Caste versus Class

MUCH reviled, our caste system – Jati pratha – finds its echo in many forms across societies, not only new and old but also modern and advanced. Am reading a book on Abraham Lincoln’s presidency years called Team of Rivals – The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln authored by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

In sociology literature, particularly the left leaning, the caste system is shown with a negative slant, of it being a regressive social more that over time degenerated into a rigid, moribund organism that has stifled individual growth.

Now here is Salmon Portland Chase, a Republican competitor of Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency of Civil war America. The author, through him, narrates how the United States of nineteenth century lived by its own caste system – calling it class system instead. Not to be missed is the equivalence of each class with the corresponding level of our castes.

As Chase recounts describing the Washington D.C. life as he saw it to his friend Hamilton Smith, the classes were very brahmanically arranged. As the author narrates, “There were distinct classes of society in Washington”, Chase told Hamilton Smith. The first, to which he aspired, included the high government officials; the second, to which he was relegated, included teachers and physicians; and the third mechanics and artisans. There was, of course, still lower class comprised of slaves and labourers.

Now would not the high government officials, much envied for their status, correspond to the Brahmins, the policy makers? Or the lowest slaves and labourers to the Shudras? Societies might have devised different ways of tackling with the negative consequences of this hierarchy but it almost seems like a pan-cultures phenomenon. What say?

Why the coup could not have happened, can’t happen.

AMID the intended or unintended sensation around attempted/threatened coup by the Indian Army one factual point was totally missed. It was brought to my notice by a friend in one of the forces that proudly shoulder the responsibility of defending the country in peace time with the Army. A coup in India is as much of a possibility as a sky-flower or a hare’s horn, due to the counterweight provided by the paramilitary forces.

How? Here goes the explanation. The Indian Army is about a million strong. So two battalions, even if they were moved with the intent to occupy/displace Delhi administration, only means a drop in the ocean. As our experience with 1984 shows it would have max amounted to a mutiny rather than a coup. But, for a moment lets assume all corps commanders stood unanimously behind the general (unlikely in the Amartya Sen calculus of an argumentative Indian!). That’s where the paramilitary forces, firmly in civilian control, come in the picture.

Let’s begin with the Border Security Force (BSF). The peace-time frontier keepers have 189 battalions with total force strength of three lakh jawans guarding 7,000 kms land border with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Take the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) that has over 3.5 lakh men and add to it the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) with another 50 battalions. Other sundry agencies like the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), and NSG – the civilian counterpart of the special forces – complete a total available strength of over a million. Add to it the state police forces and the number of men available under civilian command goes to over 3.5 million!

Which means each Army jawan is outnumbered one-is-to-three. My friend explains that this is how the whole national security architecture is based on a system of checks and balances. The Army has been trying for long now to gain administrative control of the BSF but to no avail with civilian masters proving much too smarter. No wonder that except for the precaution of calling back the Defence Secretary, the only other order the Home Ministry gave to counter an “Express” coup was to ask Delhi police to do nakabandi! Berate a stick – exactly what you do to get a cow out of your compound. Only this time it was a holy cow called the Indian Army.