It was customary to rank the four varnas as follows: the Brahmins, or priests, at the top; the Kshatriyas, or warriors, next; the Vaishyas, or merchants (Gandhi’s own caste), third; the Sudras, or peasants and labourers, fourth, with a fifth class, that of the ‘untouchables’, literally beyond the pale. However, in Gandhi’s (rather revisionist) view, ‘the caste system is not based on inequality, there is no question of inferiority, and so far as there is any such question arising…the tendency should undoubtedly be checked. But there appears to be no valid reason for ending the system because of
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