Gaurav Sabnis makes an excellently reasoned post that takes apart the Slam-Call-Centers trend that seems to be on the rise everyday. My support to it is about 90%. The 10% disagreement stems from this assertion, with which I disagree.

In my opinion, this whole call-centre-bashing exercise is an unconscious expression of the deeprooted prejudices in our collective minds put in place due to the caste system. The whole idea of the caste system was, only a few jobs are respectable. All other jobs, be they menial or trade-related, were secondary. So what a brahmin does was admirable, while what the cunning sahukar or the filthy shudra does, was not.

Caste is an integral part of India and continues to remain so. Fundamentally, I think it is one of the best ways to organize society based on my studies in the subject. However, it is not entirely correct to blame everything that’s wrong with India today solely on the caste system.

The whole idea of the caste system was, only a few jobs are respectable. All other jobs, be they menial or trade-related, were secondary. So what a brahmin does was admirable, while what the cunning sahukar or the filthy shudra does, was not.

Which is entirely incorrect. The caste system as practised today especially in most of North India and a few parts in the South is its worst form of degeneration. The idea of the caste system was to provide a means of earning one’s livelihood respectably. Dignity of labour in other words. In its original conception, a person’s caste was decided on his inclination and what can be crudely translated as the “basic nature” of the person. Thus, if a person was a Brahmin by birth not inclined to studies/learning/renunciation and chose instead to master a skill or engage in business, he was free to do so and could move to become a businessman. As for the “cunning sahukar,” there’s only one point I’d like to make. If we go through the bulk of the backward class/dalit revival literature, the common refrain that runs through is woven around the great “Brahmin-bania conspiracy.” The word “Shudra” in Sanskrit can be expanded as shuchaat dravati iti shudrah. The word “shuchaat” is derived from the root, Shuch which means clean. Thus we have, one who brings about cleanliness. For the record, the original ideal of a Brahmin was to live in poverty and always engage himself in contemplation/meditation. This poverty he had to choose voluntarily. That is truly admirable.

These very prejudices led to the Indian middle class placing too much emphasis on medicine, bureaucracy, engineering and charterd accountancy as the A-grade professions.

The few-jobs-are-respectable prejudice is not related to the caste system. History has plenty of examples to show that the jobs Gaurav mentions weren’t the domain of the “upper class” alone. If one were to trace the geneaology of Indian kings, it would probably come as a surprise to most of us that a large percentage weren’t born in the “upper” Kshatriya class. Chandragupta Maurya is the earliest example of this in my limited reading. He was handpicked by his guru, Kautilya the “evil” Brahmin.

The most probable historical reason for Gaurav’s said prejudice can be traced to the turn of the 20th century. The British education system had begun to turn out its “finished products” whose learning was suited to oil the wheels of the Empire: the bureaucrats, the doctors, engineers and the rest. Native systems of knowledge and education were slowly being replaced. Thus the respect one derived from being recognized as a vedic scholar was transferred to that of being called saheb, babu, and the like. It is here, properly, that we can trace the root of calling some professions respectable. As I said, it has nothing to do with the caste system.

The current slamming of call centers as something despicable is the contribution of Leftists starting with the infamous Cyber Coolie article by Praful Bidwai. Everybody in their right minds–that includes people like Gaurav and myself–mostly the urban youth have long since been weaned away from the idea of a “respectable” and “non-respectable” job. However, the prejudice that Gaurav speaks of can also be seen from another perspective: from time immemorial, societies have given a special place to a man who works using his brain over someone who uses his physical abilities. For example: why is a political advisor given so much money and privileges over say a soldier? The same can be said of a corporate VP over say, a clerk. This prejudice exists everywhere.

I personally think that the call center phenomenon has been in the recent times, the greatest economic levelling force. It has made luxury affordable to a hundreds of thousands of people as Gaurav says:

A plush restaurant, an expensive discotheque on a weekend, mobile showrooms, car showrooms, apparel showrooms….. all these domains which were earlier restricted only to the engineer-doctor-types or the rich-kids were now invaded by hordes of call centre employees.

The “caste system” was breaking down.

Caste system was prevalent in India for as long as one can remember, but casteism was unheard of. The former enables social integration by respecting difference but the latter seeks to splinter society into a million islands of separate identities. We earlier could recognize the four predominant castes but today we have a few hundred sub-castes within each caste. Those below the Shudras are called Panchamas, and among the Panchamas, we have a right-left division, and then as if “Dalit” was not large enough, we have Dalit Christians, and a gargantuan “Other Backward Castes” which gives scope for further splintering. Where will it all end?