Posted by: "Karthik Navayan" navayan@gmail.com
Sat Nov 22, 2008 6:03 am (PST)
Kulin System Of Bengal Was Meant For Supremacy Of Brahmins
By : Dr. K. Jamanadas
The idea of this Kulin System was only to create the population who accepts
the domination of brahmins and observe strict caste rules. What this has led
to can be seen by the accounts of struggle that was launched by the leaders
of Bengal in the last century. Raja Ram Mohun Roy was busy with problem of
Sati and could not devote much time for other reforms. It fell upon
Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar to "struggle for abolition of polygamy". The
English word polygamy, which is used to describe kulin system, does not give
clear idea to the readers unacquainted with this kulin system, which is
described below. Most of us are acquainted with 'harem' of kings. We also
know among hindus in India, till 1956, there was no law against marrying any
number of girls, unlike muslims, who could marry only four wives.
Vidyasagar, being himself a kulin, was well conversant with the abuses of
the kulin polygamy of Bengal, with increasing numbers of child widows and
its attendant problems. Excerpts from a petition to the Company Government
in 1855, make interesting reading. : [p. 110 ff. Benoy Ghose: "Iswar Chandra
Vidyasagar", 1965, Publication Division, Govt. of India.]
"The Kulins marry solely for money and with no intention to fulfill any of
the duties which marriage involves. The women, who are thus nominally
married without the hope of ever enjoying the happiness which marriage is
calculated to confer particularly on them, either pine away for want of
objects on which to place the affections which spontaneously arise in the
heart, or are betrayed by the violence of their passions and their defective
education into immorality."
There is a vast literature in Bengal, called 'kulaji' or 'kulasastra'
dealing with history and genealogy of Brahmins and other important castes.
The kulaji of "Radhiya" brahmins hold them descendants of five families
brought in 8th or 9th century by an unidentified king Adisura. The kulaji of
"Varendra" hold king Ballalsen (1158-79 A.D.) responsible for founding kulin
system. Why this system started? We are told:
"... after the reign of the Pala kings of Bengal, who were patrons of
Buddhism, a revival of Hinduism followed during the reign of Sena kings from
the 12th century onwards. There was need for reorganizing the social
structure of Hinduism based on the caste system, and some rigid rules were
formulated to maintain the purity of the higher castes, particularly the
brahmins." [Benoy Ghose, Ibid. p.111]
This system, if it deserves such a term of 'system', led to hypergamy where
bridegroom must be from a higher caste or subcaste resulting in surplus of
unmarried girls. As sastras ordained that the daughters must be married off
before puberty and pronounced curses on defaulters, one man married a large
number of brides, who were never supported economically by the husband.
"... Thus marriage itself became a gainful occupation. Among the kulin
brahmins, even septuagenarians and octogenarians, with two or three dozens
of wives, were considered good matches by the helpless parents of kulin
brahmin girls. A kind of marriage fees, ranging from Rs. 5/- to Rs. 500/-
was usually charged by the kulin brahmins for marrying a kulin girl. Even
teenagers were married to dying octogenarian husbands. The old man's gain,
before his death, was a few rupees." [Benoy Ghose, Ibid. p. 112]
Rashbehari Mukhopadhya, a leader of East Bengal, who worked against the
system, wrote in 1881, about himself. He was compelled to marry in quick
succession to eight girls for 'economic relief of family'. If he was wiling,
he would have been forced to marry 'at least one hundred girls within a few
years'. As he was unwilling, he was compelled to break away from joint
family forcibly with a burden of loan. As a result of this, he had to marry
six more girls 'to meet immediate economic needs.' [Benoy Ghose, Ibid. p.113
ff.]
A committee of leading Bengalis, was appointed by the British Lieutenant
Governor of Bengal to study the problems of kulin system. Some of the
observations of the committee were as follows.
Bridegroom extracts heavy consideration, in addition to usual gifts, from
family of bride, at the time of marriage. On the occasion of any visit,
presents are given, making marriage a lucrative profession. A kulin brahmin
having, say, thirty wives may find it immensely profitable to pay a monthly
visit to each father-in-law' s house and spend the whole year enjoying good
food and presents, without doing anything for earning his livelihood. This
system was making brahmins a class of 'unproductive parasites'.
Marriage in old age and husband often never sees his wife, or at best visits
her once in every three four years or so. As many as three or four marriages
are known to have been contracted by one brahmin on a single day. Sometimes,
all the daughters and unmarried sisters are married to same brahmin.
These married girls, and many who are compelled to remain unmarried, live a
very miserable life. The result is the most heinous crimes like adultery,
abortion, infanticide, and prostitution.
Cases are known of men marrying 82, 72, 65, 60, and 42 wives and having had
18, 32, 41, 25 and 32 sons and 26, 27, 25, 15 and 16 daughters.
The evils of Kulin system were briefly enumerated by the committee as
follows:
"The practical deprivation of the indulgence of natural ties and desires in
the female sex in a legitimate manner; the virtual, sometimes the actual,
desertion of the wife by her natural and legal protector, the husband; the
encouragement of the practice of celibacy amongst the female sex; the non-
maintenance of the wife by the husband; the suppression or abandonment of
the wife at the mere pleasure of the husband; the formation of the contract
of the marriage for merely money considerations; the denial of nuptials
except upon special monetary consideration given; the ruin, from a property
point of view, of families; the contraction of the marriage tie avowedly
without any intention even on the part of the husband of fulfilling any one
of the duties of that tie; the binding down of the female sex to all the
obligations of the marriage state, whilst yet withholding from that sex
every one of the advantage of that state; prostitution; and, lastly, the
encouragement of the
actual crimes of adultery, abortion and infanticide, and of the habit and
practice of the concealment of such crimes." [Benoy Ghose, Ibid. p.119]
In 1871 and 1873, Vidyasagar published two tracts, wherein he gave
statistics of kulinism with long list of names giving the number of their
wives with their ages. Some of the kulin brahmins did not even know how many
girls they had actually married. Some kept a diary with accounts of
marriages and presents received at the time of marriage and further on each
visit, being recorded. [Benoy Ghose, Ibid. p. 121 ff.]
Vidyasagar writes in first one of these two books:
"One of the root causes of our social disintegration is the prevalence of
the custom of polygamy in the hindu society. It has been eroding the moral
foundation of our society for centuries, and breeding many ills and vices.
Thousands of married women are being daily thrown into the hell of untold
sufferings for the continuity of this inhuman custom. It has let loose all
conceivable vices and uprooted the moral anchors of society. It is
encouraging all sorts of vices - adultery, debauchery, infanticide and
prostitution. .." [Benoy Ghose, Ibid. p. 122]
It must be remembered that all these sufferings were caused by the brahmins
to their own kith and kin, their own women folk, with only one intention,
that is to keep the supremacy of their own caste, which was in danger due to
Buddhist ideals in the society during the Buddhist kings' rule.
To understand the background of this system we have to go into the History
of Bengal and its people. The following information is drawn mostly from
Sarita Mukta Reprints vol. 9, p.117 ff. article by Vasant Chatterji -
"bangal ke bangali kaun?" sarita July 1968(II), 262
Vasant Chatterji very aptly remarks
"Bengal, which now remains as only west Bengal, is a different from other
states of India. It is different in many respects like history, casteism,
religion, politics, education. What applies to rest of India about social
and economic matters does not apply to Bengal. It has got its own separate
situation."
Chatterji laments that the knowledge about Bengal is also limited. The
popular ideas that Bengalis are "bhuka bangali" or they are "communists" are
both wrong ideas. He feels, rather sarcastically, that those who can be
called real Bengalis are hardly 30 to 40 lakhs in a total population of
about 3.5 crores. The majority of population consists of following groups:
Original inhabitants
1. Old 'mul nivasi' of Austrasiai or Austric origin, which go by the name of
'Kol' (Kolerian). They live in water logged areas and are experts in
navigation and cultivation of rice and are brave and able to tolerate
hardships.
Bengal was outside 'aryavrat' for about thousand years. The aryas going
there used to be declared 'condemned' and 'depressed' (bhrashta and patit),
and were excommunicated. During those centuries, Mongoloid migration
occurred. They all intermixed with original inhabitants, were called as
'kirat' and 'monkhemr' etc., and ruled the country as a powerful non-aryan
state for many dynasties.
Presumably, he is referring to kingdoms from the times of Lord Buddha, till
the arrival of Brahminical culture to Bengal in the times of Samudragupta -
a Buddhist period of history.
In fourth century, Bengal became part of a so called 'hindu' empire. The
original inhabitants were now called 'kaivart'. It was an old tradition of
Aryas to call any non aryan living near sea or river as 'daasha' or 'daasa'
(mallaaha). It appears to be more of an abuse, as can be verified from Manu,
who does not consider very highly of them.
This is the main caste of Bengal, and has majority population in villages.
They are divided into two sub-castes - 'mazi kaivarta', who catch fish or
ply boats and 'haali kaivarta', who do farming. A few families from them got
some titles and got rich due to some political service rendered by them at
some time in the history, and some were kings, sardars and jagirdars.
Some of them were, due to their power or prosperity, 'elevated' by the
brahmin priests to the 'honourable title' of 'nama shudra', meaning, 'shudra
for name sake', and given lowest position in hindu society, or nearly made
untouchables. In 1943 famine about 30 lakh people who died were mostly from
these castes. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, as is well known, talks of this
famine, which was subject of his study.
Muslims
2. Second group is of Muslims. These were also of ancient 'kaivarta' castes.
Upto ninth tenth century, here flourished the Buddhist kingdom of Palas. The
ancestors of these muslims were Buddhists. But since middle of eleventh
century, since Brahmin rule of Sena kings started, there was a period of
tremendous atrocities committed against them for about a hundred years. As a
result, when Muslims came, these people welcomed them whole heartedly and in
a short time, all of them became Muslims. We all know that some brahmanical
leaders like Veer Sawarkar, have blamed Buddhists for embracing Islam during
this period.
This resulted ultimately in creation of East Pakistan, and now Bangala Desh.
Even today Muslims in Bengal are called "Nede", meaning 'bald' because their
forefathers were tonsured as Buddhists and were known as "Nede".
Sen dynasty was the first and the last Hindu kingdom, which fell to
Bakhtiyar Khilaji, who had a cavalry of only 12 horsemen. How this happened
could be the subject matter of another article.
Muslims in Bengal are treated as untouchables. Their condition became worse
after Britishers came, because, originally they were dalits, and deprived of
education.
Wangals
3. Third group is of Wangals, a name for all people of East Bengal. The
separation of East Bengal from rest of Bengal is not because of Muslims, not
because of partition of Bengal in 1905, and not because of Indo Pak
partition of Bengal in 1947. The credit (?) goes to a valiant Hindu king
Ballalsen, who was father of last flee away king Laxmansen.
Kulin System
This king Ballalsen, was a learned person. After the fall of Buddhist
kingdom of Palas, with an aim of establishing a Brahmin religion from a
fresh start, Ballalasen took many new steps including oppression of
Buddhists. He divided the country into four areas, with the purpose of
establishing kulin system. These areas were
1. "Radha" i.e. western area, the present Vardhaman Division,
2. "Varendra" - Northern area,
3. "Vagadi" - forest lands around the sea in south, and
4. "Vangal" - Eastern Bengal.
The brahmins in these areas are called Radhi, Varendra, Vangal etc.
Chatterji observes:
"It was the work of the same king, who created four types of Bengalis in
Bengal. For this purpose, he did the same thing as every other Hindu king
used to do after winning a new territory, to keep his own caste 'pure' or
make it so. That is, he called from some famous brahmin centres like
Mithila, Kashi, Prayag or Kanauj a few brahmin families and settled them in
his kingdom, similar to the bull-sires of "Shiva" are left by today's pious
Hindu devotees to impregnate the cows. So that these people should do their
'work' properly and not interfere in one another's area of interest, he
divided the country into four areas as above and settled in each one of them
one batch of these 'pure' brahmins, and relegated the work of increasing the
population of 'Arya vamsha' in the three Hindu castes (perhaps meaning -
Brahmin, Baidyas and Kayasthas ?). These people had been doing this work for
about eight hundred years without any hindrance."
The famous Varendra families are Sanyal, Bagchi, Ghoshal, Mohotra etc. Among
Radhis, five families are famous. They call themselves Kanyakubja, i.e. from
Kanauj and are called after titles given by the Sena kings, as Upadhyaya
Acharya etc. These names are now corrupted to Chatterji, Mukherji, Banarji,
Ganguli and Bhattachari due to English pronunciation in British times.
Chaterji avers:
"As mentioned above, from the time of Sena rule, till the middle of 19th
century, the main function of all these brahmins have been to marry hundreds
of girls and raise the progeny according to Manu Smruti. Ballalsen meant
only this by 'kulin' system."
As is well known, to curb the Buddhist practice of becoming a bhikkhu and
renounce the worldly affairs in young age, it is enjoined by the brahmanic
sastras that out of four ashramas, the grahasta ashram is the most
important, and here one has to repay the four debts. One of them is to have
a progeny, when man becomes free from the father's debt.. But this Kulin
system was quite different from method of repaying the 'father's debt'.
Child's caste was decided by the mother's caste. But some times, the progeny
of so called low caste brahmins also could get high caste because of wealth.
Many Kayasthas became rich and adored themselves with 'yadnopavita' and
became the 'dwijas' calling themselves as ksatriyas. That way, the place of
Kayasthas in Bengal's varna system is among the sudras, as Chaterji says.
These hundreds of wives of Brahmins used to reside with their parents. Their
husbands used to wander from place to place doing bhajan etc. and visit them
may be once or twice a year. This was enough for procreation and propagation
of race. Thus within a few generations, a vast corps of brahmin progeny was
created, which became the main support of brahman religion and became quite
distinct from the original inhabitants of Bengal.
During Muslim rule, second work of these people was to prevent the widow
remarriage and implement the 'sati' system rigorously. In north India, sati
was limited to only royal families, but in Bengal, these brahmins made it
implemented cruelly. The reason was obvious. This strictness was necessary
for the safety of husbands, as each of them had hundreds of wives. With the
ban on widow remarriage and practice of sati, no dissatisfied wife could
dare to poison the husband. No widow could save her property from the
clutches of the brahmins, because only brahmin could condone the performance
of sati. This condonation used to cost a lot.
Kayasthas always learnt language of the rulers. In muslim rule they learnt
their language, and became parts of state machinery. They earned so much
money, that though in the eyes of brahmins they were sudras, still they
could employ brahmins as their servants for worship etc. The Baidyas also
followed Kayashthas and brahmins. But the fact remains, which is well known
that, in the brahmanic books of middle ages, a lot of abuse is showered over
kayasthas as well as on baidyas.
Every Ambedkarite needs to know the history of these people, for two
reasons. Firstly, the mechanisms of Brahmanic atrocities always affects the
women and Shudras, and secondly, these were the people to whom we should be
grateful for Ambedkar's entry in Constituent Assembly.
Everybody knows how Dr. Ambedkar was prevented from getting into the
Constituent Assembly from Maharashtra and he had to go to Bengal and on the
votes of these so called 'chandals', he entered the Constituent Assembly. As
Ambedkarites, we have a lot of respect for these people because they, under
the leadership of Jogendra Nath Mandal, were the people who got Dr. Ambedkar
elected to Constituent Assembly. For this 'treacherous' act of theirs, we
understand, their area was given to East Pakistan, as a punishment, though a
non-Muslim area. We also like to understand more about this aspect.
I am aware that this is not the complete picture. If any one can elaborate
further, I shall be thankful.
--
Battula Karthik Navayan, Advocate, 18-434/3 Thirumala Colony Shadnagar,
Mahaboobnagar District, 509216-AP Cell:09347506219,
email:navayan@gmail. com
http://karthiknavay an.blogspot. com/
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