When and where did the system of castes originated in the world?

Question

Caste system is termed to be an unholy institution. Which religions propagate such unholy concepts and whether such unholiness disqualify the propagating religious system from the list of true religions of God.
How many countries have a birth based caste sytem like that prevailing in some countries of South Asia? Where did the system originated. What is the relevance and uses/misuses and merits/demerits of caste system? Is caste sytem another name of aparthied? If so, is there any provision in UN Charter to label a country (for the purpose of possible corrective measures) which directly or indirectly (through deliberative actions of the administrative machinery eventhough they pretend to safeguard intrests of vulnerable sections} promote caste based discriminations in real life of the people?

Answer 1

The caste system in ancient times was not static. Castes rose and fell. Castes became static and rigid during extended foreign rule. Under Muslim rule, some caste groups that fought against domination were pushed to the outer edges of the social system. Among the sweeper castes in India, one finds many Rajput gotras.

Cast system got worse during Muslim rule. Again by people desperatly trying to retain whatever they could.

(Many new lower cast came up. One of them is Mahatar. They were the cast who were made to carry poop. If you take notice you will find Mahatar means(sanskrit) Betters and they have sharp Rajput features more often than not.They were captives who accepted to do it rather than converting to Islam and thats why early hindus named them mahatar .)



Thinker and author, Ram Swarup writes: "Old India had castes but no casteists; new India have casteists but no worthwhile castes. In old India, all people and castes united in defending the society, in defending temples, Brahmins, cows - still worthy objects of protection by a great and compassionate people and civilization." Caste was not an economic concept or organization; it was social and cultural. Castes became static and depressed during the period of protracted foreign rule. Under foreign domination the status of every community became depressed and those on the margin or those who offered persistent resistance became more depressed."
(source: On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup p. 30).


Caste system is legally abolished. Anybody can do any job and do whatever they want to do for a living. If an upper caste person even calls a Chamar, a Chamar he will go to jail without bail option.

Is it still present ? In a way yes. But not in the way, it is projected by missioneries or the likes.

The lower castes get reservation in school, colleges even technical and medical colleges. They do get reservations in Government jobs (Round 67%) and private secter is being pressurised to do so.

It is very profitable today is one belongs to lower caste. So much so that even converts to Christianity still keep their caste lebel with them. Ever heard of Dalit christian? Yes. they exist and are asking for reservation calling themselves lower castes.

Christian population is ,more than christians accept in India. For many lower caste converts do not tell they are Christian in sensus. They will loose benefits of being lower caste is they do.

Caste based politics has destroyed Bihar and UP. Leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh or Paswan are in power just because they have enormous support among their castes . Lower castes have more children. Upper classes a small families. So while their population increasing higher castes are reducing .

In democratic system population means vote bank. They are the ones calling shots. Castes act like pressure groups in Parliament.


Upper caste youth has started looking jobs in private sector in

Communists are exploiting caste system in their own way. They have formed caste based communist parties. in Bihar upper caste people were forced to organise somewhat aggressive attitude ion defence. Communists target upper caste people and kill them.

On the other hand in western India Some castes like Jat still weild power. They have tussels with Jatav (A lower caste) and really do not let them gain much power in political arena.Yet again a Jat is rude in general. He will easily beat up other upper caste persons too. They are like cowboys of US.

Muslim Jats (or Muley Jats) of Uttar Pradesh were one with Hindu Jats when it came to their abhorrence for Harijans and Dalits. In Punjab today there is an open confrontation between Jat Sikhs and Dalit Sikhs. In many villages there are two Gurdwaras - one for Jat Sikhs and the other for Dalit Sikhs.

In general the condition of Brahmans is really bad in South. Most of them complain of really mean behaviour. A punjabi friend of mine married a south Indian Brahman. She went to visit her in laws in Chennai. when she returned that one day it was evening when they were returning home and there was a small gathering of lower caste people. Her husband asked her to hide Mangal Sutra. It had typical shape and their caste could be recognised by it. He told her that if that group spotted it they would know they were brahmans and would be in trouble.

I am sure if politicians can be made to put their hands away from caste politics it will vanish on its own.

Untouchability evaporated more with the introduction of buses and Railways than political movements.

These days A new caste system already coming up . i.e. - MBAs, ITs , Engineers, docters, IAS, Army men....

People in respective jobs prefer to choose life partners in these "castes". People who want working Life Partner do not seek a wife or husband in their birth caste only.

There are some feudes between different castes in villages sometimes. But it is more to do with power and politics today.

Whoever gets a chance takes advantage-be it upper caste or lower.

Foreginers have intentionally and unintenally misunderstood castes eanough times. They interpreted it as slavery, racism and even as a worse system.

I am not defending it. But i also do not think that it was a bad custon to start with.

A most forceful of all is Sri Krishna's statement:
"The devotees of the Lord are not Shudras; Shudras are they who have no faith in the Lord whichever be their caste. A wise man should not slight even an outcaste if he is devoted to the Lord; he who looks down on him will fall into hell." - Mahabharata
(source: The World's Religions - By Huston Smith p. 80).
"There is no superior caste. The Universe is the work of the Immense Being. The beings created by him were only divided into castes according to their aptitude." - Mahabharata, Shanti Parva, 188

"All mankind is one family." (Hitopadesh; Subhashita Ratna Bhandagare).
Sage Vyasa, a Brahmin sage and the most revered author of the major Hindu scriptures, was the son of Satyavati, a low caste woman. Vyasa's father, Sage Parasara, had fallen in love with Satyavati, a fisherwoman, and had married her. Vyasa's deep knowledge of the Vedas later determined the caste of Vyasa as Brahmin sage, and not his birth to a low caste-woman.
Sage Valmiki, the celebrated author of of the epic, Ramayana, was a low caste hunter. He came to be known as a Brahmin sage on the basis of his profound knowledge of the scriptures and his authorship of the Ramayana.
Sage Aitareya, who wrote the Aitareya Upanishad and was born of a Shudra woman.
Rishi Parashar, the famous law-giver was the son of a Chandala, the lowest of the Sudras.
Rishi Vasishta was the son of a prostitute, but honored as a sage.
Sage Vidura, a Brahmin sage who gave religious instruction to Kind Dhritarashtra, was born to a low caste woman servant of the palace. His caste as a Brahmin sage was determined on the basis of his wisdom and knowledge of Dharma Shastras (scriptures).

Chandragupta Maurya was from the Muria tribe, which used to collect peacock (mor) feathers; Samrat Ashok was the son of a daasi.
Saint Thiruvalluvar who wrote Thirukural was only a weaver. Other saints were adored including Kabir, Sura Dasa, Ram Dasa and Tukaram came from the humblest class of Hindu society.

In the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira defines a Brahmin as one who is truthful, forgiving, and kind.
"a Sudra is not a Sudra by birth alone-nor a Brahmana is Brahmana by birth alone. He, it is said by the wise, in whom are seen those virtues is a Brahmana. And people term him a Sudra in whom those qualities do not exist, even though he be a Brahmana by birth. "
Says the Mahabharata, in the famous dialogue between Yudhishthira and the Yaksha:
“A man does not become a Brahman by the mere fact of his birth, not even by the acquisition of Vedic scholarship; it is good character alone that can make one a Brahman. He will be worse than a Shudra if his conduct is not in conformity with the rules of good behavior.”

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.
Sorman further said: "The authority of the caste is a check on the possible abuse of their power by the princes." There has never been a central authority capable of imposing a single language, religion or way of life on the myriad castes that constitute India.
It is for this very reason that in the past the Muslim and British conquerors and prozelytisers have had to curtail their ambitions.

" India, is the only great civilization not to have been devoured by the West." says Guy Sorman.
Caste system has also made Indians completely immune to the totalitarian temptations. Overturning Western prejudice, Guy Sorman sees in the caste system and polytheism not a curse but the stuff that forearms Indians against absolutism. It is perhaps thanks to castes, however archaic and oppressive they may be, that India, unlike China, has escaped from totalitarianism and the grip of a single state or a single party. It may be said that the endurance of the Brahmins in India has kept her elite intact, whereas in neighboring China the anti-intellectualism of communist peasants has completely wiped out the intelligentsia of that country. It was the Brahmins who, at the time of British colonization, introduced in India the first notions of public health and modern techniques in agriculture and industry.
Though caste as an ideology is unique to India, the caste spirit, both as a metaphor and social reality, seems widespread. It is the caste system which holds Indians together and has allowed eternal India to endure. Its religious bases was attacked by Islam and Christianity and since the 19th century both Indian and European reformers have not stopped harping on the social ills of the caste system. But nothing, neither socialism nor nationalism nor republican egalitarianism nor any other doctrine of Western origin, has managed to replace it.
(source: The Genius of India - By Guy Sorman ('Le Genie de l'Inde') Macmillan India Ltd. 2001. ISBN 0333 93600 0 p. xiii - 56-58).

"The British were not wrong in their distrust of educated Brahmins in whom they saw a potential threat to their supremacy in India. For instance, in 1879 the Collector of Tanjore in a communication to Sir James Caird, member of the Famine Commission, stated that "there was no class (except Brahmins ) which was so hostile to the English."
"If any community could claim credit for driving the British out of the country, it was the Brahmin community. Seventy per cent of those who were felled by British bullets were Brahmins".

Author Beatrice Pitney Lamb has pointed out:
"Clearly the Indian way of assimilating foreigners - by allowing them to pursue their own customs within some niche of the caste system - has led to greater variety and tolerance within the country than exists in the United States, where immigrants have been assimilated through a school program emphasizing 100 per cent Americanization - and hence, implicitly, the rejection of inherited cultural roots."

Koenraad Elst points out: " The Buddha never said: “Down with the Brahmins! Break Brahmin tyranny! On the contrary, he taught about how to be a true Brahmin, as against having the outer attributes but not the inner qualities of the Brahmin. Many of his disciples were Brahmins. The myth of Buddhist social revolution against Brahmin tyranny can be disproven on many counts with the Buddha’s own words.”

(source: Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst -

Claude Alvares has written: "The English establishment themselves as a separate ruling caste; like other Indian castes, they did not inter-marry or eat with the lower (native) caste. Their children were shipped off to public schools in England, while they themselves kept to their clubs and bungalows in special suburbs known as cantonments and civil lines."
(source: Decolonizing History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West 1492 to the Present Day - By Claude Alvares p. 191).

Dave Freedholm teaches world religion and philosophy at a nationally recognized independent college preparatory school in the U.S. and a practitioner of Hindu spirituality for some years, says:
'Caste' was used to justify Christian proselytizing and for continued domination over the Indian population, and this continues to be the case today. Also, the ills of contemporary Indian society (poverty, caste, etc.), which were exacerbated in part due to centuries long foreign occupation, exploitation and domination, are blamed primarily on Hindu thought. Thus, some Western scholars, ignoring the historic subversion of Indian society and Hinduism by the West, align themselves with the 'oppressed' against the 'evils' of Hinduism.

Most Christians today (and most scholars of religion) would be scandalized if the feudal system, slavery, capitalist exploitation or anti-Judaism were used to define the essence of Christianity. They would understand these things to be historically and socially bound and not part of Christian universal ideals. In short, descriptions of Christianity in textbooks would distinguish the core or essence of Christian theology from specific social, historical and political contexts. However, Hinduism is not treated in the same way.

Though Catholics of the lower caste and tribes form 60 per cent of Church membership they have no place in decision-making. Scheduled caste converts are treated as lower caste not only by high caste Hindus but by high caste Christians too. In rural areas they cannot own or rent houses, however well-placed they may be. Separate places are marked out for them in the parish churches and burial grounds. Inter-caste marriages are frowned upon and caste tags are still appended to the Christian names of high caste people. Casteism is rampant among the clergy and the religious. Though Dalit Christians make 65 per cent’ of the 10 million Christians in the South, less than 4 per cent of the parishes are entrusted to Dalit priests. There are no Dalits among 13 Catholic Bishops of Tamilnadu or among the Vicars-general and rectors of seminaries and directors of social assistance centres.”

Logically, the term ‘Dalit Christians’ is self-contradictory. How can a person be a ‘Dalit’ when he is a Christian?

Islam speaks of brotherhood. Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Slavery stands abolished by law, but Caste among Muslims has remained. An example one can take a look at the conditions among Bengal Muslims.
The Superintendent of the Census of 1901 for the Province of Bengal records the following interesting facts regarding the Muslims of Bengal:
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.
(source: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches. Reprint of Pakistan or The Partition of India

Ali Anwar, a Muslim author, maintains in his book "War of Equality" that it's a myth that Indian Islam is caste-free. "Neither the Muslims' ruling elite nor the religious leaders have so far made any meaningful efforts to remove the disease of inequality that has made Dalit Muslims suffer for centuries," he writes.
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. Last Christmas Day, more than 250 Christian Dalits were shut out of a Mass in Manjakuppam, a village about 1,100 miles south of New Delhi where caste has long divided Dalits and Vannia, high-caste Hindu converts to Christianity.

The Muslim forward castes, including the Sayyads, have become vocal in demanding reservation for Muslims in Government jobs and educational institutions. The high caste Muslims, or Ashrafs say that if religion-based reservation is not possible then the entire Muslim community should be declared backward and given the benefit of reservation. . Caste-based reservation under Mandal Commission recommendations has been given to both Hindu and Muslim backward classes.
(source: Muslims and reservations - By Sharfuddin Ansari

Higher caste Mastoi tribe in Pakistan
Don't tell me that the vile traditions of Evil Hinduism still exert so much influence on Pakis! According to the last published head-count, in 1991, Pakistan had 1.6% Hindus, while the statistics for 1941 and 1948 are 25% and 17%, respectively. It won't take a genius to surmise that in the last decade, the numbers must have dwindled further. So what's with the "Hindu concept" of caste in that Islamic nation??
I'll tell you what: the caste system never was restricted to Hinduism. 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. There's no truer book written than Animal Farm.
(source: What's Hinduism got to do with it?! - By Varsha Bhosle - rediff.com)
Silence about Pakistan's Dalits

Yoginder Sikand, an expert on Wahabbism, has made a detailed study of the terrible conditions in which more than 2.5 million "Dalits" in Pakistan live, ignored not only by Pakistan's friends the US by India.

"A true telling of "caste-based" behavior of South Asians would show that it cuts across all religious lines, and can be found in churches as well as in masjids. Thus 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.
A recently published book, The Christian Clergy in India, Volume 1: Social Structures and Social Roles, written by sociologists T. K. Oommen and Hunter P. Mabry states that Christianity in India (which represents 2.3 percent of India's one billion citizens) is primarily a "church of the oppressed" with Dalits (low-caste people) accounting for 40 percent of church members, under-developed communities 30 percent, and tribal people 20 percent. Only 10 percent of Christians are from India's powerful upper castes. But the upper castes hold most positions of power in the churches, while the Dalits and under-developed communities are grossly "under-represented" among clergy. Further, a table in the book shows that Dalits and lower castes constitute 70 percent of non-Catholic Christians, but account for only 25 percent of the heads of their churches. But the upper castes, who account for one tenth of non-Catholic Christians, provide 42 percent of church heads, 31 percent of theological teachers and 36 percent of "theologically trained women."
Muslims are also divided according to caste - Sayyads, Ashrafs, Ajlafs, Jolahas, Rajputs, etc. Marriages are disallowed between the high caste Ashrafs, Sayyads, Sheikhs or Pathans and the low caste Ansaris, Kunjras or Qureshis. The founder of the Aligarh Muslim University, Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan, denied backward Muslims entry into AMU and kept its door open only for the Ashrafs. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi wrote a book in which he said that the Sayyads are the highest caste! Dalit Muslims don't even come into the picture as yet."
(source: sulekha.com).

Khushwant Singh himself admits that caste has continued to exist within the Sikh community: “Christian missionaries had….an amount of success in converting Sikhs around Ludhiana. These were mainly Sikhs of lower castes.”

(source: Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam – By Koenraad Elst p. 159.


Dr. Koenraad Elst has pointed out:
"The Buddha never said :"Down with the Brahmins ! Break Brahmin tyranny !" On the contrary, he taught about how to be a true Brahmin, as against having the outer attributes but not the inner qualities of the Brahmin. Many of his disciples were Brahmins.

Just sample these familiar insertions in the Sunday matrimonial pages of any newspaper:

* CSI Nadar Christian invites alliance...
* CSI Adi dravida wants ...
* Roman Catholic ants...except SC/ST..
* Protestant Pillai seeks...
Welcome to the 'casteless' egalitarian world of Christianity.

Is it Christian to attach caste surnames to their Christian names and identify themselves more with the caste than Christ? Is it Christian to allot separate places in the Churches, separate chapels and even separate graveyards for their Dalit bretheren? Is it Christian to deny self-respect to the less privileged members of the congregation? Let us face things. Dalit members are being exploited in every way by the power wielding upper caste Christians. To plead for the Dalits in public posing as their protectors, and to kick them in private has become the order of the day in many Churches."

Some churches have also 'generously' built crucifixes, (miniature churches) in the vicinity of the main church for Dalits to make their appeals to the Creator. A majority of the clergy too belong to upper castes and so the Dalits are treated with scorn.

Carr relates an incident which happened at the church in Tiruppuvanam, near Madurai, in the early 80s. About 200 Hindu Dalits embraced Christianity. On one occasion, a Dalit member 'dared' to handle the offertory bag.
The pastor, who noticed it from the altar, shouted at the man mentioning his caste and demanded to know how dare he touch the offertory. Unable to bear this insult, the Dalit flock walked out and reconverted to Hinduism.

Caste divisions in the church are particularly acute in rural areas like the village of Tutchoor, 60kms from Madras. Here, the upper caste Christians live on one side of the hill, nearer the church. Their religious processions do not pass the Dalits' homes, and they even worship and are buried separately.

Christian churches do practise discrimination even in death, and continue to bury the Dalits in separate cemeteries even today.At least dead Hindus are cremented on the same Ghat !
Dalit Christians threaten to embrace Buddhism

Tiruchi: Dalit Christians attached to the All India Adi Dravidar Parayar Peravai have threatened to convert into Buddhism within two months if the caste ridden Indian Churches do not concede their just demands.
Caste, however, finds its way into most religions in India. Categories like Dalit Christians, Reddy Christians, Nadar Christians continue to matter. Syrian Christians are known to call themselves "originally Brahmin." Moreover, there is discrimination even within the church. For example, in Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirapalli and Palayamkottai districts, there are separate pews and burial grounds for Dalit Christians. The nine-judge Supreme Court ruling in the 1993 Mandal case recognized caste in Christianity.
Alain Danielou says:
"The Hindus assert that their social formula meets the requirements of man’s individual and collective nature. The fact that the Hindu civilization has been able to survive over thousand of years, despite disorders caused by invasions, schisms, and internal wars, and has been capable of constant renewal, as demonstrated by one brilliant period after another, merits all our attention in the study of a social system whose longevity is unique in history."
(source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation : The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India - Alain Danielou p. 29).


The racial origin of caste hypothesis tells us little about India but it does tell us a great deal about the 19th century Westerners who invented the Aryan invasion theory. It was at the same time that Sieyes and Augustin Thierry claimed that the French nobility was of Germanic stock, whereas the lower classes were of Gallic origin; so the 1789 Revolution was a race war rather than a class war! It was also in the 19th century that appeared the myth of the Indo-Europeans being at the source of all Western civilization and for this we have to thank British authors who were taken up with evolutionist theory. Indian historians trained in Europe have fallen victim to this myth but that does not make it any more authentic. Later on, at the beginning of the 20th century, it became fashionable to support the Marxist theory which replaced race with class, though its premises were just as shaky."
(source: The Genius of India - By Guy Sorman

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. "
Caste system is inhuman in its current form and its exploitative aspects must be abolished. 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. Current caste system is something which no Hindu should be proud of. The sooner we get rid of it the better.

Answer 2

Go further back in human development. Before nations, tribes, and even clans. The first grouping of mankind was "family", in which males dominated physically weaker females. Females were property or slaves. But, go even farther back, to before we were human, when the first grouping was "mother/child". What in the primal mother/child human relationship could predispose our species to develop behaviors of domination, slavery, and subjugating systems such as caste? Mother is Big person and child is small person? Mother's in charge/ and child obeys? Mother protects and feeds the child and therefore assumes a sense of ownership of the child? Mother gives life and nourishes that life and has control over another's destiny? Just random thoughts. Good luck.

Answer 3

India

Answer 4

It originated in England and then migrated to India when it was colonized.

Answer 5

It originated in India & traces of it can be found in various relegious books

Answer 6

In India.
You got it, religion.
Run by men.
Are men perfect?
No.
How can you have a system run by men, that is perfect.
Take a look at yourself, are you perfect?

Answer 7

I believe it was in 14th Century (England.)