Global Castes

ABSTRACT

Caste has been thought of as an institution intimately tied to the Indian past and present. However, caste as a, social system invested in purity, pollution, endogamy, hierarchy, and inflexibility locked in the rigidity of birth, is found in major societies across the world. Yet, caste has not received the desired attention outside India. Nor it has become a social, economic, and political concern of the world. Everyday caste oppression is indicative of the gross human rights violations wrought upon Dalit and other caste oppressed groups, not least in India, but globally. Drawing from caste studies in south Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America, this paper inaugurates pioneering inquiry into caste discrimination as a global human rights concern. By complificating, to complicate and facilitate the conduits of hierarchical societies, it posits the importance of global caste theory as a way to synthesize the experiences of outcastes of each society.

KEYWORDS:

• Global caste
• African caste system
• caste in America
• descent-based discrimination
• race-caste
• dalit-black lives matter

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank 6 reviewers for their criticisms, comments, and suggestions. I am grateful to the informants from Nigeria, Senegal, Japan, Nepal, India, USA, U.K., Mali, Mauritania, Romania for giving me interviews and, or, helping me think through the ideas of caste. The credits for individual interviewees are cited in the paper. I would like to thank the organizing committee of International Congress DWD team for inviting me to deliver Special Address at the inaugural session of the Congress on 21 Sept. 2019. Part of the remarks appear in this paper in a condensed form. I would like to also thank Malini Ranganathan, Jesus Chairez-Garza, Mabel Denzin Gregan, and Pavithra Vasudevan for inviting me to deliver the Keynote at the “Rethinking Difference in India: Racialization in Transnational Perspective” conference held on April 1–2, 2019 at American University, Washington D.C. The present paper is different from the original keynote.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Copy of the resolution with the author.

2 The original theories of the racial caste system were developed in the post-slavery American South. Development of racial-caste interface helped to explain the inadequacy of the “most dangerous myth” of race.

3 Schwartz’s (1967) edited collection was the first scientific study that collated studies on caste and diaspora. Following this there have been critical developments in finding caste outside South Asia. Vivek Kumar’s work around caste and diaspora establishes the existence of Dalit community in the western diaspora (2009). However, Ayyathurai's (2021) research in the Carribbean in 2019 found castelessness among the Indo-Guyanese community.

4 Ambedkar looked at the Roman era slavery and noticed slaves becoming grammarians, artists, philosophers, doctors, p. 14–15. Waghmare (1974), the first Shudra (Gardner caste) to conduct extensive research on African American literature in the 1960s commented that even if the slaves could buy the freedom, it was extremely difficult for one to purchase due to the costs and generational toil day and night just to get by.

5 Nwaubani (2020).

6 Ugo, interview with the author, 30 September 2020.

7 Nwaubani interview with the author, 13 September 2020.

8 Freirean methodology has intentionally invested in action as a collective project to free the oppressed.

9 Works in the Horn of Africa, and West Africa have aptly recognized caste distinctions in the African societies (Shack 1964).

10 For a nuanced exposition of this see Diop (1987).

11 Interview with the author, 4 September 2020.

12 Two sisters who belong to the Osu community Urenna Onuegbu nee Onyenucheya, Uzumma Onyenucheya shared the story of their middle class status that is an envy for the non-Osu, known as Dialas. Their version of Osu sacrifice stems from the fact that Osu were the “most beautiful and intelligent people that is why they were chosen for sacrifices” (Interview with the author, 14 November 2020). Similar narratives can be heard in case of Dalits in India who were once the valorous royals but after the defeat subjected to condemnation (Ambedkar 2003).

13 Ibid.

14 Nwaubani interview with the author, 13 September 2020.

15 Nwaubani interview with the author, 13 September 2020.

16 Nwaubani interview with the author, 13 September 2020.

17 Urenna Uzumma, Onyenucheya, Interview with the author, 14 November 2020.

18 Ugo interview with the author, 30 September 2020.