Does Racism Exist Because Of The Caste System

So we know that the ancient Vedic system had this Varna system wherein there were these four Varnas and the Brahmanas as you said were considered like sort of higher, the head of the hierarchy and then Kshatriyas and then Avaishyas and Shudras. And so does racism exist due to this Varna because this Varna is what has given rise to the caste system in a way and we see in Mahabharata that Drona asked Eklavya's thumb as a Guru Dakshina and he did so like the common belief is that he did so because he belonged to the Nishad community.

So isn't it an example of discrimination based on race? Okay. So now race is the Varna system similar to racism. Well, one thing if generically the way the word race is used, almost everybody in India belongs to one particular race.

So although there was an attempt to separate between the Aryans and the Dravidians, but nowadays if you study phrenology, phrenology is the study of skulls, even thousands of years ago there is no significant difference between say skulls found in North India and skulls found in South India. The idea was that Aryans came from the North and the Dravidians were living in the South. The point I am making is that we cannot apply at least that term racism as it is generally used to the Varna context because everybody in India belongs to the same race, biologically speaking.

But if you look beyond it to the point of discrimination itself, there is a difference between discrimination and division of labour. For any functional unit, which is a significantly big and sophisticated unit, for it to function, some amount of division of labour is essential. So even in a factory, we will have some scientists who do R&D, there is the admin department, there are people who manage the actual factory, the groundwork, and there are people who look after the finances.

They may invest, they may deal with the finances, they may be the investors, they may be the managers of finance, whatever. So this is not exactly the same as Varanashram, but the principle I am saying is division of labour is essential. So the problem comes not when there is division of labour, but when there is division of labour based not by ability, but based on some preconceived criteria.

So now equality is a very important virtue in modern society. At the same time, what do we actually mean by equality? We can talk of this at four levels. See, if we want equality, when we talk about equality, what is desired is equality of opportunity.

Nobody should be deprived of an opportunity based on say their race or their nationality or their religion or any other such external categorization. But we can have multiple levels. There is nature itself, equality is not actually a material quality.

In the sense that at a material level, there is no equality. Any metric we might take, we take IQ, EQ, we take height, weight, whatever else, everybody is different. And in terms of talents and abilities, lots of people are different.

So there is equality of ability that is not there. So we could say nature itself at one level endows different people differently. So equality of ability is something we can't really create.

We can't reconstruct nature to be different from the way it is. So we have to acknowledge inequality of ability in nature. Then based on whatever abilities people have, they should be given the opportunities.

Now, in the mode of passion, we just look at the equality of inability and assume that people are unequal because of that. So Kshatriyas are well built and powerful and they can be involved in physical confrontations. But that doesn't mean everybody else can be.

And that doesn't mean those who can't be are not of value to society. So Brahmanas can contribute in a different way. They can contribute by intellectual development.

So the scientists who developed, say, the Second World War, the scientists who developed the atomic weapons, maybe they contributed as much to win the war as much as the warriors who were fighting, as the soldiers were fighting. Now, of course, whether the weapons of mass destruction should have been developed or not, or should they be deployed or not, that's a different question. That's an ethical question with different issues.

But the point is that there are different kinds of power. So there is no equality of ability. There is diversity in nature.

Now, below one's ability is identity. We often equate people with their ability. But what the spiritual understanding of the Bhagavad Gita says is that we are not defined by our abilities alone.

Abilities do define us, but they don't define the essence of who we are. We all may have different abilities, but our essential identity is that we are all parts of the divine. There is a spark of the divine within each one of us.

So there is equality at the level of identity if we see from a spiritual perspective. Then there is diversity or variability or inequality in ability. Then there is equality in opportunity.

And this is what we should strive for as a society. Say, for example, in the particular current case, in front of justice, the issue is, are people from the black community being treated excessively unfairly by the police? Are there police excesses against them? Do they not get a voice to be heard? That is the question. So there has to be equality of opportunity for everyone.

Now, beyond that, there is equality of results. Now, can we have equality of results? Again, we can't guarantee that. Say, for example, now, if say, I have friends in Ivy League in America, and there is there seems to be a for the sake of diversity, there is a significant discrimination against Asian students.

And Indian and Chinese are they even they have 4.9 CGPA, they might not get it. And somebody else with a 4.1 CGPA might get it. So their idea is that we want to have diversity.

And for the sake of diversity, they say, how do we know that there is no diversity? Because if you look at the number of students who are graduating, the majority of the students are graduating are from this particular particular group. And not from this group. Well, that could be not just because of discrimination.

It could be because of many other factors. It could be that, say, in particular countries, study might be given more emphasis as compared to say, in the West, study and education, the stress on it, the parental social pressure on it, the social glamorization of it, all that is much more. So there could be many other factors involved.

It's not just racial discrimination. So broadly speaking, when you talk about Varanashram, Varanashram was it acknowledges the equality at the level of identity because everybody is understood to be a soul. And then it acknowledges that there is inequality in ability.

So simplistically saying everybody is equal and then, say, pitting a Kshatriya against a Brahmana, pitting an intellectual against a warrior in a fist fight. Well, that's not fair. Or pitting a person who is an artist, a person who is an artisan against a person who is an intellectual in a debate.

That's not fair. The scales are different. So we need for everybody, according to their particular position, to be given equality in opportunity and beyond equality and opportunity, there might be diversity in results because it depends on various factors.

So the Varanashram basically acknowledges equality, inequality and ability as a fact of nature. But then everybody, according to their ability, let them be given some channels for growth. So now specifically, I don't want to go too much into the example of Eklavya, but the idea was that Eklavya had, when he met Drona, he had actually shot up, he had shot arrows and sealed up the mouth of a dog.

And then that dog came near, basically Eklavya was doing his archery practice and a dog was barking nearby and he got annoyed by that dog practicing and he wanted silence. So he shot a series of arrows and completely sealed the mouth of the dog. So now when that dog ran down the hill and Drona and Arjuna were there, they saw that at one level, they saw that it was a significant feat of archery to seal the mouth of a dog without killing it.

By the same time, it also signified some amount of brutality. Why? You don't own the forest. There are other ways to drive a dog away than to just brutalize it like that.

So maybe at that time, people for ethical treatment of animals would have been there. They would have been up in arms against him. So then when Drona, he met Drona, he offered his respects to Drona, but by talking with him and by knowing beforehand, now Eklavya belonged to Nishadha community, but those community of people, they were known to be doing anti-social activity, they were known to be insurgents.

So there was a background of that, but that was not the sole factor. It was when he also exhibited similar activities. Then Drona felt that, yes he is from a particular background, but he is also exhibiting similar activities.

And then that's why he was to curtail his abilities, curtail his archery abilities because he was likely to misuse it and Drona decided to take certain measures. It's like now today we have weapons of mass destruction and there is a lot of concern that these weapons should not fall in the hands of some rogue states or some rogue actors who could misuse it. So there was a regulation.

So that's not so much discrimination, although later on the caste system did degenerate to discrimination, but the original premise was not to just assume that everybody is equal, but to actually engage people so that they can all make a valuable contribution based on the particular abilities that they have.