Essay On Caste System

Our country India has long been a victim of classification of human beings on the basis of their race, gender, class, caste, estate, etc. We are all born with the same biological system but our shear luck decides where we are placed in the society. Human society is not homogeneous, but heterogeneous. A more appropriate term for this categorization is Social Stratification. It refers to a particular form of social inequality. All societies arrange their members in terms of superiority, inferiority and equality. Stratification is a process of differentiation in which some people come to rank higher than others.
When individuals and groups are ranked, according to some commonly accepted basis of valuation in a hierarchy of social status, social stratification

Caste is not an exclusively cultural system. Caste and class are different forms of social stratification. Jatis are ranked in the caste systems, whereas positions are ranked in social stratification particularly, with reference to class stratification. The ranking of endogamous groups and not endogamy as the rule of marriage is the hallmark of the caste system. Changes in the caste system have brought about changes in the properties of individual members. A ‘hereditary group’ might continue in the caste system as a ‘class’.
A certain kind of mobility exists in the class system which we don 't see in the caste system. Caste is totally dependent upon where you are born and nothing else can change that. So, the person is bound to that caste and is restricted within the boundaries of that caste. They are required to follow the rules and culture of that caste. They are forced to live with what they were born with.
However, in a class system, since it is dependent upon the work that individual does and hence how much they earn, it is totally upon the potential of that individual which allows them to improve upon their life and hence break the barriers put across