The Rig Veda’s Purusha Sukta (10.90.12) describes the divine origin of the four varnas from the body of the cosmic Purusha: the Brahmin from his mouth, the Kshatriya from his arms, the Vaishya from his thighs and the Shudra from his feet. This verse provides the oldest scriptural justification for a hierarchical social structure.
This framework was later codified into explicit law in the Manusmriti (c. 4th century CE), which states, “A Shudra is unfit to receive education… It is not necessary that the Shudra should know the laws and codes and hence need not be taught” (Manu IV-78 to 81).
This ideology of epistemic segregation finds a modern political analogue in the philosophy of Integral Humanism, propounded by Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. Contemporary Hindutva ideologues have reframed the varna system not as a hierarchy but as a non-hierarchical, occupation-based framework. However, this reframing overlooks the challenge of addressing inherent structural inequalities and discrimination. https://thewire.in/caste/who-counts-who-knows-who-decides-but-caste
Thus, ordered in purportedly ‘divine’ Hindu cosmology, the social order of caste in India historically rested on the strict control of learning, interpretation, textual authority and the means of knowledge production. This Brahminical supremacy, structured around the delegation of manual labour to the lower rungs of society, fundamentally shaped cognitive frameworks to assign authority and legitimacy.
As Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd argues, this structure established a sharp distinction between the privileged castes and the ‘productive castes’ – the Dalit-Bahujan communities. Their labour, which generated crucial technologies like leather processing, pottery and food production through trial and error in the struggle for survival, was systematically excluded from recognised epistemic systems.
Against this backdrop, the demand for a caste census has re-emerged as one of the most significant political and epistemic questions of our time. Through the systematic collection of caste-based data, the census could illuminate the stark monopolisation of intellectual and cultural institutions and historically accumulated inequalities in the realm of knowledge production.
by Swarati Sabhapandit and C.P. Rajendran
29/11/2025