ISSUES OF CONCERN

purely academically, then my answer
is no. As Ambedkar concluded, there
is no racial difference across castes in
India; all Indians belonged to same
racial stock. Castes have essentially their
origin in tribal identities, superimposed
by hierarchical social structure which
is fortified by religious ideology. Over
the years they became the life-world of
people. Castes, rather caste system,
have evolved into a very intricate
system, with cybernetic characteristics of
self-organizing and self regulating, which
explains their longevity. In contrast, race
is essentially biological and is marked by
the hereditary transmission of physical
characteristics.
Racial diversity of Asia’s peoples,
from Nordisk familjebok [34] (1904)
Race is discerned in terms of gene
frequencies differing between groups in
the human species. Scientific research
shows that the genes responsible for the
hereditary differences between humans
are extremely few as compared with the
vast number of genes common to all
human beings regardless of the race to
which they belong. As there is as much
genetic variation among the members
of any given race as there is between
different racial groups, the concept of
race is dismissed as unscientific. Races
arose as a result of mutation, selection,
and adaptational changes in human
populations. The nature of genetic
variation in human beings indicates
there has been a common evolution for
all races and that racial differentiation
occurred relatively late in the history of
Homo sapiens. Theories postulating very
early emergence of racial differentiation
stand scientifically refuted. Thus, there
is nothing natural in both race as well as
caste.
Attempts were made to classify
humans since the 17 th century as an
extension of classification of flora and
fauna. From that they began attributing
cultural and psychological values to the
‘racial’ groups and evolved theories of
superiority of races. This approach,
called racism, culminated in the vicious
racial doctrines of Nazi Germany, and
especially in anti-Semitism. Castes,
originally the innocuous tribal identities
while settling from the nomadic phase to
settled agriculture, came to become the
ranked groups based on heredity within
rigid systems of social stratification when
the varna system was overlain on the
society. As tribal identities itself they
were in huge number unlike races spread
over the vast area of subcontinent. With
hierarchized notion, their number swell
to such an extent that any determinate
ordering became impossible, giving rise
to invisible contentions between castes
for superiority with others in vicinity and
in turn preserving the macro structure
of castes. Thus there is a difference
between race and caste for sure.
Casteism & Racism
But when it comes to racism and
casteism, which are the systems of
discriminations, the difference collapses.
Both involve inequality and prejudice
based on birth and descent. Both
14 Issues Of CONCERN No. 7 February 2016