Caste System- India’s Enduring Curse

“I am so happy that same sex marriage is allowed in most of the other countries now. Soon in future, it’ll be legal in India too”, said Ashi to Sahir.
“Yeah, by the way you spoke to your dad about our marriage?”, Sahir asked her.
Ashi replied,” No way, our caste is different. Not happening”.

The dominant role played by this caste system in our society is as old as one can go back in time. India is a land of some of the greatest religions but in this greatness, lies some wicked practices which have shackled the basic social and economic layers of our society. This caste system about which when one talks, and thinks only about the Hindu society, is prevailing in Islam, Buddhism and other religions too.

In Vedic society, although original caste belonged upon a person’s work, but soon it became hereditary. The three upper caste i.e. Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaishya tried to oppress the lowest caste i.e. Shudra, and also each other to show their domination. With the passage of time, things became even worse for Shudras and some of them were even categorised as “Untouchables”. Even their shadow was considered to be “polluted” and “poisonous”; such was the domination of priestly class on religion as they were the key role-players in defining faith and their directions were “universally accepted” by the people. This was due to the fact that they were considered to be nearest to the God.

But with the advent of Buddhism, a great change was seen in the society as Gautam Buddha condemned caste system and planted the seeds of “All being equal in the eyes of God” in the society. Profound transformation was observed in the society and people adopted Buddhism for to be treated equal, but soon after the demise of Buddha, matters in Buddhism got worse as it was divided in Hinayana and Mahayana sect and they too stated to observe caste system. This was the very first blow to the “positive change and modification” which was slowly and steadily growing in the society.

With the arrival of one of the greatest Abrahamic religion in India i.e. Islam, significant amount of changes were seen. One of them was people adopting Islam as it peached the teaching of oneness. But Muslims were also divided into classes. These classes are drawn from several sources – the “Mughal and Pathan” were ethnic groups while the “Qureshi” came from the Prophet Muhammad’s clan in Mecca. Although Sufism’s efforts to diminish caste system was immense, the domination of these caste over the others can be still seen in Indian Muslim society.

The “Two Nation theory” during Freedom struggle and then the partition of the nation was also one of the indirect cause of “caste system”. The isolation of high class people from each other and also other religions, gave Britishers a subject to play with and “Divide and Rule” policy was adopted. This curse was just getting darker with each day but we kept enduring and ignoring it at the same time.

With the glimpse of Independent India in very near future, the work to build nation on one line was widely seen. Chairman of the Drafting Committee B.R Ambedkar and other representatives worked immensely on the constitution so that the future of India could be carried on equal shoulders and this stigma of caste domination could be removed. The Fundamental rights, which are the soul of the constitution, provided an insight on how great our nation can become. Special provisions like reservation, protection of rights of SC and ST were provided so that the society can be uplifted as soon as possible.

What measures our forefathers provided to demolish the caste system were in-fact, apt at that time. Reservation was the only remedy which could bring people on equal front in terms of social and economic life. But they did not know that roots of caste domination have grown so much in the soil of Indian nation, and with the watering of “vote bank” and “communal politics”, it would only grow much more strong. Reservation instead of bringing people together, started dividing them.

In this confused and tensed situation, different commissions were setup. Kala Kalelkar Commission report was straight away rejected as it asked to provide 70% reservation to backward classes and Mandal commission report led to wide agitation as it led to oveall 49.5% quota in government jobs. What we failed to see is that only caste is not the sole reason which leads to the oppression of the people but with that it is economic condition too. The criteria for reservation to uplift the oppressed people in county with 100+ crore people, still gives a gloomy picture.

To get over this long lasting curse of caste system, reservation which was thought to be a remedy have now become a plague as it is now leading to division of the society too. Patels in Gujarat and Jat agitation in Haryana to include them under reservation shows a sign of it.

Are we Indians really hypocrites? We’ve seen nations rising above hatred, over inconvenient dogmas, over faulty practices, but in our nation, whom APJ Kalam wanted to see as Superpower in 2020 A.D, people want to be called backward just to get “special” privilege from the government. Instead of leaving this curse, we want to reap it just to get some undeserved fruit. We have seen people fighting in the name of secularism, nationalism, tolerance debate but for the very first time, we are viewing people who ae fighting to be called backward. Irony, isn’t it?

We are caught in the vicious circle of “caste system” and “reservation” which is only leading to worsen the situation. The only way to get out of it is making the very basic foundation of our Indian society more strong which have been corroded by this faulty practice. No one in this world can save us than ourselves. It is us who, to our children, our parents, our little ones can tell that where we stand due to this caste system and “education” is the only measure to strengthen this foundation. Of-course, it’ll take time. It is supposed to.

We have to understand that “the lamps are different, but light is the same”. Caste system can’t be fully removed by reservation. Even the curse of this caste- system can’t be removed fully, as it has penetrated in our culture with a robust style. In the diverse county as India is, with huge population, we can’t expect every person to not practice caste system, but at the same time we have to understand that, “The only lower caste man is the one who considers other as same.”