Posted on 01/28/2005 1:31:36 PM PST by TBP
Could someone please explain how this caste system came into being? I have heard about India's Untouchables before but have never learned how the entire system began.
Thanks
I don't know the details of the caste system but a very good friend of mine is a member of what used to be the high caste in India. He told me that the caste system is old news there and is similar to the formerly segregated black and white America. To say it is still rigidly enforced is sensationalism if my friend is being truthful in his description to me.
Where not a day goes by, that the Washington Post and New York Times fails to point out how we are not so fortunate to live in America.
If either paper, or both papers, or is it more accurate to say, they're the same side of both sides of one paper? ... anyway, if they spent some portion of their efforts, on matters where hundreds of thousands of people die overseas, from the failure to use DDT at least on some occasions, and the failure to stop mass genocide at least in Rawanda, then they might actually be papers of record.
Instead of gluttons for fussy people who are not in need of anything more than a spare tire for their limousine liberal limousine services.
We unfortunately cannot count on either paper to address real poverty and real terror and real dictatorships and brutality and torture and tyranny.
Because for such papers, being a champion against what is wrong, is untouchable.
.......lawyers called priests....
Caste discrimination is illegal in India, and they have the equivalent of affirmative action for the lower castes.
We should cut off all aid and trade with India until the vcaste system is eliminated.
They also elected a president who's an untouchable.
The caste system is technically illegal now and out of favor but I remember researching it once and it was incredibly elaborate, it seemed to me. I don't know how they kept it all straight.
I'd go along with that.
The caste system was outlawed in India's constitution, but it is still going strong.
"Caste discrimination is illegal in India, and they have the equivalent of affirmative action for the lower castes."
That is essentially what my friend told me. He said the affirmative action was so good that a person formerly identified as lower caste could essentially go to university for free, even when it meant displacing a person formerly identified with the higher caste.
<< Could someone please explain how this caste system came into being? I have heard about India's Untouchables before but have never learned how the entire system began.
Thanks >>
The [Primitive and systemically-bigotted "caste" system fulfils the purpose for which it was evolved which is simply and cynically to permit the self-styled Brahmins and others in the delusionally-fantasized "upper orders" to act with Absolute indifference, scorn and derision toward the bottom rungers -- and especially toward the Dalits -- or "untouchables -- Harijans and Scheduled castes."
The hinduism cultists cunningly invented this obscene "system" to give the contrived appearance of "good motive" to cover up their Absolutely evil intent.
I believe that the caste system arrived with the fair skinned Aryians in about 1500 BC. It is based in the Vedas and was originally tribal in nature. One reason for the rapid spread of Buddhism was the rejection of the system. The lack of a caste system also aided the spread of Islam although this was limited by the slaughter accompanying the Hindu / Muslim wars. It is a truly repulsive system.
You are correct. Although the caste system has been banned by law, it is still practiced less openly within the less educated and/or rural Hindus. The 'untouchables' are the lowest of the low on the Hindu caste hierarchy, and with no chance of changing their state. The discrimation against them is thousands of years old. That's why waves of 'untouchables' (Dalits) have recently turned their backs on Hinduism to become either Buddhists or Christians, where they face a better life without being despised as they are now.
What caught my eye in this article is that the government is promising 100,000 rupees for each Tsunami victim. That's the equivalent of winning the lottery for these mostly poor fisher-folk. Much as I would like to think they will get the money, I really wonder if they will. In India, corruption is an ingrained way of life. That's just the way it is. I know. I've lived there. These 'untouchables' just might get the shaft yet again.
IN my opinion it seems to be the class system gone haywire -- they seem to have 4 basic castes -- the warrior, priest, trader and laborer. The rest beyond that gets confusing! Anyway, it seems that this initially started as jobs which were passed from father to son, but soon were restricted to the sons of fahters and then to specific clans. For example, the British class system could so easily have gone that way if the industrial revolution hadn't given men equality.
Yes and we should cut off ALL aid (economic, military, whatever) to all Muslime countries as well.
I kind of doubt it's got to do with the Aryans -- because there are Brahmins in the south of India which is not Aryan territory -- it's Dravidian
Probably, when the Aryans arrived, they recognised chieftan clans of the Dravidians and probably accorded them a higher status relative to the other members. These members were probably taught Sanskrit and Hinduism, and they in turn, spread it to the other members of the Dravidian races.
Just a hypothesis.
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