As a second-generation immigrant from an Urdu-speaking family based in Karachi, I thought that we had left our caste shackles behind when we left rural Bihar, first for Calcutta and Dhaka and then Karachi. I also mistakenly believed that caste was an issue only among Hindus. Rural Sindh proved me wrong, though, where the first question that one typically gets asked is about one's caste – the answer to which can immediately define your social, political, economic and even spiritual standing.
The first few times I was asked about my caste, I was perplexed. Then I decided to try an experiment. At one house in a village near Mirpur Bathoro, in Thatta district a few hours' drive northeast of Karachi, one of the children had proudly announced that he knew Urdu, and was thus promptly put to work as a translator between myself and the women of the household. 'Ask her about her caste,' said one of the matriarchs in her 50s. 'I'm a Bheel,' I lied, and my response was promptly relayed to the rest of the room. The children looked on, their mouths little O's of shock, while some of the women gasped audibly. Bheels are scheduled-caste Hindus, while my hosts were Muslims. The difference was so real that it felt a living, breathing creature, which had suddenly sucked the warmth out of the room.
This infatuation with caste pervades rural Sindh as a whole, and is not restricted to any particular social or economic stratum. Once, I stayed in Thatta city with the wife of a local political leader. She was a quiet, urbane woman in her mid-20s; a schoolteacher by profession, who spoke perfect Urdu, watched Bollywood movies and loved soap operas. But after 20 minutes of talking about inflation and the prices of meat and vegetables came the inevitable question: my caste. Her reaction to my response ('I'm Jatoi') was dramatically different from the reaction I got when I told the other family that I was Bheel. Many Jatois are, after all, large landowners, and are considered a privileged caste – and they're Muslim. If I had really wanted the woman to swoon, I could have told her that I was a Syed – a direct descendent of Muhammad, and a caste held in extremely high esteem in rural Sindh.
Despite the seeming deep-rootedness of caste shackles, as economics takes over rural customs, barriers of caste are wearing thin. Some say that they are still not thin enough though, because Dalits continue to be relegated to the lowest social rung. But more often though, today it is one's social standing within a caste that defines one's level of privilege. Not all Bhuttos, for instance, can afford mansions in Surrey or send their children to Oxford and Harvard. Similarly, not all Jatois are large-scale landowners, and many men from these clans take on menial jobs outside the biraderi in order to supplement earnings from moderate landholdings.