To be an Untouchable in the Indian caste system is to be very low in, and partially excluded from, an elaborate hierarchical social order. (Micheal,p16, 2007).
Indian untouchability documented by itself is an error to morale. The untouchables lived throughout the colonial rule were already convinced that they belonged to a cultureless existence. They got classified into different tribes according to the occupations of their bloodline. However, all faced a collective mutual hatred upon them disregarding the fact that their existence made everything better for the top order casts which initially invaded the lands long time ago, suppressed and brainwashed the indigenous in a horrendous manner that every child that was born into the tribe was hardwired to be oppressed, dissociated from the fact that all humans have equal rights.
British ethnographers conceived of caste as a quantifiable ethnographic entity with measurable characteristics such as endogamy, commensality rules, fixed occupation, and standardized ritual practices. (Francisco,2003). The initiation and formalization of colonial ethnography in British India between 1860s to 1930s deflected the Indological discourse from Orientalism to 'Scientific racism'.(Mohan, p827,2002). This practice led the imperial higher officials to gather insight about Indian identities based on caste and religious systems to support them exploit the inhumane system for their benefit and use it as a tool for their divide and rule policy. The intervention of colonial-administrations turned ethnographers such as James Wise, Herbert Risley, E. Thurston, Denzil Ibbetson, J.H Hutton and L.S.S.O.' Malley was decisive in constructing and freezing the identities of individuals and communities. (Mohan, p827,2002).
Initially, the ethnographic studies of India began as British were very excited about these already existing complex forms of communities and kinship called casts. Their thirst to provide a consolidated understanding of this system was needed to justify their colonial presence. Their caste theory became the keystone to colonial social information about India. The problems with this began as their urge to form a theory based on their belief. Their perception had flaws as they thought many of the characteristics of these social entities quantifiable. Their understanding was that attributes such as endogamy, commensality rules, fixed occupation, and standardized ritual practices were measurable. Doing so, they managed to oversimplify and mix up what was a goliath-sized complex structure of society.
Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1909) by Edgar Thurston was one of the ethnographic works that had its massive reception to the western world. Edgar Thurston, along with his assistant K Rangachari, managed to cover several images to represent various communities and casts. They covered events, occupations and peculiar things like body modifications. Only a handful of the castes and subcastes listed in the work are accompanied by photographs, presumably only those castes that were either especially important or unusual to the British. (Francisco,2003). This bias existed as they satisfied the exotic interest of British observers. The cast's which believed that had the upper hand was documented more, and much vital information about the rest got discarded in order to do so. Thurston's desire to classify the general social and political climate of India, also with the British ruler's interest in tidying up the Indian social groups for the ease of their divide and rule policy, in effect caused Indians to become more conscious about the caste. Taking Fig.1 and its description followed as an example, Thurston had presumptions about what he was going to document, rather than studying the cultures by himself. Fig.1 is a photograph of a member of the Kadir community climbing a tree. Kadir's or Kadans inhabit the Anaimalai or elephant hills, and the great mountain range which extends thence southward into Travancore. (Thurston, p6, 1909).
As described by Thurston, I have it on authority that, like the Kotas of the Nilgiris, the Kadirs will eat the putrid and fly-blown flesh of carcases of wild beasts, which they came across in their wanderings (Thurston, p17, 1909), Kadir's are perceived as primitive by leaving assumptions rather than providing the actual evidence.
Fig.1 Rangachari, Kadir Tree - Climbing
Herbert Hope Risley, a colonial administrator, turned ethnographer, did an elaborate study on caste and religion, titled The people of India, published in 1908.
Risley Argued that it was the body itself that demonstrated its caste identity: the external surfaces of Indian bodies were objectified and made to bear the weight of the group identity. Accordingly to his theory, castes were 'races', separate populations within the population, and their bodies testified to their different genetic constitutions. (Pinney, p62, 1997).
Therefore, normalising an already existing unbalanced social structure. Risley, in his book, reproduced Tosco Peppe's Juang Girls (Fig.2) photograph, which was initially used in Edward T. Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal, India's very first official work of Ethnology. The girls in the photograph evident from their expression had been hesitant and uncomfortable to pose. Dalton's accompanying description reads;
Mr Peppe had immense difficulty in inducing these wild timid creatures to pose before him, and it was not without many a tear that they resigned themselves to the ordeal. (Dalton,155,1872). Dalton did not reveal the reason for their discomfort, although perceiving them as 'wild, timid creatures are unscrupulous and misleading.
Fig.2 Peppe`,1872, Juang Girls
In an Indian context, the representation of India as a hierarchy of trades is perhaps best exemplified by the work of Sergeant Wallace of the Royal Engineers, who photographed in Mirzapur District in the 1890s. (Pinney, p62, 1997). His images were used by William Crooke, for his multi-volume book 'The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh'.
Fig.3 Wallace, Dom, 1896
Fig.3, titled Doms, is presented with a weapon associated with their 'caste occupation.' Crooke, in his book, classifies occupation based on caste structure, along with photographs of members of each caste holding their tool as visual identification. In the context of Crooke's work these images assume a very nuance, for Crooke vigorously argued against Risley's claim a few years earlier that caste was the result of the genetic isolation of groups. (Pinney, p62, 1997). This type of classification based on occupation and caste has been still treated as an untouched cocoon, even after hundreds of civil reforms have passed.
During the initial days of the British East India Company's rule, caste privileges and customs were encouraged, but the British law courts began to disagree with the discrimination against the lower castes (Alavi, p5, 1995). However, British policies of divide and rule contributed towards the hardening of caste identities (Corbridge and Harriss, p8, 2000).
British ethnographic studies were creating more difficulties on top of what castes were already ingesting to the culture on this overpopulated and socially unequal landmass. This Caste system made sure everyone remained and faced the same social status and occupation from birth to death. To this party, Ethnographers began to explain scientifically how each cast was different. Based on assumptions, guidance and exotic interests from the top tier, they documented, labelled, staged and sold this incomprehensible form of culture to the western world who were unaware and alien to this socio-political form of lives.