: Today our discussion is going to be conducted on the caste system which has taken over several countries and deprived many of their basic human rights such as freedom from torture, right to a fair trial, freedom of movement, discrimination and several other factors that many of us take for granted. The caste system worked very well as it was an elaborated religious method which insisted that your birth in this life was directly related to your sins or good deeds in the last one.
: The caste system is a social hierarchy determined be birth by the hindu Brahmin or priestly group approximately 2000 years ago. It was further influenced when the British colonized India for around 250 years. And they did a good job of instilling this system in the mind of every indian. The caste system in India was divided into 4 main groups with one outcasted category. These were:
1. TheBrahmins: Priests and teachers.
2. The Kshatriyas: Rulers and Soldiers.
3. Vaisyas: Merchants and traders.
4. Sudras: Labourers and artisans.
5. Dalits: these people were outside the system, isolated from society and declared to be the ‘untouchables’
: We will be focusing a bit more on the untouchable Dalits today since this was the group that was a victim of high and racial injustice. The dalits were made to live away in villages far off from regular civilization. And their segregation was implemented all around the country to the extent that regular people would not even share a drinking cup with them.
: Alongside physical segregation, the dalits were affected by social segregation as well. Obviously no one of a higher class would marry them, and they were given the most unwanted jobs in the country. Toilet cleaners (and this is more like open sewage cleaning), young girls were forced to become prostitutes from as early as the age of 8, they were given the responsibility of disposing dead bodies and so much more.
: What traumatized me the most was the fact that this specific group has no choice in what society has decreed upon them. It has been instilled in the minds of the dalits that it is their duty to their country, to their religion to work and to serve the people as how they do. And since their occupations are so dirty, many eateries don’t serve them,. Those which do, serve them “from a safe distance to avoid any contamination. Its been 57 years of independence in India, and over 180 million people (in india alone) suffer from adversities such as these. The Brahmins being such a superior and high class in the caste system has very little contact with the dalits..and the contact that does happen is through the “devadasi system” – which is ritual temple prostitution of the dalit women.
