Were there any rebellions or social uprisings by the Dalits in Pre-British India?

[civfanatic]

It is popularly said that historically India practiced oppressive caste discrimination, untouchability etc. for 3000 years . Now every other society - be it Rome or China - all have slave uprisings, social unrest and war (not just between rival claimants to throne) - but farmers, laborers etc. demanding change of status.

There seem to be pretty much no such events in pre British India . Is it simply a lack of records ? Because India is low on records even otherwise , or were the oppressed just okay with the status quo.

I can't think of any significant rebellions or uprisings by Dalits in pre-modern times. The reasons for this, in my view, are the following:

• Before the colonial period, which saw a significant increase in population, labor in India was actually quite scarce compared to land. Whenever pre-colonial peasants felt oppressed, they could simply migrate to new lands where conditions were better off. Migration was much easier and less risky than a violent rebellion or uprising against some local zamindar or nobleman, who would possess much greater military resources (especially cavalry) than peasants.

• Related to the above point, many communities referred to as chandalas (untouchables) tended to live separately from "mainstream" society in more marginal lands. They were despised by mainstream society because of their cultural practices, such as eating beef and pork, as well as occasional conflicts that may emerge between them and mainstream caste society (such as cattle raids). The relative abundance of land in pre-colonial India allowed many untouchable groups to live comfortably in their own communities on their own lands.

• Those untouchables that chose to live in highly-populated territories dominated by caste Hindus might have chosen to do so because of the greater security and stability offered by the highly-populated core territories. For example, over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a steady stream of immigrants into the rich Kaveri river delta region of Tamil Nadu, and many of these immigrants became bonded Dalit laborers who were treated quite poorly. The reason for this Dalit immigration was probably because of increased warfare in the more marginal territories in the uplands, where the chances of mortality and dispossession were higher than in the safer lowlands. Thus, some groups might have found the opportunity cost of their decreased social status in the lowlands to be less than the opportunity cost of staying in the uplands, where they had more freedom but also much less security.

The British conquest brought unprecedented security to India. However, the British conquest took place at precisely the same time as extensive agricultural expansion in India was coming to an end. After the 18th and especially the 19th century, free lands could no longer be readily found, and so many people were forced to become low-status agricultural laborers simply due to the impossibility of being free, landholding ryots in their own right. This corresponded to greater rural unrest than in previous centuries, despite the greater political stability in colonial India.

 

[Gil galad]

I remember reading that P. C. Mahalanobis, the statistician, had said that for at least a hundred years the British in Bengal were regarded as liberators. So the previous rulers can't have been that popular. Wether this was cause for rebellions in the area or how this corresponds with the rest of India I can't really say.

 

[The Super Pope]

You might be right - and I am happy to apologise for the tone of my 'rant'. What you were saying seemed so wildly and wilfully revisionist, that reasoned argument honestly seemed pointless. It's impossible for me to prove a negative - that your statements are incorrect, but look at the language you use - "it's possible that" ... "Some Indian nationalists take the idea ... and extend it into an argument that". What is the correct way to respond to scurrilous and unsubstantiated propaganda?

In your opening remarks you say yourself that DNA evidence shows that the caste system 'became entrenched about 1600 years ago'. Think about this - the DNA of people alive today proves the existence of a rigid and continuous social structure from the late medieval period until the present. I would suggest it goes back much further than that, but I can't supply you with evidence, just a certain understanding of the country and its history. In any case, it seems clear that neither the Mughals or the British had much impact in this regard.
You also say: "If the British did have an effect, it's that they came in as outsiders trying to understand a complex social situation, and naturally tended to over-simplify things by looking for simple, easy-to-follow explanations that they could codify." This seems reasonable - and the colonial British could be incredibly ignorant, but all they were doing was attempting to understand (and document) the complexities they encountered - and of course to impose some sort of order on what would have seemed to them like chaos. It's really not reasonable to extrapolate beyond that point - fashionable though it may be.

You realise that he was disagreeing with the nationalists who want to attribute the caste system to the British?

 

[Maq]

I think there might have been some things that made it harder for the Dalits to organize uprisings worthy of mentioning compared to the slaves of antiquity or various peasant classes and so on in other societies.

1. Dalits probably didn't ever make out more than 30% of the population (in modern India they make out 16.6% of the population) whereas the slaves in Italy during the Spartacus rebellion made up about 30-40% of the population, peasant classes in most societies made up the vast majority of the population.
2. Like slaves but unlike peasants in other societies Dalits probably faced large problems in allying with other social groups due to their social standing as "untouchable".
3. Unlike the slaves of antiquity or various peasant populations in various societies there were probably no one with war training or experience among the Dalits.

The case of slaves within Muslim society could provide some lead, too. In early stages, large estates based on concentrated slave work were created, and such arrangement lead to dangerous uprisings. Later on, most slaves were household slaves, so large concentrations of slaves under single lord were an exception, and so were slave rebellions.
This example can be followed by another: serfdom in Christian societies. Originally, there was no universal pattern, universal rules for the relations between lord and serf. Later on, in eastern part of Europe, governments often issued decrees aimed at standardization of these relations.
It would be incorrect to state that these decrees provoked rebellions, as these appeared earlier as well, but perhaps contributed to the size and degree of danger of such rebellions - people sharing similar fate are easier to unite under one banner.
Just suggestions...