‘Caste system a unifying factor in India which Mughals couldn’t understand,’ says RSS-linked weekly Panchjanya

The caste system is a ‘unifying factor’ of Indian society, which the Mughals couldn’t understand and the British saw as a roadblock to their invasion of the country, the latest issue of the RSS-affiliated Panchjanya weekly has said in an editorial.

The defence of the caste system comes in the wake of a political row after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anurag Thakur allegedly asked to know the caste of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the Parliament during the recently- concluded Budget Session.

“The caste system was a chain that kept various classes of India together after classifying them according to their profession and tradition. Following the industrial revolution, the capitalists saw the caste system as the guard of India,” the weekly’s editor, Hitesh Shankar, said in the editorial, titled ‘Ae netaji! Kaun zaat ho?’

The editorial on the caste system assumes significance since Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been trying to convey that it is not against reservations for the depressed classes.

“The Mughals targeted it (caste system) with the power of the sword and the missionaries under the guise of service and reform. In the form of caste, the Indian society understood that betraying one’s caste was a betrayal of the nation. The missionaries understood this unifying equation of India better than the Mughals: If India and its self-respect are to be broken, then first break the unifying factor of the caste system by calling it a constraint or chain,” Shankar writes in the Panchjanya editorial.

The editorial reads that the understanding of missionaries about the caste system was adopted by the British as per their ‘divide and rule’ policy.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has been saying that caste discrimination must be eliminated. In 2023, Bhagwat said that he would not mind supporting reservations if they had to continue for another 200 years to compensate for the discrimination lower castes have suffered for 2,000 years.

The editorial wrote that in India, people need to understand caste’s importance instead of looking at and weighing them for selfish reasons. It also attacked the Congress party for its stand on caste and the demand for a caste census.

“The larger arc of a Hindu’s life, including his sense of dignity, morality, responsibility and community, revolves around caste. It is something that individual-centric missionaries could not understand. If missionaries saw caste as a roadblock to their conversion programme, the Congress saw it as a wedge in Hindu unity. On the lines of the British, it wants to divide Lok Sabha seats based on caste and increase the division in the country. This is why it wants a caste census,” the editorial said.

“When Congress party is asked of its caste, the answer will be East India Company and A O Hume,” it reads.