Hi Indians - could you please tell me a bit more about your Caste system?

Question

In a modern India (and I know you guys are coming ahead in big ways in commerce and industry), is the Caste system still relevant.

There was much ado recently about 'The Untouchables' and the bias that they face with regards to securing certain positions.

Do these prejudices still apply and to what level?

Thanks for your input

Answer 1

hi, i am a sikh from punjab, india, In india you will find basically 2 kinds of people, educated and uneducated, the latter group still believes in caste system. but educated people don't believe. but unfortunately, most of the people in small villages are still unreachable to good basic education, Like i m from punjab, here people are educated, so no caste system, there have been inter caste marriages which was rare 10 20 years back, now the govt is doing much to make available good education everywhere, but main problem in india is curruption,
so in simple words, there are 70% people who believe in caste system, What can they do , now the govt has introduced quota system for low level castes, govt is providing them a quota in govt institutions and also in private sector, so even govt is not ready to abolish this caste system, but i mus say, people are socially treating eeryone equal... but still some persons like me don't believe in aste system.. INDIA is on right path

Answer 2

Now a days caste system is alive because of reservation quota system. If you belong to lower class , no need to work hard and you will get into a good college , medical school or government job, whatever because of reservation.

Even a guy with negative marks got admission in medical college a few years ago!

Leaders like Paswan flourish on it. Caste system was a class to start with. These days they work as pressure groups in Politics.

People were always same. The caste system allowed movement up and down in early ages. Then it became rigid, then totally currupted as Higher classes started to call themselves higher even without any qualification and did not let anyone else grow.

Kayastha was just a post in Gupta era after all. It did not became a caste till very late. So many other casts .

Some lower classes are actually Rajput decendents. Like Mehatar for one. (Mahattar=greater in Sanskrit). They were soldiers who were forced to clean up **** by Muslims because they refused to convert. They accepted this job instead of conversion and were called Mahatar by rest of community out of respect. Time changes and people tend to forget origin of the words and phrases.

The system was much abused and perverted with time. Throw it away before it does more damage to society. Legaly it is abolished. Untouchabilty disappeared with introduction of simple Railways. Things will improve with changing time if people stop using it for whatever reasons.

Now Make politicians not to use it for their alterior motives. If we could make them stop it will die out.

The Caste system, in present form, goes against the principles and lofty philosophy of Hinduism which considers each soul as potentially divine and eternal.

Caste ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications and thus lost most of its meaning. There is a lot to be said for the caste system - that is what has kept together as a nation for more than 5000 years. But there are many ugly faces to it and those are the things we need to understand and repudiate with all our might while keeping the positive things intact.

According to Prof. C. D. Darlington: "Caste has created and maintained an infinite capacity for toleration and assimilation. " Caste made it possible for the Persians, Greeks, Sythians, Huns, Malays, Christians, Jews and Parsees to be slowly fitted into Hindu society and made it, with the least conflict, into the most diverse community of races in the world.
" It is this marvelous diversity of man in India which has made that country both a museum and a laboratory for the study of man. For this reason the most profound lessons in the study of society have come from India. "

Institutions and practices that lead to the disintegration of society require to be scrapped, however venerable their antiquity may be. Whatever might have been the historical basis for the development of the caste system, it has degraded the great ideal of the ancient Upanishads which affirm that an individual as such is a spark of the spirit, a ray of the Divine.

Saying that I agree with above post that its most misrepresnted system in West. Please, chek out the sites to get a better understanding.

Answer 3

The Caste System or varna-ashrama has been one of the most misrepresented, misinformed, misunderstood, misused and the most maligned aspects of Hinduism.

I am not justifying the Caste system . It should undergo reforms in the social arena so that unjustified discrimination and abuse should be eliminated.

But Castism in Hindu culture was not always abusive NOR it is limited to Hindus only but among Christians and Muslims too.

But get to know it in more details. Chek out the detail at the site given below .
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Caste_System.htm
Rg Veda emphasises equality of all human beings. It goes to the extent of saying, which sounds quite modern: ‘No one is superior, none inferior. All are brothers marching forward to prosperity’ " .

Krishna said , in response to the question— "How is Varna (social order) determined?"

"Birth is not the cause, my friend; it is virtues which are the cause of auspiciousness. Even a candala observing the vow is considered a brahmana by the gods."

The caste system is based on the sound economic principle of division of labor which ensures efficiency of production. A person from his birth knew what profession he was to follow later on. So from the start, he devoted all his energy to the one profession of his forefathers. It was because of this reason that in every period of Indian history, there was no dearth of highly-skilled workers and scholars. Megasthenes, Hieun Tsang, Alberuni, Ibn Batuta, Babar and even the early Britishers were impressed by the talents and artistic skill of the Indians in every art and craft.

Guy Sorman visiting scholar at Hoover Institution at Stanford and the leader of new liberalism in France, states:

"Westerners tend to be perplexed and scandalized by the caste system but they forget that the aristocracy which ruled over Europe for a thousand years was a caste of sorts. The guilds of the Ancient Regime resembled Indian castes as they had existed initially, each caste corresponding to a particular trade." When it comes to marriage, in Europe as in India, one looks for a partner from among one's immediate social circle.

Till the Age of Enlightenment, castes were viewed with interest rather than revulsion. Some French travelers even felt that the caste system had a certain social utility. In 1777, when Desvaulx (1745 - 1825) wrote in his book:

"Indians are as attached to their caste as our gentlemen to theirs."

(source: Les indes florissantes - Robert Laffont 1991).

Its also a myth that caste system is followed by Hindus only.

Three groups found in Indian Muslims of Bengal:

Ashraf or better class Muslims – The Sainads, Sheikhs, Pathans, Moghul, Mallik, and Mirza.
Ajlaf or lower caste Muslims – Cultivating Sheikhs, and others who were originally Hindus, Darzi, Jolaha, Fakir, Mallah, Kula Kunjara, Kasai, Kalal, Dhunia, Abdal, Bako, Chamba, Dafali, Dhobi, Hajjan, etc.
Arzal or degraded class – include Bhanar, Halalkhor, Hijra, Kasbi, Lalbegi, Maugta, Mehra.

The same goes for Christianity, according to a 1992 study by a Dalit Jesuit, the Rev. Antony Raj, showing separate chapels, cemeteries and Communion ceremonies for Dalits in southern Tamil Nadu state, and a bar on their becoming altar boys and lectors.
Upper caste Syrian Christians advertise specifically for their own types in matrimony, as do other Christians. Goans and other Indian Christians still refer to themselves as Bamon (Brahmins), Bhandaris, Kolis, Prabhus, etc.

Where there is Man, there are social divisions -- some institutionalised, some not, some seething under the surface, some not, but all enforced in actual social interaction. That's why you have the Boston Brahmins in the US, the Zaibutsu in Japan, Parisian aristocracy, the Communist Party of China, and what have you.

Legaly , Caste system in India has been abolished . In Practice its alive only because politics and reservation quota in jobs system.

Answer 4

Hi Paleface.

Answer 5

What kind of indians like there is hopi, navajo, and ALOT more

Answer 6

I am unable to answer your question. Good luck though.

Answer 7

The leaders of independent India decided that India will be democratic, socialist and secular country. According to this policy there is a separation between religion and state. Practicing untouchability or discriminating a person based on his caste is legally forbidden. Along with this law the government allows positive discrimination of the depressed classes of India.

The Indians have also become more flexible in their caste system customs. In general the urban people in India are less strict about the caste system than the rural. In cities one can see different caste people mingling with each other, while in some rural areas there is still discrimination based on castes and sometimes also on untouchability. Sometimes in villages or in the cities there are violent clashes which, are connected to caste tensions. Sometimes the high castes strike the lower castes who dare to uplift their status. Sometimes the lower caste get back on the higher castes.

In modern India the term caste is used for Jat and also for Varna. The term, caste was used by the British who ruled India until 1947. The British who wanted to rule India efficiently made lists of Indian communities. They used two terms to describe Indian communities. Castes and Tribes. The term caste was used for Jats and also for Varnas. Tribes were those communities who lived deep in jungles, forests and mountains far away from the main population and also communities who were hard to be defined as castes for example communities who made a living from stealing or robbery. These lists, which the British made, were used later on by the Indian governments to create lists of communities who were entitled for positive discrimination.

The castes, which were the elite of the Indian society, were classified as high castes. The other communities were classified as lower castes or lower classes. The lower classes were listed in three categories. The first category is called Scheduled Castes. This category includes in it communities who were untouchables. In modern India, untouchability exists at a very low extent. The untouchables call themselves Dalit, meaning depressed. Until the late 1980s they were called Harijan, meaning children of God. This title was given to them by Mahatma Gandhi who wanted the society to accept untouchables within them.

The second category is Scheduled Tribes. This category includes in it those communities who did not accept the caste system and preferred to reside deep in the jungles, forests and mountains of India, away from the main population. The Scheduled Tribes are also called Adivasi, meaning aboriginals.

The third category is called sometimes Other Backward Classes or Backward Classes. This category includes in it castes who belong to Sudra Varna and also former untouchables who converted from Hinduism to other religions. This category also includes in it nomads and tribes who made a living from criminal acts.

According to the central government policy these three categories are entitled for positive discrimination. Sometimes these three categories are defined together as Backward Classes. 15% of India's population are Scheduled Castes. According to central government policy 15% of the government jobs and 15% of the students admitted to universities must be from Scheduled Castes. For the Scheduled Tribes about 7.5% places are reserved which is their proportion in Indian population. The Other Backwards Classes are about 50% of India's population, but only 27% of government jobs are reserved for them.

Along with the central government, the state governments of India also follow a positive discrimination policy. Different states have different figures of communities entitled for positive discrimination based on the population of each state. Different state governments have different lists of communities entitled for positive discrimination. Sometimes a specific community is entitled for rights in a particular state but not in another state of India.

In modern India new tensions were created because of these positive discrimination policies. The high caste communities feel discriminated by the government policy to reserve positions for the Backward Classes. In many cases a large number of high caste members compete for a few places reserved for them. While the Backward Classes members do not have to compete at all because of the large number of reserved places for them compared to the candidates. Sometimes in order to fill the quota, candidates from the lower classes are accepted even though they are not suitable. Sometimes some reserved positions remain unmanned because there were few candidates from the lower classes causing more tension between the castes. Between the lower castes there are also tensions over reservation.

In the order of priority for a reserved place of the Backward Classes, candidate from the Scheduled castes is preferred over a candidate from the Scheduled Tribes who is preferred over a candidate from the other Backward Classes. As stated earlier Other Backward Classes are about 50% of India's population but only 27% of the Other Backward Classes are entitled for positive discrimination according to central government policy. Some Other Backward Classes communities are organizing politically to be recognized as Backward Classes entitled for positive discrimination.

The Scheduled Tribes who are seen as the aborigins of India got ownership and certain rights over Indian land. Many communities in India claim also to be aborigins of India and they are claiming the same rights as the Scheduled Tribes.

The caste identity has become a subject of political, social and legal interpretation. Communities who get listed as entitled for positive discrimination do not get out of this list even if their social and political conditions get better. In many cases the legal system is involved to decide if a certain person is entitled for positive discrimination.

But with all this positive discrimination policy, most of the communities who were low in the caste hierarchy remain low in the social order even today. And communities who were high in the social hierarchy remain even today high in the social hierarchy. Most of the degrading jobs are even today done by the Dalits, while the Brahmans remain at the top of the hierarchy by being the doctors, engineers and lawyers of India.


But now in year 2006 their is no opportunities for higher caste in government job becuase of the reservation for SC,ST, OBC.
Now condition is reversed.