Source: TW
The nested logic of Jaati-Varna
What is the self? The success of modernity has been in making a mockery of this mystery of mysteries. It has made ordinary people trade their innocent bewilderment with dismissive overconfidence. “Why? The self is that nice guy on the corporate id-card.”
Who we are was not as plain to the ancients as it is to the moderns. For the ancients, selfhood was a spectrum, the two poles of which were the individual and the collective. And even today, it is this very spectrum that makes us socially functional. Our position on it is not set in stone, it is a matter of context.
We behave selfishly, i.e. tend towards the individual side of the spectrum, when dealing with the outgroup. We quarrel with the guy breaking the queue. We fight for promotion at our office. We cheat while playing cricket in the park. Competition encourages individualism.
We behave altruistically, i.e. tend towards the collective end of the spectrum, with our in-group, those we trust blindly or for a reason. We care for our family and friends. We fight and die for our flag. We give up a seat for that aunty on the metro. Altruism manifests, as seen above, in specific conditions of interdependence, wherein the selfish individual places the interest of the group above his own.
The genius of jaati-varna is its fractal structure and nested logic, applied at various degrees of separation of biological kinship. Just as the collective reaches a size beyond which biological kinship ceases to drive cooperation among the constituents, conditions that encourage cooperation between groups are sought to be created. The neat separation of occupations based on birth thus creates conditions of interdependence between endogamous groups, forcing them to co-operate rather than compete.
Large scale competition is abhorrent to a Dharmic social order. In fact, Shrimad Bhagwat considers it to be one of the fifteen types of moral calamities, clubbing it with the likes of theft, violence, falsehood etc.
स्तेयं हिंसानृतं दम्भः कामः क्रोधः स्मयो मदः ।
भेदो वैरमविश्वासः संस्पर्धा व्यसनानि च ॥
Thus, interdependence between jaatis (and varnas) follows the same contours as cooperation between individuals of the same in-group. The fabled cultural unity of India, which defied shifting political divisions and sāmpradāyika diversity, is on account of this simple design principle that eludes the modern Hindu mind. For we have consumed the kool-aid of meritocracy that promotes unbridled competition and normalises inequality while singing paeans to equality. The irony! As Sandel remarks in his book on the subject, meritocracy is “not a remedy for inequality; it is a justification for inequality.”
The pursuit of cooperation at higher and higher scales prevents the ’tragedy of the commons’ from unfolding as natural abundance is respected and preserved in the interest of the whole world. As the Mahābhārata recommends, renounce the smaller self interest for the greater good at every scale of social organisation. In the act of selflessness for the good of the world, one day will give up the world for your greater Self.
त्यजेत् कुलार्थे पुरुषं ग्रामस्यार्थे कुलं त्यजेत् |
ग्रामं जनपदस्यार्थे आत्मार्थे पृथिवीं त्यजेत् ||