Given that occupation is strictly passed down hereditarily, this gradation of individuals on the basis of the purity of their occupation is the ultimate injustice of caste.
This is the basis of untouchability as well – people of castes who engage in certain tasks considered polluting are thus discriminated against as untouchables. For example, intellectual work, such as reading scriptures, is considered to be the purest while manual work like cleaning toilets is considered to be polluting. Every occupation falls somewhere in this vast, often contested, scale. Not only does caste create watertight compartments in society, but it also grades these compartments on what French anthropologist Louis Dumont would call “the notion of purity and pollution”. Ambedkar calls this an “unnatural” division. Over time, the division of labour has morphed and gained sophistication.įor instance, as recently as 2021, then Minister of State of Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athwale told the Rajya Sabha that 73.31 per cent of all manual scavengers were from Scheduled Castes, who, as per the 2011 census, make roughly 16 per cent of the population.
Thus, a society has farmers who produce food, factory workers who produce goods, sweepers who clean buildings, cobblers who produce shoes, and so on. The burden of these tasks is distributed in society, through what we call ‘specialisation’. In other words, living in a society means that no one person has to perform all the tasks required for their sustenance. The basic point of social organisation is to share responsibilities. Responding to a commonly stated defence of caste (that it is just another name for division of labour), Dr Ambedkar succinctly yet profoundly describes the uniqueness of the caste system and why it is problematic. But in no civilised society is division of labour accompanied by this unnatural division of labourers into watertight compartments … it is a hierarchy in which the divisions of labourers are graded one above the other.” Civilised society undoubtedly needs division of labour. “The Caste System is not merely a division of labour.
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