Thursday, April 19, 2012

Blackmoney_caste (Caste)

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/891508/

National Interest: The caste of corruption

Shekhar Gupta Posted online: Sat Dec 24 2011, 01:50 hrs

Is there a caste or communal link to corruption and crime? Or, are your chances of being involved (and getting caught) in corruption cases higher as you go down the caste ladder? Nobody in his right mind would say yes to either of these. But let’s examine some facts.

Why is there a preponderance of this underclass among those charged with corruption, or even targeted in media sting operations? Here is a roll call: A. Raja and Mayawati (Dalit), Madhu Koda and Shibu Soren (tribal), Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav (OBC), are all caught in corruption or disproportionate assets cases. Faggan Singh Kulaste, Ashok Argal and Mahavir Singh Bhagora, caught in the cash-for-votes sting, are all SC/ST; among the BSP MPs in the cash-for-queries sting, Narendra Kushwaha and Raja Ram Pal (who is now in the Congress) are OBC, and Lalchandra Kol a Dalit. Of course, there are also some illustrious upper-caste representatives in the net: Sukh Ram, Jayalalithaa, Suresh Kalmadi. But there are far fewer of them. Could it be that the upper crust tends to be “cleaner” as a rule, or could it be that the system is loaded against those in the lower half of the social pyramid? The Sachar Committee report on the condition of Muslims also tells us that the only place where our Muslims have numbers disproportionately high in comparison to their population is jails. So, face the question once again: do Muslims tend to be more criminal than Hindus, or is the system loaded against them?

For another example, look at the BJP. Two of its senior leaders were caught on camera accepting cash. One, Dilip Singh Judeo, caught taking Rs 9 lakh, was a mere MP, but of a high caste, and was happily rehabilitated in the party, fielded in the election, and is now back in Parliament. The other, Bangaru Laxman, caught taking just Rs 1 lakh, was ranked much higher in the party; he was, in fact, the president, but much lower on the caste pyramid, a Dalit. He has been banished and isolated and is fighting the charges in that Tehelka sting case by himself. I am sorry to use this expression, but the party treated him as an utter outcast even as it continued to defend Judeo. What is the difference between the two except caste? You want to take this argument to the judiciary? It has been loosely insinuated by many prominent people, including by some notable members of Team Anna, that a large number of our former chief justices have been corrupt. But who is the only one targeted by name (however unsubstantiated the charges)? It is Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, currently chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and, more importantly, India’s first Dalit chief justice.

These questions are inconvenient, but can never be brushed aside in a diverse democracy. These have become even more important now as the political class has responded to Team Anna’s Lokpal campaign by bringing in 50 per cent reservation for lower castes and minorities. You can say this is a cynical political ploy to counter what is, after all, an upper-class, upper-caste, urban movement so far. But facts are facts and there is no hiding from them. The system is much too prejudiced, much too loaded against the underclass. Reservations may not be the perfect solution. But how else do you ensure equity? How do you convince this vast majority of Indians below the very top of the social pyramid that this new all-powerful institution will be fair to them? Or, you can flip this very same question in the context of Team Anna. Why has this vast majority of socially and economically vulnerable Indians been so distant from their movement? Why are the leaders who represent them, from Lalu to Mulayam to Mayawati, so strongly critical of the institution of Lokpal? Because the minorities, the weaker sections, are always afraid of mass movements, particularly when these are led by the dominant upper classes. In these movements they see the threat of majoritarian excesses. And that is exactly the apprehension that the political class, particularly the UPA, has now gotten hold of.

The upper caste, creamy layer of our society is the most prejudiced, and yet the most dominant minority in any democracy in the world. That is why even the person representing Mayawati on otherwise brilliant funny-man Cyrus Broacha’s show on CNN-IBN always has a blackened face (Dalits are supposed to be dark-skinned, no?).

An interesting new turn has meanwhile taken place in the discourse over the Lokpal bill. Whenever asked to comment on the UPA’s ploy of reservations, members of Team Anna simply say they are happy to leave that entirely to the government. Leave something entirely to the government? When was the last time you heard Team Anna say that?

They are doing so because the caste card, howsoever cynical, has thrown them entirely off-balance. They are now paying for having built such an unrepresentative upper-crust leadership, deluded perhaps by the belief that this battle was theirs to win on Twitter, Facebook and television channels where their interlocutors were trumpeters or fellow travellers. They forgot that the battle for power and ideas is fought in a democracy’s parliament and within its institutions. They started to believe their own mythology of being apolitical. They did not realise that politics, in a democracy as diverse as ours, needs two essential pre-requisites: ideology and inclusiveness. Abhorrence of corruption is a universal virtue but not an ideology.

If there was an underlying ideological impulse to this movement, it was anti-politicianism, underlined by that slogan from the early, heady days — Mera Neta Chor Hai.

It was probably because of that philosophical abhorrence of politics, and the give-and-take, the unending deal-making it involves, that Anna did not set up a truly diverse and representative “Team” to begin with. They had the wisdom and the sincerity, they thought, and Indians, cutting across barriers of caste and religion, would be smart enough to see it. Representative inclusiveness, they probably believed, was part of our cynical electoral politics though that did not stop them from having a Dalit and a Muslim girl help Anna break his fast, making it the first time that a child was described as “Dalit” on a public stage in a mass rally.

Leaders of Team Anna now rightly say that theirs indeed is a political movement. But even if they assert that it is above electoral politics, they have erred gravely in not learning from the political class and building a representative leadership. It could have come from both their abhorrence and ignorance of politics, from a lack of respect for the political class, and an inability to appreciate that you need politics to create a sense of fairness, balance and empowerment in such a diverse society. That is the difference between Anna on the one hand, and Gandhi and JP on the other. Both of the latter made inclusive politics the vehicle of their revolutions. Team Anna, instead, tried to circumvent politics, and now finds itself right in the thick of it.

sg@expressindia.com

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article3329111.ece?css=print

For residents of Bathani, it is a horror they cannot forget

April 19, 2012 12:29 IST BATHANI TOLA (BHOJPUR)

Shoumojit Banerjee

Shoumojit Banerjee Kishun Chaudhary and Marwari Chaudhary who survived the horrific Bathani Tola carnage.

Court verdict rekindles memories of a dark day in 1996

It was a July afternoon in 1996, and it took the marauding mobs less than a couple of hours to execute the massacre that took 21 lives. Among the dead were 11 women, six children and three infants.

With that, Bathani Tola, an unsung hamlet in central Bihar, shot to fame as one of the many sites where the fearsome Ranbir Sena had left its bloody mark. Last week, the village was once more in the news, with the Patna High Court acquitting 23 men convicted of the gruesome murders.

Bathani Tola was not the first, and would not be the last, in a series of atrocities committed through the 1980s and 1990s by the Sena, a powerful caste army of Bhumihars and Rajputs. Its victims were always landless labourers (Dalits in most cases), who, though poor and impoverished, had begun to get radicalised in the backdrop of the Naxal movement taking root in the State.

“We heard their howls of agony, but simply could not find the courage to come out,” recounts Naimuddin Ansari, one of the prime witnesses who lost six family members in the carnage. “The Sena men encircled our hovels, drew out the victims and slaughtered them,” recounts Sri Kishun Chaudhary, who lodged an FIR against 33 persons the day after the massacre.

Among those named was Brahmeshwar Singh — the infamous Mukhiya and founder of the Ranbir Sena — who is said to have overseen the Bathani killings as well as the caste massacres that followed in Laxmanpur Bathe and Shankarbigha (81 Dalits were killed in the two villages). Fourteen years after the bloodbath in Bathani, the Ara sessions court sentenced three persons to death and awarded life sentence to another 20.

The acquittal of the same men by the High Court has come as a shock to Bathani's residents. The court might have had its reasons — it cited “defective evidence” — for overturning the convictions, but the villagers are inconsolable and recollect every detail of the horror that visited them, including the fact that the Sena men killed women and children by design, not because they came in their way.

“This government [the Nitish Kumar-led NDA] has sold out to the rich and influential. It is now up to the Party [the Communist Party of India (Marxist -Leninist)] to decide the next course of action,” says Mr. Chaudhary, fatigued and bitter from years of fighting the case.

Naimuddin too looks dejected and defeated. A bangle-seller at the time of the carnage, he lost his three-month-old daughter to the aggressors. She had not even been named, when she was killed, he reminisces, adding, “Baby,” as she was called, “was tossed in the air and thrust down the blade of a sword.”

“My seven-year-old son Saddam saw it. They all saw it,” cries Naimuddin. One half of Saddam's face had been mutilated by sword lacerations when Naimuddin finally reached the spot after the Sena men had dispersed.

“As I picked him up, he [Saddam] said, ‘Abba save my life!' It was then that I realised they had cut his spinal cord.” The child died within a week at the Patna Medical College and Hospital.

A Sena sympathiser, who spoke to this correspondent, justified the “reactionary mobilisation” of the upper castes against “those Naxals.” “The land is ours. The crops belong to us. They [the labourers] did not want to work, and moreover, hampered our efforts by burning our machines and imposing economic blockades. So, they had it coming.”

Not surprisingly, there is panic in Bathani over the release of the Sena men. Their fear is compounded by the fact that their source of security, the CPI(ML), today lacks the necessary leadership at the ground level. In the 2010 Assembly elections, the CPI(ML) failed to bag even one of seven seats in Bhojpur district, which were split between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United).

Naimuddin and others have one question for visitors: if those named in the FIR are not the killers, who killed the 21 residents of Bathani Tola?

_______________________________________

Caste system in India

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The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (April 2011)

Gandhi visiting Chennai in 1933 on an India-wide tour for Harijan causes. His speeches during such tours discussed the discriminated castes of India and appealed for the eradication of untouchability.

The Caste System in India is a system of social stratification,^[1] social restriction and a basis for affirmative action^[2][3] in India. Historically, the caste system in India defined communities into thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis.^[4]

The Jātis were grouped by the Brahminical texts under the four well known caste categories, (the varnas): viz Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras.^[5][6][7][8] Certain people were excluded altogether, ostracized by all other castes and treated as untouchables.^[9][10]

Although identified with Hinduism, caste systems have been also observed among other religions in the Indian subcontinent, including some groups of Muslims, Buddhists and Christians.^[11][12][13] The latter similar to the caste system reported in the Igbo-Osu Christian community in Africa.^[14][15]

Caste is commonly thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, but various contemporary scholars have argued that the caste system was constructed by the British colonial regime.^{[2][16][17][18][19]} Caste is neither unique to Hindu religion nor to India; caste systems have been observed in other parts of the world, for example, in Muslim community of Yemen, Christian colonies of Spain, and Buddhist community of Japan.^[1][20][21]

The Indian government officially recognizes historically discriminated lowest castes of India such as Shudras and Untouchables as Scheduled Castes.^[9][22] These Schedules Castes are sometimes referred to as Dalit in contemporary literature. In 2001, the proportion of Dalit population was 16.2 percent of India's total population.^[23]

Since 1950, India has enacted and implemented many laws and social initiatives to protect and improve the socio-economic conditions of its Dalit population.^[24] By 1995, of all jobs in India, 17.2 percent of the jobs were held by Dalits, greater than their proportion in Indian population.^[25] Of the highest paying, senior most jobs in government agencies and government controlled enterprises, over 10 percent of all highest paying jobs were held by members of the Dalit community, a tenfold increase in 40 years. In 1997, India democratically elected K.R. Narayanan, a Dalit, as the nation's President.^[25] In last 15 years, Indians born in historically discriminated minority castes have been elected to its highest judicial and political offices.^[26][27] The quality of life of Dalit population in India, in 2001, in terms of metrics such as access to health care, life expectancy, education attainability, access to drinking water, housing, etc. was statistically similar to overall population of modern India.^[28][29][30]

A 2003 report claims inter-caste marriage is on the rise in urban India. Indian societal relationships are changing because of female literacy and education, women at work, urbanization, need for two-income families, and influences from the media.^[31]

India

's overall economic growth has produced the fastest and more significant socio-economic changes to the historical injustice to its minorities. Legal and social program initiatives are no longer India's primary constraint in further advancement of India's historically discriminated sections of society and the poor. Further advancement are likely to come from improvements in the supply of quality schools in rural and urban India, along with India's economic growth.^[32]

History

Main article: History of the Indian caste system

Caste paintings of Indian Society


Cover page	Muslim man	Hindu chief

Seri brahmin	Gujarati brahmin	Muslim merchant

Hindu musicians	Hindu milkman	Sikh chief

Hindu washerman	Tailor	Fencer

Tribal chief	Hindu writer	Muslim dancer

Muslim pilgrim	Goldsmith	Arab soldier

A manuscript titled Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India, published in February 1837. Sponsored and compiled for Christian missionaries, it was given to Reverend William Twining. The 72 images claim to be castes of India as witnessed over 25 years. The images include people from various professions, several images of Arab, Muslim and Sikh couples. The manuscript does not list any observed inter-relationship or hierarchy between the illustrated professions and religious persuasions.^[33]

There is no universally accepted theory about the origins of the Indian caste system. One theory posits that the Indian classes and Iranian classes ("pistras") show similarity,^[34] wherein the priests are Brahmins, the warriors are Kshatriya, the merchants are Vaishya, and the artisans are Shudras.^[35][36] Another theory is by Georges Dumézil, a theory that is controversial. Dumézil formulated^[37][38] the trifunctional hypothesis of social class, which he argued were the historical foundation of caste system in India. According to Dumézil theory, ancient societies had three main classes each with distinct functions: the first judicial and priestly; the second connected with the military and war, while the third class focussed on production, agriculture, craft and commerce. Dumézil proposed that Rex-Flamen of the Roman Empire, is etymologically similar to Raj-Brahman of ancient India; make offerings to deus and deva respectively; each with statutes of conduct, dress and behavior that were similar. This theory became controversial, nevertheless also drew support by many including Sophus Bugge in 1879. Bugge proposed that the word flamen is from an older *flădmen and related to the Germanic blót, each derived from word *bhlād(s)men. The later is the root of word Brahmin.^[39] It is unclear how Dumézil's three caste system theory developed over time into four caste system and outcast hierarchy in ancient India.

From the Bhakti school, the view is that the four divisions were originally created by Krishna. "According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society were created."^[40]

Criticisms of these understandings of the caste system point out that Varna itself means a complexion, and these Varnas are nothing more than a social classification based on the activities that the individual is involved in.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Human inequality debates

Amartya Sen, the India born Nobel prize winner, in his review of the history of caste system in India finds that there have been profound historical debates within Indian community and numerous movements against caste divisions in Indian history. Writers of these ancient Indian documents could have suppressed these probing discussions and philosophical arguments, but instead the writers included a prominent presence of these anti-inequality arguments in these texts.^[41] This, according to Sen, suggests that Indian history wrestled with the moral dilemmas of the caste question, and the preponderance of these discussions across various Indian historical documents challenge a monolithic exposition of the so-called Hindu point of view on caste. For example, in the Mahabharata (Sanskrit महाभारत, Mahābhārata), an Indian epic, is this discussion:

"Bhrigu tells Bharadvaja that caste divisions relate to differences in physical attributes of different human beings, reflected in skin colour. Bharadvaja responds not only by pointing to the considerable variations in skin colour within every caste (if different colours indicate different castes, then all castes are mixed castes), but also by the more profound question: ‘We all seem to be affected by desire, anger, fear, sorrow, worry, hunger, and labour; how do we have caste differences then?"

— Amartya Sen, illustrating caste discussion in Mahabharata^[41]

In Bhavishya Purana (Sanskrit: भविष्य पुराण Bhaviṣya Purāṇa), another Indian ancient text, considered to be written over several centuries, dated to be between 1500 to 2500 years old, is this genealogical scepticism and discussion:

"Since members of all the four castes are children of God, they all belong to the same caste. All human beings have the same father, and children of the same father cannot have different castes."

— Amartya Sen, illustrating caste discussion in Bhavishya Purana^[41]

[edit] Caste and social status

Arnold and Robb call caste system in India as an immensely complex subject. The subject has attracted disagreements between theoretical doctrine and practical reality. Doctrinally, caste was defined as a system of segregation of people, each with a traditional occupation that was hereditary, closed and exclusionary. In caste system amongst Hindus, people belonged to one of the five major ideological schemes: Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaisyas, Shudras and Untouchables. This ideological scheme was theoretically composed of 3000 sub-castes, which in turn was claimed to be composed of 90000 local sub-groups, with people marrying only within their sub-group. This caste theory was applied to early 20th century impoverished India with a population of about 200 million people, across five major religions, and over 500000 agrarian villages, each with a population between 100 to 1000 people of various age groups, variously divided into numerous rigid castes (India then included modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar). There is a controversy on whether and to what extent this theoretical doctrine-based definition of caste system in India represented practical reality.^{[2][16][17][18][19][42]}

Discrimination and trauma from castes

Ambedkar, who was born in India, in a caste that was traditionally classified as untouchable, became a leader of human rights in India, a prolific writer, and a key person in drafting modern India's constitution in the 1940s. Ambedkar wrote extensively on discrimination, trauma and tragic effects of the caste system in India.^[43]

From the 1850s, photography was used in Indian subcontinent by the British for anthropological purposes, helping classify the different castes, tribes and native trades. Included in this collection were Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist (Sinhalese) people classified by castes.^[44] Above is a 1860s photograph of Rajpoots, classified as the highest secular Hindu caste. Amongst the Rajpoot clans, Chohans, descendents of warrior princes, were classified to have the highest position.

Castes existed in India only by disintegrating the Indian society. Castes divided people, then disintegrated them, that is the curse of caste according to Ambedkar. Even the so-called upper caste Brahmin divided itself and disintegrated. The curse of caste, according to Ambedkar, split Brahmin priestly class into well over 1400 sub-castes according to census data collected by colonial ethnographers in British India (now South Asia).^[45]

Gandhi, an admirer of Ambedkar, and who worked together to non-violently protest British colonial rule in India, disagreed with some of the observations, rationale and interpretations of Ambedkar on the caste system in India. Caste, claimed Gandhi, had nothing to do with religion. The discrimination and trauma of castes is the result of custom, whose origin is unknown, and whose origin one does not need to know to spiritually sense that this custom was wrong, that any caste system is harmful to the spiritual well being of man and economic well being of a nation. The reality of colonial India was, Gandhi noted, that there was no significant disparity between the economic condition and earnings between members of different castes, whether it was a Brahmin or an artisan or a farmer of low caste. India was poor, Indians of all castes were poor. The cause of trauma wasn't in the caste system, it lay somewhere else. Judged by the standards being applied to social discrimination in India, claimed Gandhi, every living human society would fail. He acknowledges that caste system in India spiritually blinds some Indians, then adds that this does not mean every Indian or most Indians blindly follow caste system and everything from ancient Indian scriptures of doubtful authenticity and value. India, or any other society, can not be judged by a caricature of its worst specimens. One must consider the best it produced as well, along with vast majority in impoverished Indian villages struggling to make ends meet and with woes of which there is little knowledge.^[45][47]

A 1922 stereograph of Hindu children of high caste, Bombay. This was part of Underwood & Underwood stereoscope journey of colonial world. This and related collections became controversial for staging extreme effects and constructing identities of various colonized nations. Christopher Pinney remarks such imaging was a part of surveillance and imposed identities upon Indians that were resented.^[48][49][50]

The Harijans or untouchables, the people outside the caste system, traditionally had the lowest social status. The untouchables lived in the periphery of the society, and handled what were seen as unpleasant or polluting jobs. They suffered from social segregation and restrictions, in addition to being poor generally. They were not allowed to worship in temples with others, nor draw water from the same wells as others. Persons of other castes would not interact with them. If somehow a member of another caste came into physical or social contact with an untouchable, he was defiled and had to bathe thoroughly to purge himself of the contagion. Social discrimination developed even among the untouchables; sub-castes among them, such as the Dhobi and Nai, would not interact with lower-order Bhangis, who handled night-soil and were described as "outcastes even among outcastes."^{[citation needed]}

Castes

Rigid or Flexible?

Fa Xian, a Buddhist pilgrim from China, visited India around 400 AD. "Only the lot of the Chandals he found unenviable; outcastes by reason of their degrading work as disposers of dead, they were universally shunned... But no other section of the population were notably disadvantaged, no other caste distinctions attracted comment from the Chinese pilgrim, and no oppressive caste 'system' drew forth his surprised censure."^[52] In this period kings of Sudra and Brahmin origin were as common as those of Kshatriya Varna and caste system was not wholly rigid.^[53]

Smelser and Lipset in their review of Hutton's study of caste system in colonial India, propose the theory that individual mobility across caste lines may have been minimal in British India because it was ritualistic. They theorize that the sub-castes may have changed their social status over the generations by fission, re-location, and adoption of new external ritual symbols. Some of these evolutionary changes in social stratifications, claim Smelser and Lipset, were seen in Europe, Japan, Africa and other regions as well; however, the difference between them may be the relative levels of ritualistic and secular referents. Smelser and Lipset further propose that colonial system may have affected the caste system social stratification. They note that the British colonial power controlled economic enterprises and political administration of India by selectively cooperating with upper caste princes, priests and landlords. This was colonial India's highest level caste strata, followed by second strata that included favored officials who controlled trade, supplies to the colonial power and Indian administrative services. The bottom layer of the colonial Indian society was tenant farmers, servants, wage laborers, indentured coolies and others. The colonial social strata acted in combination with traditional caste system. The colonial strata shut off economic opportunity, entrepreneurial activity by natives, or availability of schools thereby worsening the limitations placed on mobility by the traditional caste system. In America and Europe, they argue individual mobility was better than in India or other colonies around the world, because colonial stratification was missing and system could evolve to become more secular and tolerant of individual mobility.^[54]

Sociologist such as Srinivas and Damle have debated the question of rigidity in caste. In their independent studies, they claim considerable flexibility and mobility in their caste hierarchies.^[51][55][56] They assert that the caste system is far from rigid — in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time; instead, significant mobility across caste has been empirically observed in India.

[edit] British rule

This section may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

The caste system in India during the British rule extended beyond being hereditary phenomenon. Some people could apply to be re-classified into a caste they preferred. For example, the above order issued in 1937 shows a Mali (gardener-agriculturist) being legally awarded the Kshatriya: a warrior caste in ancient India, by British officials. Similarly, many laws such as the Stamp Act required Indians to declare their caste in official documents to be granted lease or license.^[57]

Assumptions about the caste system in Indian society, along with its nature, evolved during the British rule.^[58] For example, some British believed Indians would shun train travel because tradition-bound South Asians were too caught up in caste and religion, and that they would not sit or stand in the same coaches from concern of close proximity to a member of higher or lower or shunned caste. After the launch of train services, Indians of all castes, classes and gender enthusiastically adopted train travel without any concern of so-called caste stereotypes. The first trains of 1860s in north India saw mass adoption. By 1902, 87 percent of passengers carried by the then Indian Railways were in third class coach; these passengers represented all segments of Indian society without the expected concern of caste stereotypes. The number of passengers weren't a small segment of Indian society; by 1905, over 200 million passengers travelled together in shared train coaches of India every year; and about the time of India's independence from Britain's colonial rule, people of India were using trains many times within the same year, and one billion passengers a year travelled in Indian trains. The rapid growth of train travel, with coaches packed with passengers from all caste segments of Indian society, suggests that the nature of British stereotypes about caste system in India, prior to 1860s and thereafter through the 1940s, were flawed.^[60][61]

Célestin Bouglé, in his essay on the caste system in India, published in 1908, observed British frequently asserting they had no interest in modifying the caste system in India. The Englishmen's motto, claimed Bouglé, was to administer its Indian colony by preserving its customs, caste system, and with a minimum of security or justice or governance. Bouglé acknowledged in his essay the empirical evidence of intermingling between Indians as observed on Indian Railways and the mass adoption of te-rain (Bouglé's colorful emphasis for train as pronounced in India). Bouglé used the empirical census facts noted by Risley and the direct observation of mutual acceptance of Indians for Indians on its te-rains to conclude that the historical caste system within 20^th century Indian society was fundamentally changing, and that this change was irreversible. The British rule, without wanting to, was triggering fundamental social changes in India. The lower castes were becoming officials, the Brahmins were leaving religious occupation and becoming policemen and farmers, and the three pillars of caste system according to Bouglé—hereditary occupation, social hierarchy and exclusionary repulsion—were crumbling. Bouglé identified the cause for these changes to be economic progress, industrialization and career mobility inside India between 1880 to 1905. He believed the British rule, without intending to, had accelerated the natural demise of caste system in India.^[59]

During the British East India Company's rule, caste differences and customs were accepted, if not encouraged, the British law courts disagreed with the discrimination against the lower castes.^{[better source needed]} Corbridge concludes that British policies of divide and rule of India's numerous princely sovereign states, as well as enumeration of the population into rigid categories during the 10 year census contributed towards the hardening of caste identities.^[62]

[edit] Terminology during British Rule

Risley further notes that, according to his 1901 Census Report on India, only 8 to 17 percent of Brahmins were involved in a religious occupation, only 8 percent of one Shudra sub-caste commonly assumed to be dedicated to leather work was actually involved in leather work, and less than 50 percent of several sub-castes were involved in their traditional occupations. Rest were involved in occupations such as farming or laborers. Castes, particularly the lower castes were changing their occupations with time and need, observed Risley; and once they changed their occupation, they would evolve into their own social group. Barbers became or were becoming confectioners, washermen became or were becoming farmers, pastoralists became or were becoming farmers as well. In other words, neither occupational mobility was set for life nor social mores on eating or drinking together were rigid. These were fluid in the empirical study of Risley, and not an appropriate means to define the caste system of early 20th century India.^[63]

[edit] Terminology after British Rule

The use of occupation to define castes is confusing as well. Brahmins have been listed as priests and sometimes rulers or other professions, Kshatriyas include warriors and sometimes rulers or other professions, Vaishyas are listed to include traders and sometimes agriculturists and other professions, while Shudras are listed to include laborers and sometimes agriculturists and other professions. Drekmeier, for example, after his study of Indian castes includes agriculturists as Vaishyas, while Goodrich includes them as Shudras. Drekmeier further notes that official positions of power were not exclusive privilege of the traditionally upper castes; for example, Shudras were sought and included in official administrative appointments in India's history.^[66][67] In modern India, people of the so-called lowest castes are to be found in all positions of responsibility and authority.^[25]

Under the best of circumstances, varnas, jātis, castes and race are poorly defined, confusing concepts. According to William Pinch, the confusion is in part, because the very idea of hierarchical status and relative social identity has been a matter of disagreement in India.^[68]

Sociologists such as Anne Waldrop observe that while outsiders view the term caste as a static phenomena of stereotypical tradition-bound India, empirical facts suggest caste has been a radically changing feature of India. The term caste means different thing to different Indians. In the context of politically active modern India, where job and school quotas are reserved for affirmative action based on castes, the term has become a sensitive and controversial subject.^[32][69]

[edit] Reforms

This section requires expansion.

Gandhi collecting money for Dalits, 1930s.

Many Bhakti period saints rejected the caste discriminations and accepted all castes, including untouchables, into their fold.^{[citation needed]} During the British rule, this sentiment gathered steam, and many Hindu reform movements such as Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj renounced caste-based discrimination (see Historical criticism, below).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Modern status of the caste system

The massive 2006 Indian anti-reservation protests by higher-caste^{[citation needed]} Hindus

The injustice of caste system, and the means of addressing it, has been an active topic of modern Indian discourse, particularly in the last 80 years. In 1933, the seriousness of the issue and its trauma on Indian consciousness, is exemplified by the following message from Ambedkar to Gandhi:

The Out-caste is a bye-product of the Caste system. There will be outcastes as long as there are castes. Nothing can emancipate the Out-caste except the destruction of the Caste system. Nothing can help to save Hindus and ensure their survival in the coming struggle except the purging of the Hindu Faith of this odious and vicious dogma.

— Dr. Ambedkar, 1933^[70]

A 2004 report, compiled by a society of Dalits and people against caste-based discrimination, summarized the developments over last 60 years, and status of the caste system in modern India, as follows:^[25]

Article 15 of Indian Constitution, as enacted in 1950, prohibits any discrimination based on caste. Article 17 of Indian Constitution declared any practice of untouchability as illegal.^[24] In 1955, India enacted the Untouchability (Offenses) Act (renamed in 1976, as the Protection of Civil Rights Act). Its extended the reach of law, from intent to mandatory enforcement. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, similar to the Hate Crime Laws in the United States, was passed in India in 1989.^[71]
India created National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to investigate, monitor, advise, and evaluate the socio-economic progress of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.^[72]
India implemented a reservation system for its citizens from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; this program has been in use in India for over 50 years. This program is similar to Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunities statutes in the United States.
In India, where the presence of private free market corporations is limited, government jobs have dominated the percentage of jobs in its economy. A 2000 report estimated that most jobs in India were in companies owned by the government or agencies of the government.^[25] The reservation system implemented by India over 50 years, has been partly successful, because of all jobs, nationwide, in 1995, 17.2 percent of the jobs were held by those in the lowest castes. In 1995, about 16.1 percent of India's population were the lowest castes.
The Indian government classifies government jobs in four groups. The Group A jobs are senior most, high paying positions in the government, while Group D are junior most, lowest paying positions. In Group D jobs, the percentage of positions held by lowest caste classified people is 30% greater than their demographic percentage. In all jobs classified as Group C positions, the percentage of jobs held by lowest caste people is about the same as their demographic population distribution. In Group A and B jobs, the percentage of positions held by lowest caste classified people is 30% lower than their demographic percentage.
The presence of lowest caste people in highest paying, senior most position jobs in India has increased by ten-fold, from 1.18 percent of all jobs in 1959 to 10.12 percent of all jobs in 1995.^[25]
In 1997, India democratically elected K. R. Narayanan, a Dalit, as the nation's President.^[73]
In 2007, India elected K. G. Balakrishnan, a Dalit, to the office of Chief Justice.^[74]
In 2007, Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, democratically elected Mayawati as the Chief Minister, the highest elected office of the state. BBC claims, "Mayawati Kumari is an icon for millions of India's Dalits, or untouchables as they used to be known."^[26]
In 2009. Indian parliament unanimously elected Meira Kumar, as the first woman speaker. She is from Dalit community.^[27]

In a 2008 study, Desai et al. focussed on education attainments of children and young adults aged 6–29, from lowest caste and tribal populations of India. They completed a national survey of over 100,000 households for each of the four survey years between 1983 and 2000.^[76] They found a significant increase in lower caste children in their odds of completing primary school. The number of dalit children who completed either middle, high or college level education increased three times faster than the national average, and the total number were statistically same for both lower and upper castes. The number of dalit girls in India who attended school doubled in the same period, but still few percent less than national average. Other poor caste groups as well as ethnic groups such as Muslims in India have also made improvements over the 16 year period, but their improvement lagged behind that of dalits and adivasis. The net percentage school attainment for Dalits and Muslims, were statistically same in 1999.

A 2007 nationwide survey of India by the World Bank found that over 80 percent of children of historically discriminated castes were attending schools. The fastest increase in school attendance by Dalit community children occurred during the recent periods of India's economic growth.^[28] The quality and quantity of schools are now India's major issue.^[77]

A study by Singh presents data on health and other indicators of socio-economic change in India's historically discriminated castes. He claims:^[30]

In 2001, the literacy rates in India's lowest castes was 55 percent, compared to a national average of 63 percent.
The childhood vaccination levels in India's lowest castes was 40 percent in 2001, compared to a national average of 44 percent.
Access to drinking water within household or near the household in India's lowest castes was 80 percent in 2001, compared to a national average of 83 percent.
The poverty level in India's lowest castes dropped from 49 percent to 39 percent between 1995–2005, compared to a national average change from 35 to 27 percent.

An indicator of caste-based violence, extent of hate crimes, disease and systematic discrimination in health care availability is the average life expectancy distribution for various castes. Table below presents this data for various caste groups in modern India. Both 1998 and 2005 data is included to ascertain the general trend. The Mohanty and Ram report suggests that poverty, not caste, is the bigger differentiator in life expectancy in modern India.^[29]

Life expectancy statistics for Indian caste groups
	Life expectancy at birth (in years)
Castes group	1998-1999	2005-2006
Lowest castes	61.5	64.6
Other backward castes	63.5	65.7
Poor, tribal populations	57.5	56.9
Poor, upper castes	61.9	62.7
National Average	63.8	65.5

A 2003 article in The Telegraph claimed that inter-caste marriage and dating are not uncommon in urban India. Indian societal and family relationships are changing because of female literacy and education, women at work, urbanization, need for two-income families, and global influences through the television. Female role models in politics, academia, journalism, business, and India's feminist movement have accelerated the change.^[31]

The caste system is still socially relevant in India. Caste has become (see Caste politics in India) an important factor in the politics of rural India, although elections in the first decade of the 21st century seem to have diminished a hold that was very much evident in the previous few decades.

The Government of India has officially documented castes and sub-castes, primarily to determine those deserving reservation (positive discrimination in education and jobs) through the census. The Indian reservation system relies on quotas. The Government lists consist of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes:

Scheduled castes (SC)

Scheduled castes generally consist of "Dalit". The present population is 16% of the total population of India (around 165 million).^[79] For example, the Delhi state has 49 castes listed as SC.^[80]

Scheduled tribes (ST)

Scheduled tribes generally consist of tribal groups. The present population is 7% of the total population of India i.e. around 70 million.

Other Backward Classes (OBC)

The Mandal Commission covered more than 3000 castes under Other Backward Class (OBC) Category, regardless of their affluence or economic status and stated that OBCs form around 52% of the Indian population. However, the National Sample Survey puts the figure at 32%.^[81] There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBCs in India; it is generally estimated to be sizable, but many believe that it is lower than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey.^[82]

The government is carrying out caste census for 2011.^[83] It will help in verifying the claims and counterclaims by various sections of the society about their actual numbers. It would also help the government to re-examine and even undo some of the policies which were formed in haste like Mandal commission and bring more objectivity to the policies with contemporary realities.^[84] Others believe that there is actually no social stigma at all associated with belonging to a backward caste, and that because of the huge constitutional incentives, in the form of educational and job reservations, a large number of people will falsely declare themselves to be from a backward caste, to avail of the benefits. This will not only result in a marked inflation of the backward castes numbers, but also lead to enormous administrative and judicial resources being devoted to social unrest and litigation, if such dubious caste declarations are challenged.^[85]

[edit] Caste systems among non-Hindus

Main articles: Caste system among South Asian Muslims and Caste system among Indian Christians

[edit] Christians

In some parts of India, Christians are stratified by sect, location, and the castes of their predecessors,^[86] usually in reference to upper class Syrian Christians. Christians in Kerala are divided into several communities, including Syrian Christians and the so-called "Latin" or "New Rite" Christians. In many ways this presence of social strata system has been witnessed elsewhere, such as the society structured by Christian Spaniards who, according to Cahill, established a caste system in the new world: the Indies, the New Spain and the Viceroyalty of Peru, within the last 500 years.^[20]

Kerala

Latin Rite Christians were actively converted by missionaries in the 16th and 19th centuries. These missionary activities were carried out by Western Latin Rite missionaries who did not understand the significance of the caste system in India; none of the Syrian churches had participated in such activities among the scheduled castes of India because they were aware of the prejudices of the caste system.^[90] Latin Rite Christians in Kerala were later granted with OBC status. Very rarely are there intermarriages between Syrian Christians and Latin Rite Christians.

Goa

In the Indian state of Goa, mass conversions were carried out by Portuguese Latin missionaries from the 16th century onwards. The Hindu converts retained their caste practices. Thus, the original Hindu Brahmins in Goa now became Christian Bamonns and the Kshatriya and Vaishya Vanis became Christian noblemen called Chardos. Those Vaishya Vanis who could not get admitted into the Chardo caste became Gauddos, and Shudras became Sudirs. Finally, the Dalits or "Untouchables" who converted to Christianity became Maharas and Chamars, the latter an appellation of the anti-Dalit ethnic slur Chamaar.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Muslims

Like castes elsewhere in Islamic world, Muslims in India have a caste system. Ashrafs are presumed to have a superior status,^[91][92] while the Ajlafs have a lower status. The Arzal caste among Muslims was regarded as the equivalent of untouchables, by anti-caste activists like Ambedkar, and by the colonial British ethnographer Herbert Risley who claimed that 56 percent of Muslims in British India were of a caste equivalent in status as the Hindu Shudras and Untouchables.^[93][94][95] In the Bengal region of India, some Muslims stratify their society according to 'Quoms.'^[96] Some scholars have asserted that the Muslim "castes" are not as acute in their discrimination as those of the Hindus,^[97] while other scholars argue that the social evils in South Asian Muslim society were worse than those seen in Hindu society.^[93][95]

[edit] Sikh

The Indian state of Punjab has the highest percentage of Dalits, as well as Sikhs in India.^[22][23] While the Sikh Gurus criticized the hierarchy of the caste system, a caste system has existed midst the Sikhs. In the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, out of 140 seats, 20 are reserved for low caste Sikhs.^[98][99]

[edit] Buddhists

This section requires expansion.

When Ywan Chwang traveled to South India after the period of the Chalukyan Empire, he noticed that the caste system had existed among the Buddhists and Jains.^[100]

[edit] Jains

Jains also had castes in places such as Bihar. For example, in the village of Bundela, there were several exclusionary jaats amongst the Jains. Martin claims these castes avoided eating with each other.^[101] There are about 110 different Jain Communities in India and overseas.

[edit] Baha'i

The Baha'i Faith has grown to prominence in India, since its philosophy of the unity of humanity attracted many of the lower castes.^[102]

[edit] Caste-related violence

Main article: Caste-related violence in India

Various incidents of violence against Dalits such as Kunbis Kherlanji Massacre of 2006 have been reported.^[106] In Kherlanji Massacre, a mob of about 40 Kunbis killed four members of a Dalit family. Various retaliatory violent protests by Dalits, such as the 2006 Dalit protests in Maharashtra, were then reported. In one instance, Dalits were claimed to have set three trains on fire, damaging over 100 buses and clashing with police in violent protests that left four persons dead and over 60 injured.^[107] In both cases, lengthy investigations and judicial processes followed.

[edit] Caste politics

Main article: Caste politics in India

The Mandal Commission was established in 1979 to "identify the socially or educationally backward" and to consider the question of seat reservations and quotas for people to redress caste discrimination.^[109] In 1980, the commission's report affirmed the affirmative action practice under Indian law, whereby additional members of lower castes—the other backward classes—were given exclusive access to another 27 percent of government jobs and slots in public universities, in addition to the 23 percent already reserved for the Dalits and Tribals. When V. P. Singh's administration tried to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission in 1989, massive protests were held in the country. Many alleged that the politicians were trying to cash in on caste-based reservations for purely pragmatic electoral purposes.

Many political parties in India have openly indulged in caste-based votebank politics. Parties such as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal claim that they are representing the backward castes, and rely on OBC support, often in alliance with Dalit and Muslim support, to win elections.^[110] Remarkably, in what is called a landmark election in the history of India's most populated state of Uttar Pradesh,^{[by whom?]} the Bahujan Samaj Party was able to garner a majority in the state assembly elections with the support of the high caste Brahmin community.

[edit] Criticism

There has been criticism of the caste system from both within and outside of India.^[111] Criticism of the Caste system in Hindu society came both from the Hindu fold and without.

[edit] Historical criticism

The caste system has been criticized by many Indian social reformers over India's history.

For example, Jyotirao Phule vehemently criticized any explanations that caste system was natural and ordained by the Creator in Hindu texts. If Brahma wanted castes, argued Phule, he would have ordained the same for other creatures. There are no castes in species of animals or birds, why should there be one among human animals. In his criticism Phule added, "Brahmins cannot claim superior status because of caste, because they hardly bothered with these when wining and dining with Europeans." Professions did not make castes, and castes did not decide one's profession. If someone does a job that is dirty, it does not make them inferior; in the same way that no mother is inferior because she cleans the excreta of her baby. Ritual occupation or tasks, argued Phule, do not make any human being superior or inferior.^[112]

Vivekananda similarly criticized caste as one of the many human institutions that bars the power of free thought and action of an individual. Caste or no caste, creed or no create, any man, or class, or caste, or nation, or institution that bars the power of free thought and bars action of an individual is devilish, and must go down. Liberty of thought and action, asserted Vivekananda, is the only condition of life, of growth and of well-being.^[113]

[edit] Contemporary criticism

Threshing/winnowing people in a Dalit village near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

Caste is racial discrimination

The maltreatment of Dalits in India has been described by some authors as "India's hidden apartheid".^[116][117] Critics of the accusations point to substantial improvements in the position of Dalits in post-independence India, consequent to the strict implementation of the rights and privileges enshrined in the Constitution of India, as implemented by the Protection of Civil rights Act, 1955.^[118] They also note that India has had a Dalit president, K.R. Narayanan, and argue that the practise had disappeared in urban public life.^[119]

Sociologists Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman and Angela Bodino, while critical of casteism, conclude that modern India does not practice apartheid since there is no state-sanctioned discrimination.^[120] They write that casteism in India is presently "not apartheid. In fact, untouchables, as well as tribal people and members of the lowest castes in India benefit from broad affirmative action programmes and are enjoying greater political power." The Constitution of India places special emphasis on outlawing caste discrimination, especially the practice of untouchability.^[121]

Allegations that caste amounts to race has been rejected by some scholars.^{[114][122][123]} Ambedkar, for example, wrote that "The Brahmin of Punjab is racially of the same stock as the Chamar of Punjab. The Caste system does not demarcate racial division. The Caste system is a social division of people of the same race".

Other scholars propose that caste and race based discrimination may be related. Cahill, for example, suggests that the social structure engineered by colonial Spaniards, with limpieza de sangre, in South America, one based on race, ethnicity and economic condition was a caste system.^[20] The Spanish colonial rule posited, according to Cahill, that the character and quality of people varied according to their color, race and origin of ethnic types. Caste system and racism have empirically been the two faces of the same coin in recent human history, in a colonial migrant society outside of India. Haviland suggests that race and caste systems are related and each a type of social stratification. Both create social classes determined by birth and fixed for life. Both are opposite of the principle that all humans are born equal, both tend to be endogamous, and offsprings are automatically members of parent's social strata. As examples, Haviland describes castelike situations in Central and South America where wealthy, upper class European-descent population rarely intermarried with people of non-European descent; the social strata in current practice by the royal families and nobility in modern Europe; racial segregation and castelike separation of people by their ethnicity in townships of modern South Africa.^[117] Race and caste may have different anthropological origins, yet have the same anthropological result.

In her book Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia, Pakistani-American sociologist Ayesha Jalal writes, "As for Hinduism, the hierarchical principles of the Brahmanical social order have always been contested from within Hindu society, suggesting that equality has been and continues to be both valued and practiced."^[124]

Caste and economics

A 1995 study suggests that the caste system in India must be viewed as a system of exploitation of poor low-ranking groups by more prosperous high-ranking groups.^[125] Such qualitative theories have been questioned though by other studies. Haque reports that over 90 percent of both scheduled castes (low-ranking groups) and all other castes (high-ranking groups) either do not own land or own very small land area only capable of producing less than $1000 per year of food and income per household. Over 99 percent of India's farms are less than 10 hectares, and 99.9 percent of the farms are less than 20 hectares, regardless of the farmer or landowner's caste. Indian government has, in addition, vigorously pursued agricultural land ceiling laws which prohibit anyone from owning land greater than mandated limits. India has used this law to forcibly acquire land from some, then redistribute tens of millions of acres to the landless and poor of the low-caste. However, but for some short term exceptions in some states, these laws have not met the expectations.^[126][127] In a 2011 study, Aiyar too notes that such qualitative theories of economic exploitation and consequent land redistribution within India between 1950 and 1990 had no effect on the quality of life and poverty reduction. Instead, economic reforms since 1990s and resultant opportunities for non-agricultural jobs have reduced poverty and increased per capita income for all segments of Indian society.^[128] For specific evidence, Aiyar mentions the following

Critics believe that the economic liberalization has benefited just a small elite and left behind the poor, especially the lowest Hindu caste of dalits. But a recent authoritative survey revealed striking improvements in living standards of dalits in the last two decades. Television ownership was up from zero to 45 percent; cellphone ownership up from zero to 36 percent; two-wheeler ownership (of motorcycles, scooters, mopeds) up from zero to 12.3 percent; children eating yesterday’s leftovers down from 95.9 percent to 16.2 percent...[...]... Dalits running their own businesses up from 6 percent to 37 percent; and proportion working as agricultural laborers down from 46.1 percent to 20.5 percent. [...]

Cassan has studied the differential effect within two segments of India's Dalit community. He finds India's overall economic growth has produced the fastest and more significant socio-economic changes. Cassan further concludes that legal and social program initiatives are no longer India's primary constraint in further advancement of India's historically discriminated castes; further advancement are likely to come from improvements in the supply of quality schools in rural and urban India, along with India's economic growth.^[32]

[edit] Genetic analysis

Several reports published between 1995 and 2005 propose that Indian tribal and caste population samples they studied, have similar genetic origins and have received limited gene input from outside India. These studies imply that racial differences may not have influenced caste system in India.^[133][134]

Other reports, also published between 1995 and 2007 find that there was gene flow from many migratory populations. These studies propose that people migrated into India through northwest as well as northeast. Prior to these waves of human migrations, India had a settled native population. People in northwest India, as well as upper castes in other parts of India, share more genetic material with central Asia, west Asia, and parts of Europe. People in northeast India share more genetic material with southeast Asia and East Asia. These genetic marker studies also find admixing between people and across castes was frequent and endogamy along caste lines may have been far less than what would be expected in a rigid caste system over thousands of years.^{[135][136][137][138][139][140]}

A 2009 article published in Nature finds strong evidence for at least two ancient populations in India, genetically divergent, that are ancestral to most Indians today. One, the Ancestral North Indians, who are genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, whereas the other, the Ancestral South Indians, who are genetically distinct from Ancestral North Indians and East Asians as they are from each other. The study observes that genetic markers suggest endogamy within population clusters was prevalent in various Indian kingdoms over time. The report includes a novel method to estimate ancestry without accurate ancestral populations. With this method, the scientists show that Ancestral North Indians ancestry ranges from 39–71% in most Indian groups, and is higher in traditionally upper caste and Indo-European language speakers. Groups with only Ancestral South Indians ancestry may no longer exist in mainland India due to genetic pool mixing. However, the indigenous Andaman Islanders are unique in being Ancestral South Indians-related groups without Ancestral North Indians ancestry. This study suggests that caste system in India may have some relationship to historical migration of diverse people into Indian subcontinent.^[132]

A 2010 review claims that there are at least four population groups in diverse India.^[129] Other than Ancestral North Indians and Ancestral South Indians, the population consists of Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic and Andamanese genetic pools suggesting human beings migrated into India from Africa, Eurasia, Tibet and southeast Asia. The caste system in India is possibly a complex intra-group and inter-group admix of interactions between various population groups. The review paper notes that studies so far were based on small sample sets for the diversity in India. With the availability of new genotyping technologies, future diversity studies encompassing a large number of populations, both tribals and castes, at the genome-wide level may help understand patterns of micro-evolution of populations in India.

[edit] In popular culture

Mulk Raj Anand's debut novel, Untouchable (1935) based on the theme of untouchability. Hindi film, Achhoot Kanya (Untouchable Maiden, 1936) starring Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani was an early reformist film. The debut novel of Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997) also has themes surrounding the caste system. A lawyer named Sabu Thomas filed a petition to have the book published without the last chapter, which had graphic description of sexual acts between members of different castes.^[141] Sabu Thomas, a member of Syrian Christian community of Kerala, claimed the obscenity in the last chapter deeply hurts the Syrian Christian community, the basis of the novel.^[142]

The 2011 Hindi cinema (Bollywood) movie Aarakshan deals with caste-based educational reservations.

[edit] Caste system in India from an international perspective

Ogbu suggests that, in international context, the emotional feeling and the result is the same, that anyone born into a lower caste or caste-like minority—a Burakumin in Japan, a minority in America, or Shudra in India—is to grow up with this feeling that one's life will eventually be restricted to a small and poorly rewarded set of social roles.^[150]

Berreman^[1] is amongst those who use the term social stratification to discuss the caste system in India from an international perspective. He claims that regardless of its characteristics in a particular society, stratification is based upon three primary dimensions: class, status, and power, which are expressed respectively as wealth, prestige, and the ability to control the lives of people. Berreman suggests that, from an international perspective, social stratification systems present everywhere in the world share these crucial facts:

the identity is regarded as being a consequence of birth or ancestry and therefore is immutable;
the identity confers upon its possessor a degree of societally defined and affirmed worth which is regarded as intrinsic to the individual; and
this inherent worth is evaluated relative to that of all others in the society; that is, those of different birth circumstances are inherently unequal and are avoided, while those of similar birth circumstances are innately equal and are sought.

The issues and challenges with caste system in India have been, and are currently no different than religion, gender, ethnic or race-based social stratification and discrimination systems anywhere else in the world.^[1]

m andÇ5�c s �.H ȽE hy in ancient India.
From the Bhakti school, the view is that the four divisions were originally created by Krishna. "According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society were created."^[40]
Criticisms of these understandings of the caste system point out that Varna itself means a complexion, and these Varnas are nothing more than a social classification based on the activities that the individual is involved in.^{[citation
needed]}