The Caste System in India (Essay Sample)

The Caste System in India
Students Name
Course
Date
The Caste System in India Today
It is an axiom that any statement made about the Indian nation even in instances where it has the backing of well-grounded facts can be immediately dispelled by equally likely assumptions and countervailing information. This sense of academic argument has been heightened to painfully high levels in the current society and everything is now being brought into the political and public debate. Today, everything from paintings, literature, theater, and even academic works on prehistory are seen as a deliberate affront to some other community. In such an electrified social atmosphere, it is virtually impossible to discuss about the Indian Caste System without attracting a spate of attack. This has led most Indian scholars to shy away from discussing this issue apart from just making passing attacks and decrying its continual social observance despite being decreed as illegal. Due to it being a socio-religious system, it is imperative to examine if this system does indeed exist in the Indian society today1.
The person credited with drafting the Indian Constitution was Dr. BR Ambedkar, who was considered as an untouchable himself. Ambedkar is also considered to be one of the founders of the modern independent India and has written widely on the issue of Caste and is believed to have led a movement for the untouchables to convert to Buddhism. Due to the social status of Dr. Ambedkar and the great outrage that Mahatma Gandhi had on the caste system, discrimination based on the issue of caste is unlawful under the Indian law and is an illegal crime. However, despite the government coming up with a system of government that seeks to protect everyone, caste discrimination is still a vice that continues to ail the Indian community2. This paper tries to trace the changes that the Indian nation has undergone to prove that caste discrimination is still very much present in the nation.
The Present Indefensible State of Discrimination
Although covert, caste discrimination continues to be a social problem in India that still happens secretly through regular public acts of murder, rape, and arson. The poor who are usually referred to as Dalit are denied housing in societies dominated by the upper castes, even in urban groupings where it impossible to notice such differences. In the rural areas, the issue of the Dalits is worse because each individual social status is known such that even today, marriage with a higher caste is considered to be a taboo. If anyone tampers with this taboo, the result is often lynching. The higher castes expect Dalits to be subservient and just like in the traditional settings any calls for better treatment from the poor are met with beatings and sometimes even death. In reality, the affluent upper cast landlords participate in the commonly known droit de seigneur over beautiful poor Dalit women in rural places. The minimum wages that have been set by the government are rarely paid and in addition to this, bonded laborers are in most cases Dalits. Today, nearly all the children and especially girls who are not enrolled in school are Dalits. There are also very limited educational and employment opportunities as well as the existence of glass ceilings which deny those who are qualified deserving opportunities. This situation is comparable to the experience of racial discrimination in various societies where racism is disallowed by the law, though the existence of most poor Dalits may be distinctive in its excessive severity. Majority of these varied acts of discrimination are highlighted by the press as well as in the social media3.
Despite the apparent existence of discrimination according to class in the country, comprehending the issue is complicated by the fact that Dalits have moved up the social ladder while some castes have moved down. Today, there are several people holding key positions in the government who were former Dalits. Some of them have gone ahead to form alliances with members of higher caste thus giving the impression that the caste system is no longer in existence. There have also been reports showing that some of the people who were considered to have belonged to the higher caste are now living in abject poverty in one of the poorest regions of the country. There have also been reports indicating that the wages of Dalits have been going up while that of the caste has been going down. In the last 600 years, there has also been evidence that some communities that were once Dalits rose up to royal power and now dominate politics and business in various states. This has seen the struggle for political power mainly in the north and the south being left to only the backward castes that were once in power4.
Looking back at the Indian history, one thing that comes out clearly is that the British had an undecided position concerning the untouchables. The British Empire itself was established since its sepoy military that was comprised of usually low-caste or untouchable castes, fought bravery and expertise against the rajahs to whom they owed no allegiance. In the East India Company’s army of the British, they acquired the respect that they had failed to get from the civil society. However, by the mid-19th century, the British military mostly consisted of Hindus from the upper caste something that was done in the false belief that they would win the trust of the Indian people5.
With the coming of Christianity, several castes became Christians just in the same manner as they had converted to Islam several years earlier. This was done in a bid to get away from the discrimination of the caste system and to a degree because of devotion to a new monotheistic all-encompassing religion. However, to most people, inclusion still remained obscure since there were separate pews and doors reserved for them in church. In addition to this, the upper caste members still refused to marry into the families of the other church members. It is sad to note that this exclusion has prevailed in the Christian, Muslim, and Sikh congregations even in the modern day. Given that the higher castes rule the church, the economic exploitation, cultural repression and political domination is still existent for the Dalits6.
Ideally, the Indian social milieu that was shaped foundationally by family and kinship institutions that fashioned the mind to a religious and caste identity was largely influenced by the establishment of British colonialism in the 18th and the 19th centuries as well as by its colonial culture and the prevailing western liberal ideology. The sudden and drastic transformations in both policies and administration that were brought about by induction into the single politico-administrative entity and the subsequent consolidation of government through a united civil service, military, legislature among others influenced the country’s entire pre-colonial social and financial structure. The various judicial and administrative practices that were brought into existence by the British being founded on equality before the law directly destabilized the significance of caste. The introduction of a universal criminal code took away the privileges of the castes that acted as the local government and were responsible for adjudicating the people’s affairs. In addition to this, the enactment of legislations such as the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 as well as the Castes Disabilities Removal Act of 1850 also played a significant role in the erosion of the caste influence7.
Colonization made it possible for India to come into contact with the Western world, itself in a time of significant instability in the rise of the French Revolution and the rise of the Industrial Age. The exposure of Indian academicians to the radical and liberal ideals of democracy, popular rule as well as rationalism set in motion among a section of them a time of extreme critical evaluation of India’s socio-religious practices. This encouraged them to come up with reform movements against India’s culture repressive elements. With caste being the most predominant in the culture, it became their main target. The social reform movements that came up within that time pushed for the eradication of the caste system and while these movements were certainly against the caste, they did not take a specific stand on its annihilation. Since they were not given an opportunity to penetrate the system, they could not do much to change it and it was not until some members of the caste begin to challenge its ideals that a formidable movement against the caste was conceived. However, this did not do much in eroding the influence of the system8.
Speculations on Caste Origins of Dalits
It is a well-documented fact that the Manusmriti, which is one of the most sacred literature of Hinduism mainly drafted over two millenniums ago classifies Dalits as social outcasts who do not fit anywhere in any of the four caste division of the Hindus. To a certain degree, a devout Indian would also consider Europeans to belong to the ostracized class. In essence, the Manusmriti dealt in detail about the concept and the history of the untouchables. It does this by categorizing the various classes of castes beginning with the twice born or priests, warriors, merchants and peasants. Traditionally, a man from a higher caste received permission to marry a woman from a lower caste if he found no ideal woman to marry from his own class. However, the children gotten from such a union would be categorized as the least in the society and they would only be fit for the most menial jobs. The Manusmriti also adopted all the religious and social rights that the Twice Born women previously valued and altered them to fit their husbands’ demands. This relatively reduced their social standing and meant that th...