Introduction:
The caste system is an old-age system. It is one of the main cause of social inequality in our country. It has been contributed to keeping a large portion of the country’s population backward. India has been under the clutches of the evil caste system from the ancient period.
The exact origin of this system is not known as there are many different theories that state different stories about its initiation. According to the Varna system, people were broadly divided into four different categories. Here is a look at the people who fall under each of these categories:
- Brahmins- priests, teachers, and scholars
- Kshatriyas- rulers and warriors
- Vaishyas- farmers, merchants, and traders
- Shudras- laborers
History of caste discrimination:
The Varna system later got degenerated into the caste system. The society was divided into 3,000 castes and as many as 25,000 sub-castes based on the occupation of the community that a person was born into.
The Varna system started when the Aryans came in India around 1500 BC. The Aryans introduced this system to have control over people and make things work in a systematic manner. In this system, the different roles were assigned to a different group of peoples.
When this Varna system degenerated into the caste system, there was a lot of discrimination happened on the basis of caste. As per the Hindu theologies, it is said that this system came into existence with Brahma, the Hindu God who is known as the creator of the universe. According to this theory the people who hold the highest stature in the society that is the priests and teachers, they came from the Brahma’s head, the people of the second category were the warriors who came from the god’s arm, the people of the third category is the traders and merchants who came from the god’s thighs and the peasants and workers, people belonging to the lowest caste category came from the Brahma’s feet.
How it is followed by the society:
The people of higher caste were treated with great respect and enjoyed several privileges while the other from the lower classes were treated very badly and were deprived of many several things. The inter-caste marriages were strictly prohibited.
But today in urban areas the caste system has declined immensely. The lower caste people are still not getting respect in the society, as the governments have offered many different benefits to them. On the basis of caste, there is a reservation in the country. The people belonging to the lower classes come into reserved quota in the education sector and also for jobs in government sector. They get full security regarding their education and jobs.
Conclusion:
After the Independence from Britisher, the Indian constitution has banned the caste discrimination. Then the quota system came into existence and it was introduced for the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes.
The Baba Rao Ambedkar authored the constitution of India was himself a Dalit and the concept of social justice for protecting the interests of these communities on the lower rung of society. It was considered as the great move in the Indian history, though now it is being misused for narrow political reasons by different parties in the country.
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