• In brief this article gives 7 benefits of the caste system.

Eventually the BJP led central government announced a caste wise census, as part of the overall census.

The European word caste is of Spanish or Portuguese origin and fails to capture the meaning of the Indian term, jati, which is more properly translated as “community.” Jati in traditional India promoted and preserved diversity and multiculturalism by allotting every jati a particular space and role in society so that no jati would be appropriated or dominated by another.

This article gives seven benefits of the caste system and interesting links.

1. Swami Vivekananda said, “Caste is an imperfect institution, no doubt. But if it had not been for caste, you would have had no Sanskrit books to study. This caste made walls, around which all sorts of invasions rolled and surged but found it impossible to break through.” Life and Thoughts of Swami Vivekanda

2. Author and former head of Proctor and Gamble India Gurcharan Das said in Mint, “My own politically incorrect answer is that we had in India the good fortune of having merchant castes, trading communities. If you institute economic reforms in a society where people know how to conserve capital… If you have communities in whose DNA is that… it is a genetic advantage.” Source   Read   Why Marwaris take to business

Das also wrote, “Joel Kotkin demonstrates these strengths in the case of Palanpur Jains, who have used their castes and family networks in wresting half the global markets for uncut diamonds from the Jews.”

Mr Das added, “I have come to believe that being endowed with commercial castes is a source of advantage in the global economy. Bania traders know how to accumulate and manage capital. They have financial resources and more important, financial acumen. They have an austere lifestyle and the propensity to take calculated risks. They have proven their flexibility of mind as they graduated from trading to industry.” Source Caste as social capital by Prof Dr Vaidyanathan.

3. India’s business castes mainly belong to the Vaishya community. This includes Marwaris. There might be regional exceptions e.g. Khatris/Aroras are the business community in Punjab along with Punjabi Jains.

It is because of the Vaishya community that Indian business has a head start.

Today, the term Marwaris is used for anyone from Rajasthan. Strictly speaking only those coming from Marwar (districts of Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Nagur, Pali, Jalore etc) can be called Marwaris. Another commonly used term is Baniya. They are found in Rajasthan and Haryana. All Marwaris are not Baniya. But together they constitute the Vaishya (one of the four varnas) Samaj which includes Jains (not Rajput Jains).

The Ambanis and the Adanis belong to the business community.  Some of the prominent Marwari businessmen are L N Mittal, Kumarmangalam Birla, Sajjan Jindal, Anil Agarwal, Bajaj Group, Ajay Piramal, Sunil Mittal of Airtel, Goenkas of Ceat Tyres and Singhanias of Raymond. Some names in the new age sector are Deepinder Goyal (Zomato), Sachin and Binny Bansal (founders of Flipkart), Peyus Bansal (Lenskart).

Note that the Tata negotiating team for purchase of aircraft from Airbus was led by two Agarwals (Nipun and Yogesh), both of whom belong to the business community. Similarly, “India’s chief negotiator, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal, is leading the team for the first in-person talks between India and USA.” Source

So what makes Marwaris succeed in business?

Rishi Agrawal, Co-Founder and CEO, Team Lease Regtech, Awfis Space Solutions Pvt Ltd says that Marwari kids hear about “Being frugal, Working hard, Importance of being mobile, Academically focused, thrive in undefined/uncertain environments,  making/losing money from their parents early in their lives and children observe their parents being bosses of their businesses.” Their self- image is of being job givers not seekers.

A senior Chartered Accountant now Venture Capitalist says, “At a conceptual level, there are two reasons why Marwaris have traditionally succeeded in business. The first one is how the persona is developed through the system of reward and punishment and informal education received from the family and relatives - so strongly imbibed that it becomes culture. Other reason is the existence of a great ecosystem.” To read full article

4. Columnist Aakar Patel wrote in the Mint that the current situation in Pakistan is because of an imbalance in caste. The situation arose because there is no mercantile caste in Punjab after the Khatri-Arora combine migrated to India in 1947. Source 

5. Former Prof of Finance at IIM Bangalore, Dr R Vaidyanathan wrote in Caste as social capital about the story of the Gounder community’s success in the context of Tirupur, “The World Bank suggests that the remarkable growth of Tirupur (Tamil Nadu) is due to the coordinated efforts of Gounders. The needed capital was raised within the Gounder community, a caste relegated to the land-based activities, relying on community and family network. Those with capital in the Gounder community transfer it to others in the community through long-established informal credit institutions and rotating savings and credit associations.” Source    Caste as social capital

6. It is human nature of being want to be part of a larger group or community. It provides support in difficult times. When society faces foreign invasions the community tends to get closer.  

7. In earlier times a carpenter’s son followed father’s profession as did a Brahmin. This way knowledge was transferred from one generation to another. There were no formal schools then. This way father gave son on the job training, to use a contemporary term. With modern education things changed. Over generations a family developed concept of ‘Core Competency’, a term made popular by management theorist Michael Porter.  

It is myth that Brahmins dominated India for centuries. Caste and untouchability cannot be interlinked. The level of untouchability varied in different parts of the country as was brought out by recent SC order on sub-classification of castes

Another myth is that Backward Classes were always suppressed in India.

No society or country is perfect. However, we can strive to do better.

To know Names of OBC Kings of India  

Ace Music Director R D Burman belonged to the Royal Family of Tripura who are Scheduled Tribes under the Colonial Constituion  

How a Printing Mistake made Meenas, a Land owning community, ST in 1954  

In North East ST have converted to Christianity but are still called ST and exempt from paying Income-Tax  

Rajaraja I, the great Chola King during whose reign Big Temple Thanajavur was made, if born today would be OBC 

Also read

1. Indian scriptures do not sanction caste. Read The Truth behind caste

2. “In the 10^th century, the castes were comparatively fluid. But then the fundamental values of Dharmasastras were changed to provide defensive ramparts in order to present a solid front to an aggressive alien culture and religion.” History and Culture of Indian People Volume 5 Post foreign invasions the caste system became rigid.  

3. Spirituality broke caste distinctions - Author, ex-British Council Scholar and Spiritualist Dr Satish Kapoor wrote in Hinduism: The Faith Eternal that spirituality is not confined to higher castes or classes or gender. Veda Vyasa was born to a fisherwoman, Tiruvalluvar, the Tamil poet-saint, to a weaver. etc. Pg. 71 Many saints of medieval Maharashtra came from the lower strata of society. Goraba (1236-1317) was a potter, Namdeva (1270-1350) a tailor, Tukaram (1650) a sudra peasant.

4. Then why did the British find fault with Caste? - Noted Gandhian and author Dharampalji wrote in Rediscovering India, “For the British, as perhaps for some others before them, caste has been a great obstacle, in fact, an unmitigated evil not because the British believed in casteless-ness or subscribed to a non-hierarchical system but because it stood in the way of their breaking Indian society, hindered the process of atomisation, and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult.” Read  Caste made into evil

5. Critical analysis of Ambedkar’s thoughts on Hinduism and Annihilation of Caste