Is casteism system a religious or political evil?

Question

It looks as if caste system were created in most backward socities of some countries.The caste system was arranged in such a way that it serve the ruling class at the top in realising the total exploitation of a society. Some people from a society were picked up to define the caste rules and group of such people was fooled enough by providing it an unreal upper status but this class of people was also deprived of the right to property in the name of God and religion. The other classes like that of farmers was satisfied to find that atleast some poor people were still below them in social rank so there was a justification for getting exploited at the hands of upper classes.And ruling class, probably people who initially had no knowledge of anything, the most brave kind to protect against the wild, ferocious animals. Later enforced the caste sustem in the than most backward societies of world. Is casteism a religious or political evil?

Here in west it is totally diffrent and is based on division of work unlike division of humans in some Asian countries. It is learnt that caste in Asian countries is determined on the basis of people's origin from the organs of an illusive figure. It is also learnt that that illusive figure has no worship place in its name becouse of its bad character. If something of a bad character can decide the caste of people than this world can be saved only by an entity of good character. And if a society has unholy, dishonest and unjust foundation than it is bound to suffer at each step. It has probably been proved in history of the world that wrong doing societies have always suffered at the hands of spiritually better people. It is purely based on unetrhical, dishonest and beastly instincts which could not be changed even after facing a very very shameful past for a number of centuries.

It very easy to correlate and compare certain things with great kind of things rather than attain actual greatness. People are probably expert in securing and fradulently put claims on illusive, unreal superiority by unholy means and deceiving tactics. But what has been the net gain, just increase in numbers of beggars from top to bottom (all in the name of fate and god), increase in numbers of dishonest and characterless people from to to bottom, increase in numbers of brothels becouse attrocities on woman forced them to surrender totally to the beastly and unholy instincts of the holy people. The system of casteism is another name of Federation of United State but diffrent states of the undivided state of casteism has no equal status, no individual dignity, no equal rights and are just like diffrent prisioners camps. And it very disgraceful to learn many of the states of the Casteism are worst than the worst kind of prisons in the world.

Answer 1

Hey your bias is showing. Get over false superiority claims.
Caste was not based on division of human race.

In 1452 Pope Nicholas V authorized Portugese to abduct blacks from Africa and force them into slavery. Dum Diversas, a bull authorising the Portuguese to reduce any non-Christians to the status of slaves, was issued by Papal authorities. All black people were depicted as the descendants of biblical Cain who killed righteous Abel and was later banished by thier father to Africa. This invented legend gave Christians needed theological justification to abduct and enslave blacks. Bible is full of verses supporting slavery.

You forgot that conveniently...

Caste system is the most maligned and misrepresented system in West. Its based on class and profession. Each caste had its own rich and poor.

Humans are still divided in west . Whats up with that Italian, Jews, Patels, Mexicans, doctors, Clergy, missionaries, Jw, software professionals.... With all those labour unions and stereotypes? All these groups and this divison acts just like caste divison.

How many of you prefer mixed marriages and how many of upper class people will share their lunch with janitors.

Caste system was not static earlier. But any system gets currupted with time.Cast system got worse during Muslim rule. Again by people desperatly trying to retain whatever they could. They were more concentrated on survival than cleaning up their ancient system. Caste became more rigid than ever.

Hinduism has seen too many ups and downs. And Constant invasions did not help. The situation got worse with Islamic attacks which started as early as 715 AD.

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 .

Most of the outsiders came in India as soldiers. They were easily put under Kshatriya class. And retained their unique identity and customs under it as a subcaste.

It was a social system specially suited to a country like India, which history has made into a warehouse of civilizations, and a couloir and cul-de-sac of diverse people and cultures."


Caste gave them freedom to retain their identity. Hinduism is assimilative and generously at that . Unlike Abrhamic culture which forces even natives to kick their own customs and beliefs out. Thats called spiritual and Cultural racism.

Castes like Kayastha were just an administrative post in 4th century.

Its place in the 4 varna system is still ambigoius. In Bengal it was declared Shudra. while in other states its Kshatriya.

The earliest reference to the four classes is described as having sprung from the body of the creative spirit, from his head, arms, thighs, and feet. This indicates that just as in a human body, the different organs perform different functions so also in human society different people must perform different functions, according to their predominant traits or temperament.

This poetical image is intended to convey the organic character of society. Man is not only only himself, but is in solidarity with all of his kind. Man is not an abstract individual. He belongs to a certain social group by virtue of his character, behavior, and function in the community.

And all parts of body are important. You will be crippled if you ignore or mistreat any of them.

No other civilization saw, appreciated, and classified so precisely the full spectrum of human personality types…an achievement that has earned for India – the title of the world’s introspective psychologist.

"India identified four such types and once again honored all of them. Likening society to an organism, she pictured Brahmins - its head, Brahmins are intellectuals, their chief delight in art, ideas, and things of spirit generally.

Next come the arms and shoulder of society – its administrative - persons who are talent for getting things done

Next personality type – the artisan or craftsmen – the engineer and the farmer – India likens these people to society’s stomach – for they produce and feed us the things on which life depends.

Finally, manual labor is important too. They are the legs and feet without which society could not run.”

(source: The Mystic's Journey - India and the Infinite: The Soul of a People – By Huston Smith).


Sir Sidney Low (1857-1932) in his book, A Vision of India: with a frontispiece says:

“There is no doubt that it (caste) is the main cause of the fundamental stability and contentment by which Indian society has been braced for centuries against the shocks of politics and the cataclysms of Nature. It provides every man with his place, his career, his occupations, his circle of friends. It makes him, at the outset, a member of a corporate body; it protects him through life from the canker of social jealousy and unfulfilled aspirations; it ensures him companionship and a sense of community with others in like case with himself. The caste organization is to the Hindu his club, his trade union, his benefit society, his philanthropic society. There are no work houses in India, and none are as yet needed. The obligation to provide for kinsfolk and friends in distress is universally acknowledged; nor can it be questioned that this is due to the recognition of the strength of family ties and of the bonds created by associations and common pursuits which is fostered by the caste principle.

Michael Pym wrote : "Caste is the secret of that amazing stability which is characteristic of the Indian social structure. It is the strength of Hinduism. Naturally, it can be abused. The moment a Brahmin treats a sweeper cruelly because he is a sweeper, he departs from his Brahminhood. He becomes a usurper and a social danger. And in due course, he will have to pay for this mistake. Because men are imperfect, and because power is a deadly intoxicant, such abuses may and do occur, but they are not inherent in the institution – they are contrary to its principles, though they may be inherent in the make up of the individual.

Caste in itself is also a protection for the individual, because it permits group action. The reason why a Hindu dreads being outcaste is analogous to the reason why, in England say, a worker would dread being thrown out of his trade union.

-The Power of India - By Michael Pym

Indian civilization survived nearly a thousand year onslaught of Islam. Several other ancient civilizations – like those of Iran (Zorastrian), the Byzantine Empire (Christian) and Central Asia (Buddhist) broke down under the same force over a much shortest period. This shows that they must have lacked a social order capable of protecting their societies.

The so called ‘egalitarian’ Buddhist society lacked the social organization which enabled the Hindu society to survive. It was the same story in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey which were part of the Christian Byzamtine Empire. They lacked the strength and resilience of the Hindu society and succumbed to the Islamic invasion.

Ronald B Inden has pointed out:

"Caste, the Western scholars held, is the type of society characteristic of India, the institution that distinguishes it from the other civilization dominated by caste from the West. The representation of India as a civilization dominated by caste are legion. Caste, considered the essence of Indian civilization, has often been treated as though it were the unchanging agent of the civilization, from the rise of the Indus Valley culture and the arrival of the Aryans down to the present day of regionalism and caste in electoral politics. It is, thus, deeply embedded in Indological discourse. Many of the more recent accounts of caste have dropped the racialist discourse, but they have not broken with the notion that caste is a unique type of society, one that displaces the economically oriented politics of the West. Accounts of caste can and have been used as a foil to build up the West’s image of itself."

.....a better understanding of it, if it were recognized that the caste system has never been totally static, that it is adapting itself to today’s changing circumstances and that it has positive as well as negative aspects. The caste system provides security and a community for millions of Indians. It gives them an identity that neither Western Science nor Western thought has yet provided, because caste is not just a matter of being a Brahmin or a Harijan: it is also a kinship system. The system provides a wider support group than a family: a group which has a social life in which all its members participate."

According to V. A. Smith, most of the misunderstanding on the subject of caste system has arisen from the persistent mistranslation of Manu's term "Varna" as caste, whereas it should be rendered class or order or by some equivalent term.

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).

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.

Why The Britishand Evangelicals Hated the Brahmins :

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".

Conversion of the heathens of India, as the missions painfully discovered, did not depend so much on winning the allegiance of the prince or the king as it did on converting the Brahmins.

This attack was born out of the inability of Christianity to gain a serious foothold in the Indian society. The ‘red race’ was primitive – it could be decimated; the ‘blacks’ were backward – they could be enslaved; the ‘yellow’ and the ‘brown’ were inferior – they could be colonized. But how to convert them? One would persecute resistance and opposition. How to respond to indifference? The attitude of these heathens towards Christianity, it is this: indifference. "

The great empire-builders, the Nandas, the Mauryas and the Guptas, were according to low-born.

In special cases individuals and groups changed their social class. Visvamitra, Ajamidha and Puramidha were admitted to the status of the Brahmin class, and even composed Vedic hymns. Yaska, in his Nirukta, tells us that of two brothers, Santanu and Devapi, one becomes a Ksatriya king and the other a Brahmin priest. Kavasa, the son of the slave girl Ilusa, was ordained as a Brahmin priest. Janaka, a ksatriya by birth, attained the rank of a Brahmin by virtue of his ripe wisdom and saintly character. The Bhagavata tells of the elevation of the ksatriya clan named Dhastru to brahminhood. Even a Sudra, if you do good, you become a Brahmin. (ebhistu karmabhir devi subhair acaritais tatha sudro brahmanatam yati, vaisyah ksatriyatam vrajet.)

We are Brahmin not on account of birth or the performance of rites, not by study or family, but on account of our behavior. (na yonir napisamskaro nasrutam na ca santatih karanani dvijatvasya vrttam eva tu karanam.) ( sarvoyam brahmano loke vrttenaca vidhiyate vrttisthitasu sudropi brahmanatva, mouaccjato – Anusasanaparva.

Even if we are born Sudras. By good conduct we can raise ourselves to the highest status. (sudrayonau hi jatasya sadgunan upastisthatah vaisyatvam labhate brahmam ksatriyattvam tathaiva ca arjave vartamanasya brahmanyam abhijayate – Aranyaparva. )

Patanjali refers to Brahmin kings, and Manu to Sudra rulers. There were Brahmin soldiers in the time of Alexander, as there are today. Shankara held the view that members of all castes can read the sastras. Hindu acaryas denounced the spirit of caste separatism. Vajrasucikopanisad holds that many who were born of non-brahmin women had risen to the rank of Brahmin saints.

"it is the nature of human institutions to degenerate; there is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated. It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications which, once essential, have now come to be subordinate and even immaterial and is determined by the purely material tests of occupation and birth... By this change it has set itself against the fundamental tendency of Hinduism which is to insist on the spiritual and subordinate the material and thus lost most of its meaning. the spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce us to our present condition..."

The institution of caste illustrates the spirit of comprehensive synthesis characteristic of the Hindu mind with its faith in the collaboration of races and the co-operation of cultures. Paradoxical as it may seem, the system of caste is the outcome of intolerance and trust. Though it may now have degenerated into an instrument of oppression and intolerance, though it tends to perpetuate inequality and develop the spirit of exclusiveness, these unfortunate effects are not the central motives of the caste system." "The system of caste insists that the law of social life should not be cold and cruel competition, but harmony and co-operation. Society is not a field of rivalry among individuals. The castes are not allowed to compete with one another."

"Civilization is not the suppression of races less capable of or less advanced in culture by people of higher understanding. God does not give us the right to destroy or enslave the weak and the unfit. One race may not be as clever or as strong as another, yet the highest idealism requires that we should give equality of opportunity even to unequal groups."

" The trail of man is dotted with the graves of countless communities and races which reached an untimely end. But is there any justification for this violation of human life? Have we any idea of what the world loses when one racial culture is extinguished?

Indiscriminate racial amalgamation was not encouraged by the Hindu thinkers. In dealing with the problem of the conflict of the different racial groups, Hinduism adopted the only safe course of democracy, viz., that each racial group should be allowed to develop the best in it without impeding the progress of others. Caste, on its racial side, is the affirmation of the infinite diversity of human groups. In spite of the divisions, there is an inner cohesion among the Hindu society from the Himalayas to the Cape Comorin."
India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of their own differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet at close as the circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism!"

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."

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. The victim is made to feel guilty and hence the 'Hindu shame' I find amongst some Hindus.

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.

It would be better that you do not try to make image of south Asian countries in your image. You have described SAsia in the words which are better describing West.

Its West where blacks and whites have different churches.

Answer 2

They were not backward societies. In the beginning it was not looked upon as a caste system. It was division of labor, People did certain jobs and passed it down to their children. This ensured that people had jobs. Yes, as time went on some people started making it political and religious. Some castes were made more important than others and some castes were pushed way down the ladder.

This goes on in every country. It is only in how you call it. Racism, religious difference, casteism, etc. It is all the same . It is discrimination.

Answer 3

People tend to associate castes only with Hinduism. Cast ism is the system where people are based on the class or caste they were born in, and their merit cannot change it. I notice this more in the USofA than I ever did in India. In India, at least if a person moves away from their place of birth, they can shake away their caste. In the USA a black will always be black and will always be treated as black. They can never escape it. In India people of all castes have been able to occupy positions at all levels. Not in the USA. In India they have had even Presidents from the so called lower castes. In the USA even after more than 225 years of Independence they have never had a black President. Not even a woman from the Caucasian clan.

Answer 4

All religions have an elitist quality. The Catholics use Latin to exclude the uneducated and insist their priests, nuns and brothers cannot marry, ostensibly to keep their marriage to God pure, but actually to prevent the land of the church going to the families of the clergy. The Jews have twelve tribes of Israel, the Cohens being the most revered. No one religion has the market cornered on exclusionary and devisive tactics.

Answer 5

1 result for: casteism
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source new!
caste  /kæst, kɑst/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kast, kahst] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun 1. Sociology. a. an endogamous and hereditary social group limited to persons of the same rank, occupation, economic position, etc., and having mores distinguishing it from other such groups.
b. any rigid system of social distinctions.

2. Hinduism. any of the social divisions into which Hindu society is traditionally divided, each caste having its own privileges and limitations, transferred by inheritance from one generation to the next; jati. Compare class (def. 13).
3. any class or group of society sharing common cultural features: low caste; high caste.
4. social position conferred upon one by a caste system: to lose caste.
5. Entomology. one of the distinct forms among polymorphous social insects, performing a specialized function in the colony, as a queen, worker or soldier.
–adjective 6. of, pertaining to, or characterized by caste: a caste society; a caste system; a caste structure.


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[Origin: 1545–55; < Pg casta race, breed, n. use of casta, fem. of casto < L castus pure, chaste]

—Related forms
casteism, noun
casteless, adjective

Answer 6

We have a de facto caste system in America based on socioeconomic class...and people move relatively easily between these classes or castes. The problem with the caste systems elsewhere is the rigidity of the castes.

Answer 7

Caestism is definately rooted in the society....but nowadays caestism has even come in the politics. some ppl want their own community 2 rise and hence they form political parties on communal basis and disintegrate the society...... but caestism is def. socialistic in nature...like amongst hindus we had
Bhramanas
Kshatriyas
Vaishyas
Shudrahs

Answer 8

Is that the words of God?
Or words of the past dirty old men with blunders and slip-ups with human errors in misinterpretation and miscommunication with communication failures and communication break-down among the community on planet earth.
The ghost stories created by past living human kind like you and me who made blunders and slip-ups with human errors on planet earth.

Answer 9

Is this a research project or something for school? I'm sorry, I must have ADD today, because I couldn't focus enough to read your question.....

Answer 10

crowd control under the guise of religion. You just figured out hinduism

Answer 11

I dont like to read so I'll have to say....."Sometimes..."