k on the received social system which, it may be emphasized, was an intimate ingredient of the Indian Dharmic way of life, and underlay the life of all religions in India, has also not succeeded in its twin goals of eradicating caste identities or substituting a responsible humanist society… Rather, by turning the relatively stable group hierarchical order into an arena of competition for political and economic goods, the caste system has been re-legitimized through the back door. The attack on joint families and group identities again has not resulted in enlightened citizenship so much as deterioration into unrestrained individualism, familism and social irresponsibility. Thus instead of the modernizer's imagined brave new world, there is increasing confusion, anomie and disorder".

Consequently, thanks to the atomization of our polity, the phrase 'Caste Wars' might gain increasing national currency. And that's not good news for the common man.

However, strangely, our past itself gives us a reason for optimism. Caste based intolerance was not the salient feature of the society. The aberration set in much later, thanks to the inexorable march of history.

Dipankar Gupta points out, "...The preeminent status attained by the Brahman and the debasement of the untouchable cannot be considered as pre-given outcomes of the Hindu state of mind but, rather, resulted from a long historical process. The most salient feature of this historical process was the constant rivalry between various communities for political and economic power which was reflected in their varying and conflicting perception of Brahmanism and of the Vedas".

Have things gone too far for the trend to reverse?

Where does one go from here? Will the brave new world remain a utopia? Perhaps not. Karl Marx had once remarked, "Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand". However imperceptibly, these interrelations are undergoing metamorphosis. One says this when one looks at trends in the upper and upper-middle classes. Commonality of interests and not caste affinity dictates social and economic relationships among these classes.

Moreover, caste is no more as influential in the choice of one's profession or specialization in any field of activity. This post-modernist trend, despite being ill defined at present, might yet break the traditional caste superstructure. Here one must recall what George Russel, the Irish writer, had once said, "Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality".

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