Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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the low castes to Islam were, by and large, voluntary. Therefore, if
large sections of the low caste could embrace Islam, and in the process
cut themselves off completely from the Hindu fold, socio-religious
communities could also be organized outside the caste society and
used to break the shackles of the caste order. But, there is no evidence
to show that the Bhaktas ever aspired to do so. They made no attempt
to change the caste society or build a new one outside its orbit.
It has been seen that caste orthodoxy consistently succeeded in
eliminating, absorbing or remoulding, for its reactionary ends all liberal
social trends and movements appearing on the Indian soil. The caste
system had become a continuously downgrading apparatus. It cast its
shadows even outside its borders to affect, to an extent, even the
Indian Muslims and Charistians. The consistent history of the caste
system, spread over two millennia, shows that there was no scope for
a radical social change, much less for a social revolution, by remaining
within the frame-work of the society and its ideology. It could not be
reformed from within, because its every constituent, every cell, was
built on the principle of social inequity and hierarchy. Both on
ideational and on historical grounds, one has perforce to come to the
conclusion that, for its very survival, it was imperative for any anticaste
ideology or movement to organise society outside the orbit of
caste. This necessity appears far more imperative when viewed in the
light of the caste mechanism and its inexorable working. Individuals,
even groups, were helpless against the pressures and sanctions
exercised by the caste organisation. No individual, except those who
like the mendicants cut themselves off from society, could be a member
of the Hindu society without belonging to one sub-caste or the other.
Unless organised to withstand these pressure, it was idle to expect of
the masses to be able to toe the anti-caste line on their own. No people
can hang in the air outside one society or the other. By omitting to
take any organisational steps and ideological plane, the Radical Bhaktas
stopped short in the logical pursuit of their social ideology. Hence,
their ultimate failure in the social field.