Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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For this reason, generalizations about the caste society, especially of a
positive nature, will have some minor exceptions to them. But
formulations have to be made in order to express the dominant
tendencies or directions of a system or a movement. Subject to this
consideration, one of the very important features of the Indian Society
was that the mass of the people were deliberately precluded from all
political and military activity. This explains the marked absence of
any militant political movement at the initiative and in the interests
of the masses.
a) Prostration: This political and military inertia of the
Indian population did not develop by accident. It was a part of the
clearly thought out design of the caste ideologues. According to the
Aitareya Brahmana (vii. 29.3), “he (Vaisya) is to be lived on by another
and to be oppressed at will.” To achieve this purpose, the Brahmins
made the use of arms the sole prerogative of the ruling castes, e.g. to
begin with the Kshatriyas, and, later, the legitimized Rajputs. This
was the best arrangement they could make. The outcome of the
struggle for political power between the different elements of the ruling
caste did not affect the Brahmins as a caste. Whosoever won had to
be guided by his Purohita. Besides, the legitimation of the caste status
of the ruling castes was solely in the hands of the Brahmins as a caste.
Whosoever won had to be guided by his Purohita. Besides, the
legitimation of the caste status of the ruling castes was solely in the
hands of the Brahmins. ‘Legitimation by a recognized religion has always
been decisive for an alliance between politically and socially dominant
classes and the priesthood.’ 1 It was much more so in the caste society.
So, from the time Brahminism become supreme, the mass of the
people were reduced to the status of idle spectators to the struggle
from military and political supremacy that raged around them.
Magesthanes noted that the peasants went about their work quite
unconcerned close to the battle-fields. Whether the people were totally
disarmed or not is not quite certain; but it is clear that they were
psychologically disarmed by the caste ideology. Pacifism and the caste
system ‘blocked the development of the military power of the citizenry;
pacifism blocked it in principle and the castes in practice, by hindering
the establishment of a polis or commune in the European sense.’ 2 It
was for this reason that, on the eclipse of the Kshatriyas, a few petty
Rajput princes, springing up from the desert of Jasselmere, were