“Taste of Their Own Medicine”: Indian Netizens Call Out China’s ‘Caste System’ to Hit Back at CCP-Sponsored Propaganda

Key Points:

INDIAN SOCIAL MEDIA has struck a nerve for the Chinese Communist Party as the netizens drew comparisons between China’s historical hierarchical divide and India’s caste system. 

The ancient China’s Shi-Nong-Gong-Shang system divided people based on four occupations, which Indian netizens thought was similar to India’s varna system. The divide in Chinese society gets more complicated under the modern hukou system of the Communist regime, which correlates access to public benefits with people’s birthplace.

However, when Indian netizens called out the obvious comparisons, media backed by the Chinese Communist Party started their counter narrative. CCP mouthpiece Global Times has reacted strongly by doing a dedicated story defending China’s image.

Shi-Nong-Gong-Shang System: Ancient Chinese Division

The social divide in Chinese society is a little more complex that can be regarded as just one caste system. The ancient Chinese social hierarchy known as Shi-Nong-Gong-Shang, and the modern hukou household registration system forms the basis of the dispute online.

The ancient Chinese society was divided into four occupations that formed the basis of their social hierarchy. They were: Shi (scholars and officials), Nong (farmers), Gong (artisans and craftsmen), and Shang (merchants and traders).

According to historical records, the system was established during the late Zhou dynasty and later formalised by the Han dynasty around 2nd century CE. The hierarchy was based on occupations of individuals. 

Scholars and officials (Shi) were seen as guardians of morality, placing them at the top of the hierarchy. Farmers (Nong) came after that as they were seen as essential for survival. Artisans (Gong) were placed third in this system as they possessed skilled labour to make goods and tools. And the lowest class of occupation were merchants (Shang) because Chinese Confucian thinkers were adverse to profit-seeking.

Chinese scholars and historians are against the idea to equate the Shi-Nong-Gong-Shang with the caste system. They claim it wasn’t a hereditary order and was just an occupational and ideological classification.

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Communist Party’s Modern Hukou System

While Shi-Nong-Gong-Shang wasn’t meant to divide people based on birth, the communist era’s hukou system— a household registration regime— was seen to be much more rigid. It divided people into two sects based on where they were born and gave the urban-born residents more privileges.

Hukou is often described as an internal passport system, dividing citizens as rural and urban residents. It often restricted large-scale migration from rural to urban areas without formal permission. The communist also determined citizen’s access to public benefits like education, healthcare, housing, and social welfare. The Urban group received far more state benefits, while rural dwellers, who relied on farming, only had control over collective farmlands.

Author Aravindan Neelakandan, in his book A Dharmic Social History of India, states that China’s hukou system was the first divide in the communist era that brought the ‘birthplace’ rights into the picture. Neelakandan argues that the system was heavily biased against the rural farmers, who can also be classified as peasants in the traditional societies.

From 1959 onwards, Chinese society, as  result of the hukou system, became largely hereditary, making mobility out of where you were born extremely difficult. Works of anthropologists Sulamith Potter and Jack Potter—who studied Chinese society’s evolution under Mao’s philosophy—specifically calls the hukou system a “caste-like barrier” that tied peasants down to the place they were born. 

As a result the city dwellers got the most benefits, making this divide unfair for those born in rural families. In his paper, The Chinese Urban Caste System in Transition, Presidential Chair Professor and Dean at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen uses the term “urban caste system” to describe the after effects of the hukou system. Shenzhen claims that the system of dividing people on the basis of their residence took away access to public benefits from half of the population.

Indian Netizens vs CCP Media

Despite these comparisons from the experts, when Indian social media users pointed out that China has their own version of the “caste system,” Chinese people and state-sponsored media became defensive.

One user from Hong Kong wrote on X, “Anti-India sentiment on the Chinese internet appears to have reached a new high. Recent India origin claims that China has a "caste system", including attempts to reinterpret the old classification of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, have had almost no persuasive effect in China. They reveal a basic problem: people often understand unfamiliar societies through the categories that structure their own world.”

Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, cleared CCP’s image by defending the hukou system and the history of China’s class divide.

While speaking to Global Times, Zhang Yiwu, a professor at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University, said, “They are entirely different concepts. It is hilarious to see the arguments as if they've discovered some devastating secret. The ancient concept of Shi, Nong, Gong and Shang was simply an occupational order, not a hereditary caste system. Apparently, some Indian netizens lack basic knowledge about China's historical culture.”

Reacting to Global Times’s story, Indian users point out how the Chinese couldn’t handle, “the taste of their own medicine.”  One user wrote, “Turns out that some 'enterprising' Indian netizens, facing anti-propaganda by CCP bots for years, have taken it upon themselves to deliver a slight pushback. Seems CCP's pants are on fire.”

Another user fired back, “Chinese people got pissed after just two days of tasting their own propaganda medicine, and here we go...Chinese state-backed media had to come to the rescue… They're so intolerant that they can't even handle Indians online, let alone fight us in a war on grounds.” Many Indian users on the internet saw this as a justified reaction after years of smear campaign and Anti-India propaganda from Chinese media.

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