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Opinion: The Hindu
10 March 2001
by Andre Beteille
AS A student of anthropology in Calcutta in
the 1950s, I was recommended a book written by the well-known
physical anthropologist, M.F. Ashley Montagu, some of whose other
works we also had to study. The book to which I now refer was
entitled ``Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race''.
Ashley Montagu had overstated his case somewhat, but the basic
point he was making, that the widely-used concept of race was
politically pernicious and scientifically anomalous, had come to
be generally accepted among anthropologists by the middle of the
20th century.
Some anthropologists attended to the
political mischief caused by the idea of race while others
exposed its scientific ambiguities. The most notable among the
latter was Franz Boas, widely regarded as the father of American
anthropology. In his book, ``Race, Language and Culture'', he
established conclusively with a wealth of empirical material the
distinction between race which is a biological category with
physical markers and social groupings based on language,
religion, nationality, style of life or status. Boas's conclusion
may be regarded as the settled opinion on the subject among
professional anthropologists the world over.
``Race, Language and Culture'', published in
1940, was the culmination of systematic and painstaking research
by two or three generations of anthropologists. In the 19th
century, when anthropology was still largely an amateur pursuit,
the concept of race was widely and loosely use to cover virtually
every kind of social grouping. One read about the Aryan race, the
Semitic race and the Irish race. The influential French writer
Count Gobineau even proposed that the different social classes in
France were composed of different races. In fact, race and class
were linked together in Europe even before attempts were made to
link race with caste in India. Pseudo-scientific theories of race
abounded in late 19th and early 20th century in Europe and
America. They made no small contribution to Hitler's disastrous
racial policies in Germany. Although the English, the French and
the Americans adopted a self-consciously virtuous attitude after
1945, they too produced an abundance of pseudo-scientific
theories of race before World War II.
At about the same period of time, the Indian
Civil Service counted a fair number of amateur anthropologists in
its ranks. Some of them have left behind valuable accounts of the
tribes and castes in India. Others took an interest in race that
at times amounted to an obsession. The obsessive ones found
evidence of race wherever they looked. Their main confusion was
between race and language, and they wrote freely about the `Aryan
race' and the `Dravidian race'. Some treated Hindus and Muslims
as belonging to different races, and others expressed similar
views about the upper and the lower castes. These views, based on
a confusion of categories, are now regarded as worthless from the
scientific point of view.
It is not as if there was no serious
scientific effort by the ICS anthropologists to study the racial
composition of the Indian population. Several of them attended to
the problem with patience and care, combining the study of
physical features with that of social customs. The most notable
was Sir Herbert Risley who produced a comprehensive
classification of the races of India into seven types. But the
principal `racial types' in his classification - Aryan,
Dravidian, Aryo-Dravidian and Mongolo- Dravidian - were
linguistic or regional categories in disguise and not racial
categories at all. The subsequent classification by B.S. Guha,
made in connection with the census of 1931, was less ambitious,
for it did not speak of `racial types' but only of `racial
elements' in the population of the country.
In the mid-1950s when I was a student of
anthropology, most anthropologists had lost interest in the
racial classification of the Indian population. Although there
were many different racial elements in it, it was difficult, if
not impossible, to sort them out into distinct racial groups. In
the 1970s, I took some initiative on behalf of Oxford University
Press to update Guha's work on racial elements. I approached a
number of physical anthropologists, but they either declined or
said that they would do it but failed to deliver. I am now
convinced that identifying the races in the population of India
will be an exercise in futility.
Despite all the hard work done by
anthropologists from Boas onward, the idea of race dies hard in
the popular imagination. That is understandable. What is neither
understandable nor excusable is the attempt by the United Nations
to revive and expand the idea of race, ostensibly to combat the
many forms of social and political discrimination prevalent in
the world. It is sad but true that many forms of invidious
discrimination do prevail in the contemporary world. But to
assimilate or even relate them all to `racial discrimination'
will be an act of political and moral irresponsibility.
Not content with condemning racism and
racial discrimination, the U.N. now wants to take on `racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance'. It
has in its wisdom decided to expand the meeting of racial
discrimination to accommodate exclusion or preference `based on
race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin'. In doing so
it is bound to give a new lease of life to the old and
discredited notion of race current a hundred years ago. By flying
in the face of the distinctions between race, language and
culture, it is seeking to undo the conclusions reached by the
researches of several generations of anthropologists.
Interested parties within and outside the
U.N. would like to bring caste discrimination in general and the
practice of untouchability in particular within the purview of
racial discrimination. The practice of untouchability is indeed
reprehensible and must be condemned by one and all; but that does
not mean that we should now begin to regard it as a form of
racial discrimination. The Scheduled Castes of India taken
together are no more a race than are the Brahmins taken together.
Every social group cannot be regarded as a race simply because we
want to protect it against prejudice and discrimination.
In the past, some groups claimed superior
rights on the ground that they belonged to the Aryan race or the
Teutonic race. The anthropologists rejected such claims on two
grounds: first, on the ground that within the same human species
no race is superior to any other; but also on the ground that
there is no such thing as an Aryan race or a Teutonic race. We
cannot throw out the concept of race by the front door when it is
misused for asserting social superiority and bring it in again
through the back door to misuse it in the cause of the oppressed.
The metaphor of race is a dangerous weapon whether it is used for
asserting white supremacy or for making demands on behalf of
disadvantaged groups.
If discrimination against disadvantaged
castes can be defined as a form of racial discrimination, there
is no reason why discrimination, real or alleged, against
religious or linguistic minorities cannot be phrased in exactly
the same terms. The Muslims and other religious minorities will
claim that they too, and not just backward castes, are victims of
racial discrimination. The initiative taken by the U.N. is bound
to encourage precisely that kind of claim.
The U.N. initiative will open up a Pandora's
box of allegations of racial discrimination throughout the world.
The latitudinarian attitude of the U.N. will encourage religious
and other `ethnic' minorities to make allegations of racial
discrimination not only in India, but everywhere. The Catholics
in Northern Ireland can claim that they too are victims of racial
discrimination. The French Canadians, whose grievances are real
enough, can also make the same claim. One can multiply examples
from every corner of the world. By treating caste discrimination
as a form of racial discrimination and, by implication, caste as
a form of race, the U.N. is turning its back on established
scientific opinion. One can only guess under what kind of
pressure it is doing so. Treating caste as a form of race is
politically mischievous; what is worse, it is scientifically
nonsensical.
Posted on 2001-07-16
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