Caste in Urdu Prose Literature

The historical division of society in South Asia on caste lines is now an acknowledged sociological, political and economic fact. However, caste as a literary or social discourse does not, for several reasons, form a part of the predominantly Muslim culture of Urdu.

As far as the Urdu literary writing is concerned, it has traditionally focused exclusively on the lives and concerns of conquerors, their cohorts and their descendants, who typically prided themselves on their real or perceived foreign origins. Even after modern, socially committed writing began in Urdu around the 1930s, caste as a variable for social exploration was largely ignored in favour of economic class.

The professional interpreters of religion, on the other hand, as well as conservative Muslim social and literary critics, usually deny even the existence of caste divisions among South Asian Muslims. This is done in the face of an abundance of evidence to the contrary. Since the ‘social reformers’ of both the religious and less-religious types came from the upper castes of the Muslim society – Syed, Mughal, Afghan and Shaikh – they seem to have retained all the traditional prejudices and preferences of their castes.

Examining the collections of common expressions and sayings, one cannot fail to sense the contempt on the part of linguistic decision-makers for those stigmatized at birth for the fact of their lower caste background. Those forced to live a life of misery as a result of the society’s adherence to unjust laws and customs, are considered mean, foolish, criminal-minded, open to all kinds of abuse and so on. Names of many of the lower castes are used as terms of abuse: cobbler, vegetable vendor, meat-seller, sweeper and so on. But some of the choicest insults have been reserved for the community of weavers of cloth. This traditional hatred for ‘julahas’ might have been further enhanced by the fact that they participated in the revolt of 1857 and threw the loyalty of the Muslim elites into question which had disastrous consequences in the years immediately following the mutiny for the latter.

More of this note by Ajmal Kamal here on FB. Second part here.