Pechimayum Bidyarani Devi
Professor Tapan Basu
M.A.English(previous)semester2
Date : 21st April 2014
THE INHERITED CASTE STATUS QUO IN MODERN INDIA
“The real remedy for breaking caste is intermarriage, nothing else will
Serve as the solvent of caste.”
B.R.Ambedkar
In this article, my attempt is to seek the relation between an individual’s castes with his
society which is much like an umbilical cord and to see how endogamy is used as a tool to
acquire one’s status quo. In this task it become unavoidable to link the association with familial and caste sanction cultural codes with the socio-economic of modern India. In the
Process, I would
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If we traced back the genesis of so called caste system
One will find the interrelation of its existence with religion, how people are dictated in the name
Of religion for the prestige of upper caste, let’s see the brief timeline of conditions of
Burgeoning of this system, history shows the exploitation of lower caste by the upper caste,right
from the period of stratification of people in the Varna system , scripture in Manu Smriti,
the law which at times become rigid ,to the period of Mughal empire,by then Hindu society
has divided into innumerable castes and sub-caste on the slight pretence of superiority and
in the ground of differences in one’s occupation ,even when British enter in India this system
still persist they introduced Permanent settlement act which is just a new version of zamindery
system, by making the local zaminders as leader thus further exploiting the people.
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Another poem ‘what would you do?’ by Omprakash Valmiki translated by Pratik Kanjilal from
Hindi, Valmiki show the oppression and discrimination towards lower caste people for thousands
of years in just one Poem, the inhuman treatment that Dalit faces for years and years exploited by
economic condition, he questioned the snobbery of upper caste that even uproot the basic
Rights for living. The poem shows the anguish of all the lower caste people.
‘….would you be lame, a cripple
If you had to live thus for ages
Like me
What would you do?
-Omprakash Valmiki
More or less the same idea of controlling female sexuality to protect the purity of caste
creates problems which is going out of control, the problem is more of insoluble. I agree with
the understanding of Dr.Ambedkar ,that caste is a system of graded inequalities, and that
Though many Western civilizations have influenced the way we live our lives today, many forget the progressive movements of early Classical and Contemporary Oriental cultures. Two of these cultures that are still revisited by historians today were the epitome of early Asian civilization and very influential guides for cultures to come. Han China (206 B.C.E.-220 A.D.) and Gupta India (320 C.E.-525 C.E.) were two dynasty-based civilizations in the early conception of Southeastern Asian rule. Though both had a very similar class based society and both had to endure outside invasions as well as internal conflicts, they both had unique, and future utilized, ways of maintaining their rule. Both of these cultures needed to keep order and stability within their borders to maintain a prosperous society.
For centuries, the caste system dictated almost every aspect of Hindu life. The caste would eventually split up into upper and lower classes, causing a segregation between both communities. There have been many attempts to get rid of the system, but unfortunately it is still being used in India today. In Document 3, the excerpt from the Mahabharata states “Enjoy the pleasure bestowed on you, and bear the pain on you.” Referring to the caste system, this statement describes the pleasures or the pain that a Hindu receives in their lifetime.
The caste system holds the view that a person's caste influences their decision-making regarding marriage, employment, education, etc. Despite the fact that it is still in use today, the caste system underwent some major changes over time in India. In today’s time, according to Pew Research center they stated how in India, caste segregation is still widely practiced. For instance, a huge percentage of Brahmins said they would not accept a member of a scheduled caste as a neighbor. However, the majority of Indians believe that caste discrimination is not a major issue in the nation, and two-thirds of those who identify with scheduled castes or tribes also believe that their specific groups don't face a lot of prejudice.
One of the daughters is discriminated by her teacher, and she became very upset and told her mother. “...So i do not think we should go back to that school.” (Rama Rau, pg 39) . In this text, one can see that the mother agreed to take them out of the school system. Thereways poem differs from the article because the girl in the poem has a fear of not being accepted in her community because she is a black, poor girl.
This is just another point as to why Hinduism was bad for India. The caste system is so cruel to the lower class which is not fair since they are unable to move out of
Nomadic tribes ruled in Southwest Asia throughout this period. The caste system existed in India from time of the Aryans but as Muslim populations began to enter into the region and take control, the caste system underwent changes. In the 11th century the caste system adapted to include the Muslim populations into the hierarchy.
History of the particular policy domain, social and political processes, like McGirr in “Making Radical Reform” and Alexander in “The Rebirth of Caste”, policies regulating the use of substances, the prohibition of alcohol in McGirr and the War on Drugs in Alexander, were developed in response to larger social and political power struggles around ethnicity and or race. In McGirr's reading, we can see an illustration of how prohibition was linked to racism affecting the latest immigration waves in the nineteenth century. In the New Jim Crow, Alexander described the racialization of drugs such as crack cocaine as the primary factor for the brutal policy response. The drug war in the United States has constantly exposed large amounts to criminalization,
There are many different societies in our world today, and each of these communities treat and group their people differently. While some places, like the United States, do not have set groups, others, like India, have very strict laws about what each class can and cannot do. The Caste system in India is a great example of how one society strictly groups their members. The Caste system is a class structure that is determined at birth.
Han China and Mauryan India had many similarities. They were both bureaucracies, they both had emperors, and both empires established their laws on religious belief. They also had a lot of contrasting ideas for positioning their people, and they had contrasting ideas for their different religious standpoints. One empire put more weight on logic, and the other more on religion.
Some might argue that India’s Caste system is closely related to However, Caste and social hierarchy were more different because Caste happens over different lifetimes, and social hierarchy can happen over one. In the caste system people could move their position in their current life, however they could have moved up or down depending on how they acted in their last life. In the Social hierarchy, men could move up or down depending on whom they married, however women could not move throughout the chain. “Women were generally seen as inferior to men, dominated by their bodies rather than their minds.” (McKay pg
Poetry is way to express oneself by using unique thoughts and putting them into words. Specifically, female poets, use their poetry as a way to show their experience with internal conflicts. Throughout this anthology we decided on the theme of “women.” Being the only table with strictly females, as a group we agreed that choosing poems with this topic would be beneficial to us, and the reader. Over time, females have experienced oppression, abuse and inequality.
Religion, according to social identity theory has been most effective in giving knowledge into the connection between the self-idea and the social groups to which one belong (Tajfel and Turner, 1979). Relating to a group frequently gives us advantages to prosperity (for instance, by offering backing and a feeling of having a place in the group) (Baumeister and Leary, 1995; Haslam et al, 2009; Galen and Rogers, 2004; VonDras et al., 2007). Groups can also be competent to accomplishing objectives (for instance, social change through political activity (Verkuyten and Yildiz, 2007) that would somehow be unattainable at the individual level (Haslam et al., 2009). As a social identity anchored in a system of building beliefs, religious affiliations
It was a system of patriarchy, in which every woman was raised believing that they had neither self-control nor self government but that they must yield to the control of dominant male gender”.(Rajpal,para 2) Women have specific roles in which they were supposed to follow or be outcasted by the society. The men were seen as the dominant ones in the relationships. The men had to much control over women, They needed to see how much not having a women in their lives would affect
Introduction In India, discriminatory attitude towards men and women have existed for generations and thus it affect the lives of both genders. Although the constitution of India has granted men and women equal rights, but gender gap still remains. Female discrimination violates human rights. These are mostly seen in family land sharing among sisters and brothers.
Evidently, in India, lawfully, women have equal rights to men, but taking into account the amount of rapes, sexual assault crimes, deaths and discrimination they are faced with in India, they are certainly not socially equal. While it’s true that even in the most progressive countries females still have to deal with sexism, , in India and countries around it many men treat women as objects. There are 4 main social castes in India; the Brahmin’s, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras. The groups are believed originate from the Hindu God of creation, Brahma, and deeply affect how one is viewed in society. Upper and lower castes