division of caste in society and reservation

CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA

India has a rich history . Modern Indian society was built up by many historic events and many ancient practices. One of those practices is caste system. Though not so stringent as before caste system is still being followed by people. It is this caste division that makes people aware of their status, responsibility and role in society. It has destroyed the beautiful fabric of Hinduism. It created demonic things like “BRAHMINISM” and “DEVADASI SYSTEM” . Amazing that , in the name of caste, our society still forbids [socially] Namboodiris [Kerala Brahmins] marrying any lower castes; Warriers marrying Nairs and Nairs marrying Theyas etc. In the name of age old caste system, society ill-treated and still ill-treating millions in North India. May be once upon a time, Caste system may be helpful for the proper function of the society, but today it should be abolished from the mind of the man for ever. The word CASTE came from a Portuguese word "CASTA" meaning "PURE RACE" .

IN THE PAST

In ancient times ther used to be a leader who used to take major decisions . As the size of group increased it lead to division among themselves in designations.

Hindus divided the society under 4 broad categories:-

· Brahmanas

· Kshatriyas

· Vaishyas

· Shudras

The apex was occupied by brahmanas and were given power to set rules for society do religious tasks educate people . They were treated as messengers of God and people did not dare to defy them. The kshatriyas were basically protectors. They belonged to warrior class and excelled in warfare , use of weapons. The vaishyas were basically merchants and traders. The last slot went to shudras who were ostracized from the society. They were employed to do menial jobs like cleaning and were regarded as untouchables.

ORIGINS OF CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA

The origins are shrouded but it seems to have originated some 2000 years ago. Under this system, which is associated with Hinduism. People were categorized by their occupations.

Although originally caste depended upon a person’s work ,it soon became hereditary .Each person was born into an unalterable social status.

CASTE BY THE COLOR OF THE SKIN:

Color of the skin was an important part of Hindu caste system. VARNA means color and color was associated with even determining the character of the person. It may sound paradoxical to state that at least in south India, BLACK was considered good, thus Lord Krishna is seen in blue_ black color.

WHITE color was associated with BRAHMINS, RED with KSHATRIYAS, YELLOW with VAISYAS and BLACK with SHUDRAS. It is said this color system initially was introduced to identify the moral virtue associated with each caste!

CASTES DIVISION BY RACIAL & TRIBAL SURROUNDINGS:

The word JATI which denotes subclasses originated from word JATA or race. It is said that when ARYANS invaded India, they divided themselves into many clans as soon as they settled down on the river banks

CASTES BY PROFESSION:

SONAR (goldsmith), SUTAR (carpenter), GOALA (milkman), TELI (oil merchant), LOHAR (iron smith), MALI (gardener), DHOBI (laundryman), MUCHI (cobbler) etc are popular tribes in north India. Even among Brahmins, there are subcastes as per professions. Like POOJARI (priests who conduct Poojas), OJHA (occultists), JOYTISHI (astrologers), GANGA_PATRA (who guides pilgrims), MAHA_PATRA (who presides over funeral rites). It may be surprising to note both POOJARI and MAHA_PATRA are inferior tribes among Brahmins.

CASTES BASED ON DIFFERENT PRACTICES, CULTS AND EVEN EATING HABITS:

Hundreds of castes have originated in these manner also through out India.

CASTES OF VICTORS AND LOSERS:

The history shows caste system also originated from the distinction between victors and losers in the battles. Instead victors killing the losers, victors turned losers into lower castes and allowed them to live. Dr. S. Radha Krishnan said: "Caste enabled the Vedic Indian to preserve integrity and independence of the conquering as well as the conquered races and promote mutual confidence and harmony

DAILY SIGNIFICANCE OF CASTE :

The 3 key areas of life dominated by caste were most people even married within their sub-caste or jati.

In terms of religion as the priestly class, Brahmins used to conduct festivals and holidays,as well as marriages and funerals.

The kshtriyas and vaishya castes had full rights to worship, but in some places shudras (the servant caste) were not allowed to offer sacrifices to the gods . Untouchables were banned entirely from temples and sometimes were’nt allowed to set foot on temple grounds.

THOUSANDS OF CASTES

Although the early vedic sources name four primary caste,in fact there were thousand of caste, subcastes and communities within Indian society .These jati were the basis of both social status and occupation.

One great untouchable who became a prominent leader of modern India, Mr. Ambedker wrote: TO THE UNTOUCHABLES, HINDUISM IS A VERITABLE CHAMBER OF HORRORS. Mahathma Gandhi said: UNTOUCHABILITY IS A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND MEN. Mahatma Gandhi called UNTOUCHABLES by the name HARIJANS meaning CHILDREN OF GOD. He fought for their emancipation and in 1949, soon after independence from Britain, Govt. of India made it a criminal offense to practice UNTOUCHABILITY. Still in many parts of India, you can come across the ugly relics of caste system. Once upon a time, India had 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes.Even there were 1,800 Brahmin castes in India. What a shame!! Even different Brahmin castes did not mingle themselves socially or otherwise, in ancient times. Last of all, ancient India, persecuted a large group of people called UNTOUCHABLES. Mahatma Gandhi said: UNTOUCHABILITY IS A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND MEN. Ambedkar once wrote out of his own experience, TO THE UNTOUCHABLES, HINDUISM IS A VERITABLE CHAMBER OF HORRORS".

The British Raj and Caste:

When the British Raj began to take power in India in 1757, they exploited the caste system as a means of social control.

The British allied themselves with the Brahmin caste, restoring some of its privileges that had been repealed by the Muslim rulers. However, many Indian customs concerning the lower castes seemed discriminatory to the British, and were outlawed.

During the 1930s and 40s, the British government made laws to protect the "Scheduled castes" - untouchables and low-caste people

The Contemporary Times

Though one finds the segregation in the Indian society even today, it has now taken a very subdued form. People from any caste can do any job. A person from a low caste can take up any job he/she likes. There are no inhibitions about it anymore and people have become tolerant towards each other’s social identities. Though there may be some clashes now and then, the caste system is not as stringent as it used to be. Those belonging to the lower caste have been finding much support and their living standard is being uplifted in the society.

There are a lot of improvements in the living conditions of the people belonging to lower castes. The government has given them many subsidies and has framed policies that make them explore different opportunity areas that would eventually lead to their growth and up-liftment. Untouchability has been done away with in modern India and they have been accepted as a part of the society. With the acceptance of inter-caste marriages to a large extent in the Indian society, we are witnessing a surge of acceptance and tolerance in the Indian society

THEOLOGY

Reincarnation is one of the basic beliefs . A particular soul’s new form depends upon the virtuousness of its previos behaviour.Thus a truly virtuous person from shudra caste could be rewarded with rebirth as Brahmin in his or her next life.

Within a life cycle people had little social mobility . It emerged as a part of division of labor among people...THERE IS NO STATEMENT IN THE ENTIRE HINDU SCRIPTURES TO ILL-TREAT LOWER CASTES----THERE IS NO WORD UNTOUCHABLE IN THE ENTIRE HINDU SCRIPTURES. Still caste system degenerated in India. It is indeed the GREATEST CURSE on Hinduism.

RESERVATION BASED ON CASTE

PURPOSE OF RESERVATION

There are undoubtedly many honest officials, but they are fighting a system that gives them very little scope, one which binds together politicians and bureaucrats in a nexus of corruption. International surveys of corruption in Government show India at the bottom of the list; losses in ``transmission and distribution'' of the State electricity boards; the necessity of giving ``weight'' in order to get projects approved or papers moved through desks in administrative offices, all remain flagrant. In this context, the idea that reservation somehow has an adverse effect on ``merit'' and ``efficiency'' looks somewhat laughable. Since the mass education which all the anti-caste radicals so fervently sought has also remained a distant dream, this has rendered the masses of toiling people more dependent on the literate officials and activists.

How much do the upper castes dominate in Government service? The Mandal Commission report itself made interesting revelations. According to its statistics, the ``forward castes'' estimated at 25.5 per cent of the population made up 78.34 per cent of employees of Central Ministries and Departments; the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes together were 16.83 per cent and the Backward Castes were 4.83 per cent. In Class I, these figures were 90.23 per cent for the ``forward castes,'' 7.18 per cent for the ``Scheduled'' communities and 2.59 per cent for ``other backwards''. Clearly, reservation had provided some scope for Dalits and Adivasis, but the ``other backward'' communities, 52 per cent of the total Indian population, were hopelessly behind.

Most of all, the insertion of an economic exclusion clause was the primary way in which elite resistance to the major goals of reservation sought to deprive it of its efficacy. For many years, opponents of reservation had argued that caste was irrelevant, that while admittedly the ``ex-untouchables'' and ``tribals'' might require some compensation, the large sections classified as ``backward classes'', that is the ex-Shudras, in fact contained wealthy and affluent sections. Rich farmers, rich cowherders, rich barbers, and rich washermen - all of these, it was argued, were the biggest enemies of Dalits. The opposition to reservation clothed itself in marxist dress, saying that reservation should be based if anything on ``economic backwardness'' - that is to say, on ``class' as an economic category. The phrase ``socially and educationally backward classes'' referring to the ex-Shudra sections, seemed to provide an opening - although throughout the British period terms like ``Depressed Classes'' and ``Backward Classes'' had invariably been used to refer to jatis.Backed up by this seemingly disinterested support of a mechanical marxism, the Indian elite grabbed on to the notion that the ``affluent OBCs'' should be excluded from the benefits of reservations.

Thus the reservation system was instituted not so much on the basis of the Constitution as on that of the decades-old elite resistance to restructuring public employment. It serves several purposes. It allows the elite to maintain the facade of a generous patron of Dalits and Adivasis while continuing to deprive them of mass-level education and access to resource. It provides a process to absorb some of their brightest members into a system still based more on extortion and corruption than true public service. Finally, it continues to block a true representation of the majority of the nation's population, a representation which the founders and leaders of the anti-caste movement had always seen as part of a full-scale political and social-economic transformation.

Before British rule, a stream of Sufi saints had rejected the Brahmanism and injustice to Dalits (untouchables), but their main focus was on encouraging self-awareness and trust in a seemingly egalitarian religion with a non-discriminating, omnipresent and omnipotent god.

Real changes came in the 19th century, when the leaders of deprived castes espoused both revolt against the ideas of high-caste Hindus led by the Brahmins and belief in the modernity which had led to democratisation in Europe and the United States.

Democracy is essentially a practice of alliance building. Jyoti Ba Phule forged a grand alliance of farmers and marginalised and deprived communities. He considered that India was being led by minority high-caste Hindus. Dr Ambedkar, who was educated in the United States, the UK and Germany, was more concerned about the constitutional provisions for Dalits. Institutions should be strong enough to protect the constitutional provisions made for the most marginalised communities. The community that he was leading was thoroughly disempowered. They couldn’t understand what their rights were because they had been brainwashed to accept ideologies that kept them in enslavement and poverty. They accepted the theory of karma, that misfortunes were due to bad behaviour in a previous existence, and believed that all they could do was to hold to their duties. In Ambedkar’s opinion, the greatest damage to Dalits was caused by theory of karma.

Ambedkar thought that the Dalit minority needed constitutional protection from the tyranny of the majority. In the 1930s, he fought for them to have a separate electoral identity and the British made what was known at the time as a communal award.

After India’s independence, Ambedkar led the drafting of the Indian Constitution. Dalits were reserved 17.5 per cent of seats in Parliament and state assemblies. However, when he stood in an election in Mumbai, Ambedkar was defeated by a coalition of high-caste Hindus.

In subsequent years, many Dalit leaders were elected and even achieved high office, but this did little to improve the overall condition of the Dalits as a whole.

RESERVATION SYSTEM IN EDUCATION

As equality has many dimensions and one such dimension is the reservation policy for the backward classes. From a simple reservation of about 15% for the SC’s & ST’s in educational institutions now the percentage has gone up and also the other backward classes (OBC’s) have been brought within the fold of reservation by the suggestion of the Mandal Commission. But even after 63 years of independence the people still fall back on reservation. It is not that the backward have not progressed but the percentage is less because those who have already availed reservation and progressed keep getting it again.This results in the formation of the creamy layer. Instead of having a reservation policy .All kinds of encouragement from the government should be there in the implementation of such policies. The mid day meal program was a successful one and we should see more of such schemes which encourage the poor to study. The existing system has not been able to fulfill the equality clause of the constitution under Article 14 of the Constitution due to the lack of infrastructure in the rural areas where a proportionate amount of the backward classes reside.

Neither has it been successful in abolishing the caste system. A disturbing sign has been the demanding of reservation by the other backward class whereby the majority would not be left with seats proportional to their numbers. The policy of reservation has never been subject to a widespread social or political audit. Before extending reservation to more groups, the entire policy needs to be properly examined, and its benefits over a span of nearly 60 years have to be gauged.