a social force and a religious ideology, has exerted enduring all-permeating influence over Hindu society in all its walks of life. This was punctuated by significant but fleeting interludes of reform attempts by rebellious movements, often in the form of religious movements.

Brahminism itself was not native to the land. The Brahmins, primarily speakers of Indo-European languages and known as Aryans, rode into India from the steppes on horseback. This was a predominantly male-led invasion-cum-migration. They came upon the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), a Bronze Age society far more advanced than their own. The encounters between these two cultures, both violent and peaceful, led to a synthesis. Despite fundamental differences between Harappan or IVC religion and Indo-European religious beliefs, the 'Aryan' people incorporated the popular IVC religion into their own Vedic cult. Thus was born the Brahmanical religion what we know now as Hinduism.

At the heart of this Brahmanical religion is Catur Varņa, a societal division categorizing human beings into four fundamentally different groups, forming a hierarchical structure as dictated by the Puruşa Sukta of Rig Veda. The dominant Indo-Europeans positioned themselves at the apex of this pyramid, relegating the indigenous populations to its base or even beyond. This system bestowed privileges upon the Brahmins, the priestly caste at the top while imposing disadvantages on the Südras, the labourer caste. This system stands as perhaps the world's oldest documented instance of birth-based discrimination. This socio-spiritual apartheid is unique to the Hindu religion and Hindu society. p> However, there came a time when heterodox religions such as Buddhism arose, offering egalitarian alternatives. Buddha himself challenged Cätur Varņa and Brahmanical exploitation. p> Buddhism became India's dominant religion, nurtured by great ancient Indian emperors like Ashoka and Kanishka. p> Yet Buddhism was eventually overthrown by a resurgent Brahmanism, which cleverly used another rebel movement called Bhakti against these religions. The advent of British rule brought about the democratization of education, dealing a fatal blow to Brahmanism. English education introduced enlightenment values into Hindu society and gave rise to social reformers. The voices of those marginalized and oppressed for millennia under Brahmanical rule began to resonate louder. p> The narrative above can be called the 'standard model' of Hindu social history. p> This book challenges this 'standard model'. p> Birth-based social stratification has existed in most of the pre-modern societies throughout the world. There are secular factors that trigger the evolution and sustenance of such systems. p> Social exclusion and social aristocracy also exist in many cultures. Further, in pre-modern societies, religious theologies and codes played a role in preserving the social status quo. In fact, even certain modern governments have further solidified the social divisions and profited from the modern regimentation of these systems. So, the depiction of caste and untouchability as uniquely Indian socio-religious phenomena is more of a prejudiced distortion than an empirical reality.

In my view, Hindu Dharma has two facets. First, the spirit of universal welfare filled in Vedic Mantras, the Ramayana, the Upanishads, the Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, and regional spiritual works like those of Nammalvar or Tukaram. Second, the impulsive urge to safeguard conventional practices without compromise or change, whether they have Shastric approval.

Though the latter is also important, ill-treatment in the name of caste, which belongs to the peripheral and crude part of the latter, has to be discarded. A few groups attempt to preserve some outdated practices that are irrelevant today and rather harmful.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media propagates caste-based ill-treatment as the core of Hinduism.

Marginalized class ill-treatment is an ugly human instinct found throughout medieval history worldwide. Swami Vivekananda views it as less prevalent in India than in Europe.

Using this as a hypothesis, Dr P.V. Kane, a great scholar, provides extensive data analysis in his voluminous work History of Dharma Shastra and substantiates this view. Though this data analysis cannot justify the downtrodden ill-treatment, it is consoling that it was less prevalent in India even in the medieval era, filled with downtrodden-castigation in major parts of the world. We need to think about why this was so.

All our traditions agree that if Smriti (scriptures other than the Vedas) contradicts Shruti (Vedas) in some contexts, Shruti's stance is authentic. We Hindus need to validate Dharma with Shruti.