eli5: What is the “caste” system in India
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the belief that people are born and belong in certain groups (castes) and their social standing and jobs they can take are based on those castes.
According to their work,the sage ‘Manu’ divided people into four classes/varnas: Brahmin, kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra.
Brahmins are the priest class,
Kshatriya are the ruling class/kings,
vaisyas are the traders or farmers and
Shudras are the labours.
All castes come under these four varnas/classes.
It’s based on the Hindu faith. They believe in reincarnation, so if a person is born to the lowest caste, used to be called Untouchables, but they prefer Dalits, Hindus believe that their low social.syanding is punishment for what they did in a past life, so it’s okay to treat them like garbage.
If a person is born into one of the upper caste families, they did something good in a past life and they deserve to get the best of everything.
The Indian government has been trying to fix discrimination against Dalits, Gandhi was an advocate for them, but thousands of years of cultural history die hard. Dalits have the worst jobs, least access to education and are more likely to have crimes against them go unpunished.
There’s a much longer answer but it kinda just boils down to another reason for one person to oppress another and feel good about themselves while doing it
Same concept as racism (which the caste system also supports on many ways)
Okay. Simple explanation.
Caste is the basic unit of social division in India. It was initially just a classification of people based on their occupation. For the first thousand years or so, people could move around between castes based on what occupation they chose.
In the later Vedic period, documents like Manuamriti locked the caste system and made it a blood based social aggregation.
It is the foundational social unit of Indian society. It has its origins in Hindu society but is NOT limited to Hindus today.
The Hindus who converted to other religions kept their caste. So today you have caste among Muslims and Christians in India too.
It is an endogamous unit. It means that it is sustained by only marrying between your caste.
In the Varna system, and with the laws of Manu, the caste system has been organized into a hierarchy of 4 groups. The Brahmins- priests and knowledge workers at the top, the Kshatriyas – warriors at no. 2, the Vaishya – traders at no. 3, and Shudras – manual laborers at the bottom.
Then outside the caste system, you have those formerly known as the untouchables, now called Dalit or Bahujan. Where you have caste, you will have the outcaste. A people without caste. The lowest of the low.
The caste system used to work in a carrot and stick model. If you play by the rules, you prosper within your caste, and if you don’t, then you lose your caste and become an untouchable- an outcaste.
Resistance against the caste system has been brewing in different forms for hundreds of years. Sikhism was in many ways a response against the caste system. Although Sikhs carry the caste bias as well today.
Today. Representation, affirmative action for the historically marginalized castes has been written into the constitution and using caste slurs is a sure shot way to go to jail. Today, it’s like race in America.
It’s been invisibilized in law and no one will say it out loud. But you can feel it’s presence in legacy institutions, land ownership patterns, access to Healthcare, education, wealth, everything.
Effect of democracy.
Our Constitution was written by a Dalit man and the Constitution is the principle anti-caste document of India. It is a remarkable progressive document that dreams of a new people.
In practice, like race in America, Indian politics has not moved beyond caste, it has moved into caste. Identity politics, token representation, and sharing of power has become more common. For example the current president of India is a Dalit man but there continue to be hate crimes against Dalits and there is a lack of proportional representation among CEOs, academics and businessmen.
It’s a glass half fullhalf empty kinda situation.
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