What is the view of self in the Indian Caste system?

Question

I'm asking this as a philosophy question. No politics please.

Answer 1

The view of self is very different than in western cultures. And this view has been widely accepted before the western influences.
Hindu culture is based on a religion(hinduism) that is a mixture of the Indo-Aryan nomad's religion(polyteism) and the local religions (mostly animism.)
Since the nomad culture had a better developed language, and therefore more organized, they became the more dominant subclass. Since they had lighter skin, they were able to better differentiate between members of the different subclasses.
The religion that came to be from the mixture of these two types of culture, is a religion that is based upon reincarnation. It could be debated that this element of the religion might have been 'created' or evolved in order for the suppressed class to have hope in a better life, and to not give up on the current one. Or another approach might be that the dominant class inserted this element into the religion to have control over the suppressed class.
Now, the fact that there haven't been too much organized uprisings between the different casts, is an indication that the belief in reincarnation and the perpetuation of "self" into another life has been a very strong one. This belief has been 'shaken' after the presence of the western world. Statistically there has been much more conversions to christian religions in the lower casts that in the upper casts.

To summarize this down: The view of self in the Indian Caste system is very different than the western view. The self is analyzed in the context of many lifetimes. The belief in the reincarnation keeps the lower caste members functioning because 1.) They have hope, and 2.) There are elements of the idea of Karma, which is behavior that is exceptable in the religion (and practical in the society) If the person behaves properly, or better, then he/she might get reincarnated into a higher caste individual.

This is all I know. I studied this in a college level course. Hopefully it helps...and it makes sense. *


* I write this at 1:30AM, and English is not my first language, and it's not my second either. :)

Answer 2

It depends on what caste is viewed from.