Yes, life would be wonderful if we were all like the Indians. As long as nobody got to be any of the undercastes. /sarc.
India's a wonderful place but the racism there makes the stoniest redneck from the woods of Georgia look like a New York liberal by comparison.
You'd love the websites I've gone through. I've learned today that:
1. "The Hindu religion is the most environmentally friendly religion in the world." No joke, it's on one of the major Hindu American websites. Wonder what they say now that India is industrializing.
2. That "the ancient Indians have never been a warlike race, the small kingdoms only sought to conquer what was always thought of as the territory of all Hindu people." Gee... I wonder what some of those losing Hindu kingdoms thought about their fellow peaceful neighbors. Also, I can only find excerpts on the war veda, the Siva Dhanur Veda. They have a lot of the peaceful documents in full, but I can only find bits and pieces of their war document which was considered the defining document of the Gupta civilization. The Gupta Empire is considered a golden age of India, but too bad there is little to be found on the net. Oh, and no historical mention at all on these sites of the death cults of Yama and Kali...
3. (My favorite) "The Hindu religion was very respectful towards women." This was followed by an American woman describing her time in India and how she was appalled that some of the temples used their priestesses as concubines this present day. Then she went and praised the practice since she met the women and their out of wedlock children and noted how happy they seemed. Also that they only had to sleep with strange men two hours out of the day, but during the other hours they were treated to horseback rides for free and playtime and all sorts of fun. So therefore it must be ok that she gets most of her exercise on her back... I wonder if any of those women are allowed to quit that job. She never mentioned that aspect.
LOL!! After all, pariah is an Indian word for untouchables. It has now become an universal word for "outcasts".
But caste prejudice is not just in India, however. Countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are also rooted in caste system. Most of south Asia, even Buddhist Sri Lanka and Islamic Pakistan, there is a lot of casteist/racial/ethnic prejudice.
Within caste system, the highest priestly caste is seen as coward intellectuals(similar to limpwristed bloodbloods of Europe), while lowest caste are seen as impure non humans who dwell in filth, being born in filth.
What makes the caste system almost impossible to destroy is that the low castes absolutely hate the lowest castes, because, doing so, they are still the bigger fish. Ancient Indian philosopher Kautilya had different castes as different sizes of fish. The biggest fish eats the big fish. The big fish eats the small fish. And the small fish eat the smallest fish.