I won't read it because caste is a trauma-inducing subject to me.
I'll just leave my comment here so that the truth is available for anyone who cares.
I'm a member of the so-called "upper castes", but not a Brahmin.
Parents were very bohemian, never taught me anything about caste.
Go to college in India. My best friend in college is a Brahmin. I knew that Brahmins were priests, didn't really know anything else about their ideology. One late night, well after we had established a very strong friendship, he starts to tell me about how Brahmins are superior to non-Brahmins. Tells me that because I was "x" caste, I was meant to do "y" types of jobs. And that I shouldn't try to compete with him in things where "pure IQ" was relevant. I pointed out to him that in the national Civil Service and IIT exams, people of my caste were usually the "toppers", and usually made up 40% to 60% of the top 10 selected. Routinely doing better than Brahmins. (In India the last name is associated with one's caste, and newspapers routinely publish names of "toppers" of these exams). He shrugged it off. The crazy part? In every other aspect of his character, he was such a good guy that we remained best friends for years after.
Upper castes will tell you there's no caste discrimination in India. Three more anecdotes:
1) I take up a one-year position with my job in Chennai. Go around looking for an apartment. Looked at 2 apartments in a nice neighborhood. First question the landlords asked me: are you a Brahmin? They told me they couldn't rent to me because I wasn't.
2) In my office in Chennai I become friendly with a lot of the female staff. They start to tease me one day that they're going to find me a girl to marry. "Don't worry, we'll find you a Brahmin." The kicker? They weren't Brahmins themselves. This is the level of self-hate the Brahmin has bred into non-Brahmins.
3) I now live and work in the U.S. A new hire, Indian, joins. Visits my office one day. Tells me he left India because he hates the caste system. I start warming to him. A little while later informs me that he's a very high Brahmin. Not an ordinary Brahmin, mind you, a high Brahmin.
4) Brahmin friend of mine at work. Brilliant fellow. Solid decent chap overall. I tell him about this article I read about how in some city, a non-Brahmin girl wasn't allowed to do Bharat Natyam (a classical Indian dance form that is widely taught) on some stage because she wasn't a Brahmin. I guess traditionally only Brahmin girls were allowed to perform it. Turns out he agrees with this decision.
5) I'm eating South Indian food with a colleague in Chennai (I suppose he was a Brahmin, but am not 100% sure). I love South Indian food. I comment to him how good the food is. He says, it's not as good as it used to be because in the past only Brahmins were allowed to cook at that restaurant, but now they allow anyone to cook. He knows I'm not a Brahmin, and still he thinks it's okay to say such things to my face.
I had read about a woman from a Brahmin family who first started practicing Bharat Natyam in the 1900s , and had huge opposition from other brahmins as it was considered low for a brahmin lady to practice . This was only practiced by Devadasis during that time.
Now when the dance is popular , brahmins have myths about how the dance form belongs to the brahmins and was granted by god. I think this is the wiki link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rukmini_Devi_Arundale The related links have more details about the transformation from an art form of the lower class to gods gift to the upper class. This is true of almost every claims of the so called upper castes.
Propping up the caste system required blind faith and belief, just dig a little and you see how stupid it is to believe.
It was just Bharat Natyam. A commonly taught classical dance form of India. But this performance hall denied her request to perform it because she wasn't a Brahmin.
True, have seen system from inside. Have seen people of my generation still clinging to it.
Most of places I see it, is for economic reasons(priest job, reservations both are side of coins) and some have nothing to boost other than caste and no other incentives.
Always hoped education will get rid of this system that has turned evil, but that hope has also gone as western education system has nothing to offer. Probably some indigenous education reform might help, but would love to see some PhD or researched guy’s comment
Would love to see some solutions to this problem. One that I have heard is inter-caste marriage(haven’t researched much), but would love to see some more solutions for this problem or just no hope than another Shankaracharya.
If interested we can have website dedicated to solutions eradicate this system by offering people what this system gives them.
Also I think we can’t get rid of any system without offering replacement for it especially for huge and highly knitted society as Bharat.
> 3) I now live and work in the U.S. A new hire, Indian, joins. Visits my office one day. Tells me he left India because he hates the caste system. I start warming to him. A little while later informs me that he's a very high Brahmin. Not an ordinary Brahmin, mind you, a high Brahmin.
All the super-progressive Indians I know in the U.S. are Brahmins. What's up with that?
This guy also believes he's super-progressive. He hates the caste-system, remember?
It might be "compensation". It's like people who live in lily-white areas who constantly harp on about George Floyd. To show they're truly down with the struggle. But if a black man shows up in their neighborhood, they call the police on him.
I remember in high school a girl doing a “caste reveal” in class. She had researched her family history and proudly announced that, phew, she was Brahmin. We all clapped.
I come from one state in India were caste isnt anywhere front and center. I would have loved to say that caste is irrelevant here, its almost true. From following your posts I think our states are on the east and the west of an international boundary.
Anyhow, being raised in a caste-agnostic surroundings I was quite underexposed to all this. Much later, I get into a premier institute in Kanpur and a senior grad student introduces himself to me thus, "Hi I am <insert name>. I am a high caste Rajput".
This is the first time I am meeting him and not even a minute had elapsed since our first eye contact. I am so dumbfounded by this I literally stand there at a loss for words. Finally I mumble "Congratulations" as I had no idea or prior exposure on how to react to such a situation.
By the way, for anyone interested in reading more, a fascinating read is the chapter on the Hindu Caste System in the book "Tarikh Al Hind" written by Al Biruni, Persian scholar, during his visit to India from 1017 to 1030.
It was written 1,000 years ago, but could have been written 75 years ago. It reads that fresh.
The level of oppression of lower castes (described in this book) is unbelievable, and remains partly practiced even today. The biggest problem was that you couldn't escape your caste ("caste" is derived from "cast", something you were locked, or cast, into).
Just so you know: the prevalence of non-Brahmin castes among toppers is discussed rather in hushed tones. The supposed explanation is that "richer" families have better access to coaching.
I have been involved in public exams in India. I think the best predictor for performance is how relevant your parents' education is, to your career, not caste per se.
Brahmins are around 4% of the Indian population. It's no surprise there weren't many of them in the top 10 selected. Even if there was on average only one out of 10 each year, that would still be an overrepresentation of more than double.
Sorry if this comes as extremely ignorant but how is the caste of a foreigner determined? Let's say I marry an Indian, I must adopt her caste? I have to get... Evaluated? and after that I get a caste?
It always comes down to the perception of how useful you could be. Do you look like you could have valuable connections? Do people look at you and think this person probably has money/smarts/connection/anything else of utility? Maybe you are exotic or good looking enough that they want to associate with you to increase their own standing in their own tribes?
Can you explain, if Brahmins represent only 4% of the population (like a comment said), why in your example the landlord and the girls expected a Brahmins (and not just "any 'respectable' caste") ?
To me, it sounds very illogical : like only wanting to rent or marry millionaires...
My last name would eventually give away that I wasn't a Brahmin.
They hadn't asked me my name yet. I was taken to them by a rental intermediary. A guy who helped people find apartments. Online rental finding places, like Craigslist, weren't common back then (at least in India).
The most shocking thing about the experience to me was that even though it was illegal for them to deny me an apartment on the basis of my caste, there was simply nothing I could do about it. If I went to the police, it would be a whole other circus (bribes, inaction, etc.).
1. Sikhs & Gurkhas are warrior class, they are overrepresented in the military.
2. Parsi's are extraordinarily successful businessmen, they are among the wealthiest Indians.
3. Brahmins are extraordinarily successful academically.
4. Jains are successful businessmen.
Let us remember that 1-3 were co-opted by the British as loyal troops, given special concessions in business, and employed as loyal servants in clerical tasks.
In the case of [4] it is survival bias, being a true Jain is very hard and only the rich elite could adhere to it.
Some communities in India have had a head start or rather the barbaric colonial rule had pulled down much of the population to abject poverty and gave few people not in abject poverty a head start.
Equally there is a special hate campaign against Brahmins emanating from church as they are seen as guardians of high culture and scriptures.
As a vast majority of Indians have not converted to Islam or Christianity in spite of the hostile foreign occupation anywhere between 400 to a 1000 years, I can safely say we are all warriors and the last surviving major ancient civilisation.
The caste-debate is a two way street and is mostly kept alive by few vested interests. Among the youth it is mostly the "reservation" that exposes them to "Caste politics", as online education & private sector picks up it is going to be less relevant.
To be fair to Brahmins, as non-brahmin with a brahmin-like first name from Tamil Nadu I have been at the receiving end of the political-church driven hate campaigns that even teachers take part in.
I think we should not tolerate any kind of hate especially hate campaigns, esp. for the younger generation.
> In contrast to these cases, Indian endogamy has maintained discernible genetic differences even within the same village for thousands of years. In 2009, geneticist David Reich estimated that the Vyasa community of South India had been genetically isolated from its neighbors for 2,000 years. Endogamy rates were 99% per generation at a minimum.
If there’s one thing I’ve seen across all rural regions of India, it’s terrible violence against the weak, irrespective of caste. This has been the same, probably for thousands of years.Categorisation with caste probably makes some sizeable chunk of it, but still it’s across the spectrum of castes, not just limited to a few.
Certainly, I hope anyone commenting on this will take note of the publishing date being more than 100 years ago.
Who your kids end up marrying is mentioned as a big driver of caste in the article. I think that holds true today as well. All things being equal, your professor / lawyer / doctor parents probably don't want you to marry a janitor.
And, I'm pretty sure this is true everywhere.
In a highly competitve place (mostly due to population), they'll say something like, "he's from the janitor class, but thats okay, because he's a doctor" to justify marrying outside the caste.
> And, I'm pretty sure this is true everywhere.
In a highly competitve place (mostly due to population), they'll say something like, "he's from the janitor class, but thats okay, because he's a doctor" to justify marrying outside the caste.
Well, I don't think there is a concept of "janitor class" "everywhere"...
Of course social classes exist everywhere, but I think your example just shows what a caste system is : if a son-of-janitor becomes a doctor the in-laws in most modern societies will see a doctor, whereas in a caste system they will see a (son-of-) janitor.
Not the GP, but I can anecdotally confirm this. Breaking caste barriers remains unusual in most of India. The Indian HN community is biased towards Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay where rates of exogamy amongst the upper middle class are far higher than in practically all other parts of India.
If some Indian tells you that they are progressive and caste is not followed these days, ask them which caste their spouse belongs to. And that will answer how progressive they are.
Caste is another word for tribe. All across the world, the vast majority of people marry in their own tribe, for a variety of reasons.
I married within my own tribe because I like my tribe’s food and customs, and I wanted a spouse who likes the same. It all comes down to socioeconomic class at the end anyway, whether it be called “caste”, or “doctor/lawyer/engineer”, or MIT/cal tech/Stanford grad, etc.
If you have a friend who is a doctor or engineer earning $400k per year, would you try to set them up with a janitor earning $40k per year? Maybe, but I suspect probably not. Progressive or not progressive, humans are still animals, and they are going to play the mating game.
That is what we like to think, but whether or not you are a doctor, or a high earning software developer, or a janitor is greatly influenced by the parents you have, which country you were born in, what year you were born in, which school district you went to school in, etc.
Hell, as I grew older, I realized that families in my own tribe that had more male children were generally far more economically successful than the families with more female children (because it was a paternalistic tribe at the time of immigration and wealth buildup in the new country). The men stay together and support each other, the women get married out and go to live with their spouse’s family. Their children’s economic opportunities were most definitely influenced by whether or not their dad had a lot of brothers to depend on or not.
If the income/wealth gap in society is large, there is basically no way to that society does not get stratified. The only solution to excess tribalism is to reduce that income/wealth gap, which is unfortunately moving in the opposite direction.
Note that I am not a proponent of a caste system or a formal method of tribalism, but I am merely pointing out that marrying someone in your own tribe is expected behavior, and will still happen absent a formal and rigid tribal delineation.
A low caste person can get killed if they "trespass" even by having mustache which is only allowed for the upper caste in parts of India or if they are seen eating before the so-called upper castes. Or for just making eye contact!
Funny you mention that because I really dont know, but I fervently agree with you.
My spouse belongs to a different state, speaks a different language. It never occurred to us to find out.
We did have a religious ceremony and at that time it turned out that me and my spouse belong to the same 'gotra'. In conservative circles that's a big 'no no' because 'gotra' translates loosely to lineage, although in practice its just another label carried forward along patrilineal lines. Some would consider intra gotra marriage equivalent to incest.
Anyhow, this unexpected reveal was a surprise but no one batted an eyelid.
I wonder if there are similar strength effects across progressive Indians when compared to asking Americans the highest level of education they and their spouse completed.
Caste comes from the Portuguese word "Castus". There is no literal translation found for this word in ancient Hindu Sanskrit texts. The quoted article comes written from a time under British Raj where peoples backgrounds were used to further divide society so that they would not rise up against the British.
Caste in the same sense of occupational background exists in all cultures but was never used in such a divisive way like the British Raj did. For example people of the "Smith" surname used to be Goldsmiths or Blacksmiths. But the British put a sense of elitism into some communities in India, telling them they are higher than others. There is no Hindu scripture which says who is high or low, but merely responsibilities.
Skilfully sidestepping any explanation of the metric being used to measure “high”, the educated spiritual priests in British Raj times and intellectuals were all banded together into one and labelled "highest caste" because they represented the “highest threat” to Anglican domination and those who represented the “lowest threat” to the Anglican were pushed into the lowest caste.
During the British Raj of the 540 principalities existent at that time, over 400 were ruled by Shudra Kings (Professor Vaidyanathan, IIM Bangalore) which the British denoted as low caste. When the British left, the second largest landowner in India after the Indian Government, was the Church and thus it’s reasonable to note that the largest transfer of assets and land from was in fact from the Shudra groups (Lord Harries’ so called low-castes) to the Church. Further, there is readily available overwhelming historical evidence that the Dalits “the Untouchables” were themselves a creation of the crushing sanctions created and imposed by the Anglican Colonialists of the Church of England as is clarified below. The castes and tribes “notified” under the 1871 Act were labelled as Criminal Tribes for their so-called “criminal tendencies”. As a result, anyone born in these communities across the country was presumed a “born criminal”, irrespective of their criminal precedents.
Mixing castes was normal as it was based on deed back few thousand years ago, only recently caste mixing wasn't allowed. Some further reading:
Caste endogamy in India is well established and it shows that inter-marriage etc between castes basically stopped around 1800+ years ago.. which is clearly well before the British, Portuguese or whoever else came to India.
And also saying that the Portuguese/British invented the caste system because "caste" is a Portuguese system makes no sense because:
a) Indians don't speak Portuguese and the words Jati and Varna have both existed in Indian languages for millenia
b) To claim that something didn't exist because a word from a foreign language is most commonly used to discuss it is like saying that gravity didn't exist before Isaac Newton as he is the one to discover it and give it meaning.
Jati and Varna are completely different things to Caste. Castus is a Latin word meaning clean and pure, which is where Caste comes from. Varna is occupational work. Inter marriage was allowed in Hindu scriptures, if they stopped for whatever reason, does not take away from the fact that the British (especially Christian aspect) used it to divide people in India. What you are talking about specifically is the discrimination and whilst discrimination to the poorer occupations always existed in most societies, it was accelerated in India by the Brits.
Evangelists, Colonialist, Colonial apologists & Leftists have a perverse incentive in theorising & establishing a framework linking caste to Indians & Hindus along with exaggerations and hiding equally bad or worse examples from Europe.
It would only be fair to look at the opposing views and reject or reevaluate theories that are on thin ice.
Jati & Varna are two separate ideas, "Indian caste system" is an import and a framework trying to combine the two.
Why do we keep using the word "caste", when we talk about Jati. A lot of Jatis do not see themselves as lower & upper and there are thousands of Jatis so no one is carrying around a dictionary to see where they stand.
People rarely talk ever about "their" varna and the vast majority do not see themselves or their jati falling into a specific varna.
70% of the temples in Tamil Nadu have priests from the Jati that built the temple and non-brahmins, there falls the idea "Brahmins" exclusively being the priestly class.
I have worked for decades with persons from India. Their caste issue and the way it affects every area of their lives is a real problem that needs to be solved. Just as American racism is a problem that needs to be solved, Indian caste biases need to be solved.
Fascinating writing/lecture. I knew of B R Ambedkar but not of how he talked. I also really enjoy these styles of explanation of the factors that result in the rise of certain societal constructs. Good stuff here, aged though it may be.
No. Classes aren't castes. You can change class but not castes. In this way it is more like social-racism.
I don't think the surnames "Gates" or "Rockefeller" are reserved or showing to which caste/class they belong.
As for group A feeling superior to group B, it's common everywhere and is purely subjective. Unlike a caste system that has some real everyday-life consequences.
Sati as an issue was orthogonal to caste.
It was more of a way to prevent rape by the Muslim invaders of the time.
I don't know about y'all, but for me, death over dishonour.
Sati existed in upper castes too. In the Kennedy family maintaining a certain social style is far more important. JKF sister went through lobotomy and suffered entire life social pressure due to mental health problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy
Old money vs new money, Harvard vs others, Boston Irish vs Others. The cultural divides are subtle. They are like glass ceiling. You will realize how big a deal it is when you enter to their priorities. For getting most of the jobs, no one could care less. Try housing - You will not get housing in certain areas unless you project a certain class.
"The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots, And the Cabots speak only to God."
This was true at one time, but that time was the better part of a century and a half ago. The last vestiges of that were removed when Kennedy became president. If you show up to buy a house on Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill, or a mansion on Tory Row in Cambridge, and you're willing to pay ${millions} cash on the nail, nobody is going to check your ancestry or your place in the social register before selling to you.
Caste system in India was created by British to divide and conquer for solidifying their colonial rule. Prior to that India had a “Class” system based on person’s nature(Guna) and actions(karma)- also called Varna system. Based on ability and to some extent traditional societal role.
In modern India the political parties propagate it for their demographic politics whereas nobody cares about caste in day to day life. Surprisingly in USA there is an Ivy League caste system supposedly based on merit. If that is justified so is India Class system based on ability and track record.
With the inadequate Sanskrit knowledge and billions in Missionary funds this “caste” from “caste” continues to be a milch giving cow for ngo activism & regressive politics.
From the (quick) search I did following your un-sourced claim : the Hindu castes system existed centuries before the arrival of the British in India.
And are you claiming one could have been born a Dalit and become a Brahmin (or whatever the "non-british" castes names you want to give them) during his lifetime? I highly doubt it ever was as casual as you make it sound...
It seems this claim is somewhat popular in some indian circles, judging from this quick search.
One can't praise a millenary culture and at the same time claim it can be reshaped totally from a short colonial period.
Reference Bhagvad Gita 4-13 . It talks about 4 varnas based on Guna & karmas. The famous sage Valmiki was a Shudra who became a Brahmin by composing the epic Ramayana.
> The famous sage Valmiki was a Shudra who became a Brahmin by composing the epic Ramayana.
Could you cite a reference ? The traditional stories that I have heard from my grandparents tells a different story. That he was born Agni Sharma (Brahmin) and acquired the name Valmiki for reciting the words "death" (mara) which repeated seemed he was chanting "Rama".
Thanks for the reference. But you're giving me a religious text source (which I won't be able to analyze).
What I was asking you was more straight forward : can you show me that farmers son could marry priests daughters (or whatever "caste" combination you want) before the British colonization of India?
I don't think so.
Manusmriti is 2 century BC whereas Mongol invasion is middle ages and had very little impact in India because for various reasons the Mongols did not really get inside India although there were a few battles where some Mongol generals tested the borders.
Bhakti movement, a reformist movement of Hinduism mentions caste, thats 8th century AD, well before Mongol invasion. There is mention of caste in Budhdhist, Jain and Sikh literature as well. A significant component of many of these religion were a rejection of the prevailing caste system.
From the sound of it, the parent's claim has a whiff of what is derogatorily referred to as propaganda of WhatsApp University -- a well oiled and funded propaganda and fake news machinery of the political party in power. Please do not fall for it.
1) Mongols never invaded India. Even though they reached river Sindh while hunting a Muslim ruler. They had deference towards India - the land Buddhism arose from. Some historians say lack of grassland etc but they never came here. Even your Wiki link says the same except for the disingenuous headline. Kashmir was invaded my Muslims from Mongol captured regions not Mingols themselves. Mongols were not Muslims.
2) Show me the Sanskrit text of manusmriti talking about anything but the varna system.
I have studied this in original Sanskrit and dont need cut/paste reference to bolster common but false propaganda from Wiki or WhatsApp university. Satmaye Jayate - truth is always victorious.
> Mongols never invaded India. Even though they reached river Sindh
I agree with you and havent claimed otherwise (quoting myself: Mongols did not really get inside India although there were a few battles where some Mongol generals tested the borders.). Was responding to parent's claim that caste system was an artifact Mongol invasion. Not sure what relevance of them not being Muslims or the scarcity/search for grassland (both true statements) have anything to the topic though.
> Show me the Sanskrit text of manusmriti talking about anything but the varna system.
The word caste of course cannot occur in a sanskrit text. By caste one means the varna system of designating people into Brahmins, Kshatriya ... and others
The varna is about individual callings or occupations, not caste as understood today in India. It also has its correlates elsewhere, e.g. in the Confucian "four occupations of the people" and the tripartite division in the West. Would you say that Europe had a caste system historically because of the definition of First, Second and Third Estates?
Even the Govardhan Mutt Shankararcharya - one of the custodians of Advaita, argues clearly that the varna and jati are integral to Hinduism and he supports the caste system. You can find his videos on Youtube.
I'll just leave my comment here so that the truth is available for anyone who cares.
I'm a member of the so-called "upper castes", but not a Brahmin.
Parents were very bohemian, never taught me anything about caste.
Go to college in India. My best friend in college is a Brahmin. I knew that Brahmins were priests, didn't really know anything else about their ideology. One late night, well after we had established a very strong friendship, he starts to tell me about how Brahmins are superior to non-Brahmins. Tells me that because I was "x" caste, I was meant to do "y" types of jobs. And that I shouldn't try to compete with him in things where "pure IQ" was relevant. I pointed out to him that in the national Civil Service and IIT exams, people of my caste were usually the "toppers", and usually made up 40% to 60% of the top 10 selected. Routinely doing better than Brahmins. (In India the last name is associated with one's caste, and newspapers routinely publish names of "toppers" of these exams). He shrugged it off. The crazy part? In every other aspect of his character, he was such a good guy that we remained best friends for years after.
Upper castes will tell you there's no caste discrimination in India. Three more anecdotes:
1) I take up a one-year position with my job in Chennai. Go around looking for an apartment. Looked at 2 apartments in a nice neighborhood. First question the landlords asked me: are you a Brahmin? They told me they couldn't rent to me because I wasn't.
2) In my office in Chennai I become friendly with a lot of the female staff. They start to tease me one day that they're going to find me a girl to marry. "Don't worry, we'll find you a Brahmin." The kicker? They weren't Brahmins themselves. This is the level of self-hate the Brahmin has bred into non-Brahmins.
3) I now live and work in the U.S. A new hire, Indian, joins. Visits my office one day. Tells me he left India because he hates the caste system. I start warming to him. A little while later informs me that he's a very high Brahmin. Not an ordinary Brahmin, mind you, a high Brahmin.