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| {{about|socio-political stratification in Indian society|religious stratification in Hinduism|Varna (Hinduism)}} | |||
| {{Use Indian English|date=September 2016}} | |||
| {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}} | |||
| ] visiting Madras (now Chennai) in 1933 on an India-wide tour for ] causes. His speeches during such tours and writings discussed the discriminated-against castes of India.]] | |||
| The '''caste system in India''' is the paradigmatic ethnographic example of ]. It has origins in ], and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the ] and the ].{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000}}{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=25–27, 392}}{{sfnp|St. John, Making of the Raj|2012|p=103}}{{sfnp|Sathaye|2015|p=214}} It is today the basis of ] in India.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616|title=What is India's caste system?|last=|first=|date=25 February 2016|work=BBC News|access-date=27 May 2017|language=en-GB|quote=Independent India's constitution banned discrimination on the basis of caste, and, in an attempt to correct historical injustices and provide a level playing field to the traditionally disadvantaged, the authorities announced quotas in government jobs and educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes, the lowest in the caste hierarchy, in 1950.}}</ref> It consists of two different concepts, '']'' and '']'', which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system.{{sfnp|Smith, Varna and Jati|2005|pp=9522–9524}} | |||
| The caste system as it exists today is thought to be the result of developments during the collapse of the Mughal era and the ] in India.{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000}}{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=392}} The collapse of the Mughal era saw the rise of powerful men who associated themselves with kings, priests and ascetics, affirming the regal and martial form of the caste ideal, and it also reshaped many apparently casteless social groups into differentiated caste communities.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=26–27|ps= what happened in the initial phase of this two-stage sequence was the rise of the royal man of prowess. In this period, both kings and the priests and ascetics with whom men of power were able to associate their rule became a growing focus for the affirmation of a martial and regal form of caste ideal. (...) The other key feature of this period was the reshaping of many apparently casteless forms of devotional faith in a direction which further affirmed these differentiations of rank and community.}} The British Raj furthered this development, making rigid caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=392}} Between 1860 and 1920, the British segregated Indians by caste, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to the upper castes. Social unrest during the 1920s led to a change in this policy.{{sfnp|Burguière|Grew|2001|pp=215–229}} From then on, the colonial administration began a policy of ] by ] a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes. | |||
| Caste-based differences have also been practised in other regions and religions in the Indian subcontinent like Nepalese Buddhism,<ref name="LeVine">{{cite book|title=Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e9C1iF3MAYgC |first=Sarah|last=LeVine|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-674-02554-7|page=21}}</ref> ], ], ] and ].<ref name="brookings p.21">{{cite book|title=India: Emerging Power|url=https://books.google.com/books/about/India.html?id=sOTZqI5zREoC&hl=en |first=Stephen P.|last=Cohen|publisher=Brookings Institution Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-8157-9839-2|page=21}}</ref>{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|p=149}}<ref name="britannica"/> It has been challenged by many reformist Hindu movements,{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|p=3}} Islam, Sikhism, Christianity,<ref name="brookings p.21"/> and also by present-day Indian ].<ref name="Omvedt1">{{cite book|title=Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OvmHAwAAQBAJ |first=Gail|last=Omvedt|publisher=SAGE Classics|year=2014|isbn=978-81-321-1028-6|page=252}}</ref> | |||
| New developments took place after India achieved independence, when the policy of caste-based reservation of jobs was formalised with lists of ]. Since 1950, the country has enacted many laws and social initiatives to protect and improve the socioeconomic conditions of its lower caste population. These caste classifications for college admission quotas, job reservations and other affirmative action initiatives, according to the ], are based on heredity and are not changeable.<ref name=krn> BBC News (2005)</ref>{{efn|These initiatives by India, over time, have led to many lower caste members being elected to the highest political offices including that of president, with the election of ], a Dalit, from 1997 to 2002.<ref name=krn />}} Discrimination against lower castes is illegal in India under Article 15 of its constitution, and India tracks ] against '']s'' nationwide.<ref> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201152859/http://ncrb.gov.in/CD-CII2011/cii-2011/Chapter%207.pdf |date=1 February 2014 }} '''Government of India''' (2011), page 108</ref> | |||
| {{TOC level|3}} | |||
| ==Definitions and concepts== | |||
| ===Caste, varna and jati=== | |||
| ====Varna==== | |||
| {{Main article|Varna (Hinduism)}} | |||
| ''Varna'' literally means ''type, order, colour or class''.<ref name="Doniger 1999 186">{{cite book |last=Doniger |first=Wendy |title=Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia of world religions| publisher=Merriam-Webster |location=Springfield, MA, USA |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-87779-044-0 |page=186}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Stanton |first=Andrea |title=An Encyclopedia of Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa |publisher=SAGE Publications |location=USA |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4129-8176-7 |pages=12–13}}</ref> and was a framework for grouping people into classes, first used in ]. It is referred to frequently in the ancient Indian texts.{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}} The four classes were the ]s (priestly people), the ]s (also called Rajanyas, who were rulers, administrators and warriors), the ]s (merchants and tradesmen), and ]s (artisans, farmers and labouring classes).{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|pp=19–20}} The ''varna'' categorisation implicitly had a fifth element, being those people deemed to be entirely outside its scope, such as ] people and the ].{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=9}} | |||
| ====Jati==== | |||
| {{Main article|Jāti}} | |||
| ''Jati'', meaning ''birth'',{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|p=23}} is mentioned much less often in ancient texts, where it is clearly distinguished from ''varna''. There are four ''varnas'' but thousands of ''jatis''.{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}} The ''jatis'' are complex social groups that lack universally applicable definition or characteristic, and have been more flexible and diverse than was previously often assumed.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=9}} | |||
| Some scholars of caste have considered ''jati'' to have its basis in religion, assuming that in India the sacred elements of life envelop the secular aspects; for example, the anthropologist ] described the ritual rankings that exist within the ''jati'' system as being based on the concepts of religious purity and pollution. This view has been disputed by other scholars, who believe it to be a secular social phenomenon driven by the necessities of economics, politics, and sometimes also geography.{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|p=23}}<ref name="harrington">{{cite book |last=Harrington |first=Austin |title=Encyclopedia of social theory |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-415-29046-3 |page=49}}</ref>{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=57–60}}{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|p=87–88}} Jeaneane Fowler says that although some people consider ''jati'' to be occupational segregation, in reality the ''jati'' framework does not preclude or prevent a member of one caste from working in another occupation.{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|p=23}} A feature of ''jatis'' has been ], in ]'s words, that "both in the past and for many though not all Indians in more modern times, those born into a given caste would normally expect to find marriage partner" within his or her ''jati''.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=10}}{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|p=87}} | |||
| ''Jatis'' have existed in India among Hindus, Muslims, Christians and tribal people, and there is no clear linear order among them.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ingold |first=Tim |title=Companion encyclopedia of anthropology |publisher=Routledge |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-415-28604-6 |pages=1026–1027}}</ref> | |||
| ====Caste==== | |||
| {{Main article|Caste}} | |||
| The term ''caste'' is not originally an Indian word, though it is now widely used, both in English and in ]. According to the '']'', it is derived from the Portuguese ''casta'', meaning "race, lineage, breed" and, originally, "'pure or unmixed (stock or breed)".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oed.com|title=Caste, n.|date=1989|accessdate=|website=Oxford English Dictionary|publisher=}}</ref> There is no exact translation in Indian languages, but ''varna'' and ''jati'' are the two most proximate terms.{{sfnp|Corbridge|Harriss|Jeffrey|2013|p=239}} | |||
| =====Ghurye's 1932 opinion===== | |||
| The ] ] wrote in 1932 that, despite much study by many people, {{quote|we do not possess a real general definition of caste. It appears to me that any attempt at definition is bound to fail because of the complexity of the phenomenon. On the other hand, much literature on the subject is marred by lack of precision about the use of the term.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=1–2}}}} | |||
| Ghurye offered what he thought was a definition that could be applied across British India, although he acknowledged that there were regional variations on the general theme. His model definition for caste included the following six characteristics,{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=2–22}} | |||
| *Segmentation of society into groups whose membership was determined by birth{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=2–5}} | |||
| *A hierarchical system wherein generally the Brahmins were at the head of the hierarchy, but this hierarchy was disputed in some cases. In various linguistic areas, hundreds of castes had a gradation generally acknowledged by everyone{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=6–7}} | |||
| *Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse, with minute rules on the kind of food and drink that upper castes could accept from lower castes. There was a great diversity in these rules, and lower castes generally accepted food from upper castes{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=7–10}} | |||
| *Segregation, where individual castes lived together, the dominant caste living in the center and other castes living on the periphery.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=10–15}} There were restrictions on the use of water wells or streets by one caste on another: an upper caste Brahmin might not be permitted to use the street of a lower caste group, while a caste considered impure might not be permitted to draw water from a well used by members of other castes.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=11–12}} | |||
| *Occupation, generally inherited.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=15–16}} Lack of unrestricted choice of profession, caste members restricted their own members from taking up certain profession they considered degrading. This characteristic of caste was missing from large parts of India, stated Ghurye, and in these regions all four castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras) did agriculture labour or became warriors in large numbers{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=16–17}} | |||
| *], restrictions on marrying a person outside caste, but in some situations ] allowed.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=18–19}} Far less rigidity on inter-marriage between different sub-castes than between members of different castes in some regions, while in some endogamy within a sub-caste was the principal feature of caste-society.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=22}} | |||
| The above Ghurye's model of caste thereafter attracted scholarly criticism<ref>{{cite book | author=Pradip Bose (Editor - A.R. Momin) | title=The legacy of G.S. Ghurye : a centennial festschrift | publisher=Popular | year=1996 | isbn=978-81-7154-831-6 | pages=65–68}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Gerald Berreman (1967)|title=Caste as social process|journal=Southwestern Journal of Anthropology|pages=351–370|volume=23|issue=4|jstor=3629451}}</ref> for relying on the British India census reports,{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=1–2}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Midgley | first=James | title=Colonialism and welfare : social policy and the British imperial legacy | publisher=Edward Elgar | location=United Kingdom | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-85793-243-3 | pages=89–90}}</ref> the "superior, inferior" racist theories of Risley,{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=136–139}} and for fitting his definition to then prevalent colonial orientalist perspectives on caste.{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=117–125}}<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Hindu Nationalist Sociology of G.S. Ghurye|author=Carol Upadhya|journal=Sociological Bulletin|volume=51|number=1|date=March 2002|pages=28–57|jstor=23620062}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=Pradip Bose (Editor - A.R. Momin) | title=The legacy of G.S. Ghurye : a centennial festschrift | publisher=Popular | year=1996 | isbn=978-81-7154-831-6 | pages=66–67|quote= Ghurye (...) is much influenced by the nineteenth century orientalist historical explanations, which were based basically on three kinds of formulations: the Indo-European or Dravidian theory, the racial theory and the diffusionist theory. (...) At a subsequent stage European social theory, evident in census reports and ethnographic accounts also shape Ghurye's account of the caste system.}}</ref> | |||
| Ghurye added, in 1932, that the colonial construction of caste led to the livening up, divisions and lobbying to the British officials for favourable caste classification in India for economic opportunities, and this had added new complexities to the concept of caste.<ref>{{cite book | last=Midgley | first=James | title=Colonialism and welfare : social policy and the British imperial legacy | publisher=Edward Elgar | location=United Kingdom | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-85793-243-3 | pages=86–88}}</ref>{{sfnp|Ghurye, Caste and Race in India|1969|pp=278–279; this is p. 158–159 in the 1932 edition of Ghurye}} Graham Chapman and others have reiterated the complexity, and they note that there are differences between theoretical constructs and the practical reality.{{sfnp|Chapman, Religious vs. Regional Determinism|1993|pp=10–14}} | |||
| =====Modern perspective on definition===== | |||
| ], the ], agrees that there has been no universally accepted definition. For example, for some early European documenters it was thought to correspond with the endogamous ''varnas'' referred to in ancient Indian scripts, and its meaning corresponds in the sense of '']''. To later Europeans of the Raj era it was endogamous ''jatis'', rather than ''varnas'', that represented ''caste'', such as the 2378 ''jatis'' that colonial administrators classified by occupation in the early 20th century.{{sfnp|Inden, Imagining India|2001|p=59}} | |||
| ], a professor of ], notes that ''caste'' has been used synonymously to refer to both ''varna'' and ''jati'' but that "serious Indologists now observe considerable caution in this respect" because, while related, the concepts are considered to be distinct.{{sfnp|Arvind Sharma, Classical Hindu Thought|2000|p=132}} In this he agrees with the Indologist ], who noted that the Portuguese colonists of India used ''casta'' to describe {{quote|... tribes, clans or families. The name stuck and became the usual word for the Hindu social group. In attempting to account for the remarkable proliferation of castes in 18th- and 19th-century India, authorities credulously accepted the traditional view that by a process of intermarriage and subdivision the 3,000 or more castes of modern India had evolved from the four primitive classes, and the term 'caste' was applied indiscriminately to both ''varna'' or class, and ''jati'' or caste proper. This is a false terminology; castes rise and fall in the social scale, and old castes die out and new ones are formed, but the four great classes are stable. There are never more or less than four and for over 2,000 years their order of precedence has not altered."{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}}}} The sociologist ] notes that, while ''varna'' mainly played the role of caste in classical Hindu literature, it is ''jati'' that plays that role in present times. ''Varna'' represents a closed collection of social orders whereas ''jati'' is entirely open-ended, thought of as a "natural kind whose members share a common substance." Any number of new ''jatis'' can be added depending on need, such as tribes, sects, denominations, religious or linguistic minorities and nationalities. Thus, "Caste" is not an accurate representation of ''jati'' in English. Better terms would be ethnicity, ethnic identity and ethnic group.{{sfnp|Béteille|1996|pp=15–25}} | |||
| ===Flexibility=== | |||
| Sociologist Anne Waldrop observes that while outsiders view the term caste as a static phenomenon of stereotypical tradition-bound India, empirical facts suggest caste has been a radically changing feature. The term means different things to different Indians. In the context of politically active modern India, where job and school quotas are reserved for affirmative action based on castes, the term has become a sensitive and controversial subject.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Dalit Politics in India and New Meaning of Caste |first=Anne |last=Waldrop |journal=Forum for Development Studies |volume=31 |issue=2 |year=2004 |doi=10.1080/08039410.2004.9666283 |subscription=yes |pages=275–305}}</ref> | |||
| Sociologists such as ] and Damle have debated the question of rigidity in caste and believe that there is considerable flexibility and mobility in the caste hierarchies.{{sfnp|Silverberg|1969}}{{sfnp|M. N. Srinivas, Coorgs of South India|1952|p=32}} | |||
| ==Origins== | |||
| {{Infobox | |||
| | title=Caste system in 19th century India | |||
| | image= | |||
| {{image array|perrow=2|width=135|height=100 | |||
| | image1=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (18).jpg |caption1=Hindu musician | |||
| | image2=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (16).jpg |caption2=Muslim merchant | |||
| | image3=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (8).jpg |caption3=Sikh chief | |||
| | image4=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (5).jpg |caption4=Arab soldier | |||
| }} | |||
| |caption=Pages from ''Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India'' according to Christian Missionaries in February 1837. They include Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Arabs as castes of India. | |||
| }} | |||
| ===Perspectives=== | |||
| There are at least two perspectives for the origins of the caste system in ancient and medieval India, which focus on either ideological factors or on socio-economic factors. | |||
| *The first school focuses on the ideological factors which are claimed to drive the caste system and holds that caste is rooted in the four ''varnas''. This perspective was particularly common among scholars of the British colonial era and was articulated by Dumont, who concluded that the system was ideologically perfected several thousand years ago and has remained the primary social reality ever since. This school justifies its theory primarily by citing the ancient law book '']'' and disregards economic, political or historical evidence.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=55–58}}{{sfnp|Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste|2000|p=181}} | |||
| *The second school of thought focuses on socio-economic factors and claims that those factors drive the caste system. It believes caste to be rooted in the economic, political and material history of India.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=19–24}} This school, which is common among scholars of the post-colonial era such as ], Marriott, and Dirks, describes the caste system as an ever-evolving social reality that can only be properly understood by the study of historical evidence of actual practice and the examination of verifiable circumstances in the economic, political and material history of India.{{sfnp|Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste|2000|p=180–183}}{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=56–57}} This school has focused on the historical evidence from ancient and medieval society in India, during the ], and the policies of colonial British rule from 18th century to the mid-20th century.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=38–43}}{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=38–43}} | |||
| The first school has focused on religious anthropology and disregarded other historical evidence as secondary to or derivative of this tradition.{{sfnp|Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste|2000|p=184}} The second school has focused on sociological evidence and sought to understand the historical circumstances.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=5–7}} The latter has criticised the former for its caste origin theory, claiming that it has dehistoricised and decontextualised Indian society.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|p=59}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Ganguly | first=Debjani | title=Caste, colonialism and counter-modernity: notes on a postcolonial hermeneutics of caste | publisher=Routledge | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-415-54435-1 | pages=5–10}}</ref> | |||
| ===Ritual kingship model=== | |||
| According to Samuel, referencing ], central aspects of the later Indian caste system may originate from the ritual kingship system prior to the arrival of Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism in India. The system is seen in the South Indian Tamil literature from the ], dated to the third to sixth centuries CE. This theory discards the Indo-Aryan ''varna'' model as the basis of caste, and is centred on the ritual power of the king, who was "supported by a group of ritual and magical specialists of low social status," with their ritual occupations being considered 'polluted'. According to Hart, it may be this model that provided the concerns with "pollution" of the members of low status groups. The Hart model for caste origin, writes Samuel, envisions "the ancient Indian society consisting of a majority without internal caste divisions and a minority consisting of a number of small occupationally polluted groups".{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|p=83–89}} | |||
| ===Vedic ''varnas''=== | |||
| The ''varnas'' originated in ] (ca.1500–500 BCE). The first three groups, Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishya have parallels with other Indo-European societies, while the addition of the Shudras is probably a Brahmanical invention from northern India.{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|p=86–87}}<!-- Outside, below or parallel to the four varna categories, there were social groups such as tribals and untouchables, who had an ambivalent position.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bayly |first=Susan |title=Caste, society and politics in India from the eighteenth century to the modern age |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-521-79842-6 |page=9}}</ref>--> | |||
| The ''varna'' system is propounded in revered Hindu religious texts, and understood as idealised human callings.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=8}}{{sfnp|Thapar, Early India|2004|p=63}} The '']'' of the '']'' and '']''{{'}}s comment on it, being the oft-cited texts.<ref>{{cite book | author=] | title=Who invented Hinduism : essays on religion in History | publisher=Yoda Press |year=2006 | isbn=978-81-902272-6-1 | pages=147–149}}</ref> Counter to these textual classifications, many revered Hindu texts and doctrines question and disagree with this system of social classification.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=9}} | |||
| Scholars have questioned the ''varna'' verse in ''Rigveda'', noting that the ''varna'' therein is mentioned only once. The ''Purusha Sukta'' verse is now generally considered to have been inserted at a later date into the ''Rigveda'', probably as a charter myth. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, professors of Sanskrit and Religious studies, state, "there is no evidence in the ''Rigveda'' for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the ''varna'' system seems to be embryonic in the ''Rigveda'' and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality".<ref>{{cite book | last=Jamison| first=Stephanie | title=The Rigveda : the earliest religious poetry of India | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-19-937018-4 |pages=57–58|display-authors=etal}}</ref> In contrast to the lack of details about ''varna'' system in the ''Rigveda'', the ''Manusmriti'' includes an extensive and highly schematic commentary on the ''varna'' system, but it too provides "models rather than descriptions".<ref>{{cite book | last=Ingold | first=Tim | title=Companion encyclopedia of anthropology | publisher=Routledge | year=1994 | isbn=978-0-415-28604-6 | page=1026}}</ref> Susan Bayly summarises that ''Manusmriti'' and other scriptures helped elevate Brahmins in the social hierarchy and these were a factor in the making of the ''varna'' system, but the ancient texts did not in some way "create the phenomenon of caste" in India.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=29}} | |||
| ===''Jatis''=== | |||
| Jeaneane Fowler, a professor of philosophy and religious studies, states that it is impossible to determine how and why the ''jatis'' came in existence.{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|pp=23–24}} Susan Bayly, on the other hand, states that ''jati'' system emerged because it offered a source of advantage in an era of pre-Independence poverty, lack of institutional human rights, volatile political environment, and economic insecurity.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=263–264}}{{Clarify|reason=The sentence says that the jatis emerged only in the modern period!|date=December 2016}} | |||
| According to social anthropologist Dipankar Gupta, guilds developed during the ] period and crystallised into ''jatis''{{sfnp|Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste|2000|p=212}} in post-Mauryan times with the emergence of feudalism in India, which finally crystallised during the 7–12th centuries.{{sfnp|Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste|2000|p=218}} However, other scholars dispute when and how ''jatis'' developed in Indian history. Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, both professors of History, write, "One of the surprising arguments of fresh scholarship, based on inscriptional and other contemporaneous evidence, is that until relatively recent centuries, social organisation in much of the subcontinent was little touched by the four ''varnas''. Nor were ''jati'' the building blocks of society."<ref>{{cite book | author=Barbara Metcalf, Thomas Metcalf | title=A concise history of modern India | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2012 | isbn=978-1-107-02649-0 | page=24}}</ref> | |||
| According to Basham, ancient Indian literature refers often to ''varnas'', but hardly if ever to ''jatis'' as a system of groups within the ''varnas''. He concludes that "If caste is defined as a system of group within the class, which are normally endogamous, commensal and craft-exclusive, we have no real evidence of its existence until comparatively late times."{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}} | |||
| ===Untouchable outcastes and the varna system=== | |||
| The Vedic texts neither mention the concept of untouchable people nor any practice of untouchability. The rituals in the Vedas ask the noble or king to eat with the commoner from the same vessel. Later Vedic texts ridicule some professions, but the concept of untouchability is not found in them.{{sfnp|Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste|2000|pp=190–191}}<ref>{{cite journal|journal=International Journal of Hindu Studies|year=2002|volume=6|issue=3|pages=244, 243–274|title=Rules of untouchability in ancient and medieval law books: Householders, competence, and inauspiciousness|author=Mikael Aktor|doi=10.1007/s11407-002-0002-z}}</ref> | |||
| The post-Vedic texts, particularly '']'' mentions outcastes and suggests that they be ostracised. Recent scholarship states that the discussion of outcastes in post-Vedic texts is different from the system widely discussed in colonial era Indian literature, and in Dumont's structural theory on caste system in India. ], a professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions and credited with modern translations of Vedic literature, Dharma-sutras and ], states that ancient and medieval Indian texts do not support the ritual pollution, purity-impurity premise implicit in the Dumont theory. According to Olivelle, purity-impurity is discussed in the Dharma-sastra texts, but only in the context of the individual's moral, ritual and biological pollution (eating certain kinds of food such as meat, going to bathroom). Olivelle writes in his review of post-Vedic ''Sutra'' and ''Shastra'' texts, "we see no instance when a term of pure/impure is used with reference to a group of individuals or a ''varna'' or caste". The only mention of impurity in the ''Shastra'' texts from the 1st millennium is about people who commit grievous sins and thereby fall out of their ''varna''. These, writes Olivelle, are called "fallen people" and considered impure in the medieval Indian texts. The texts declare that these sinful, fallen people be ostracised.<ref name="Olivelle 2008 240–241">{{cite book | last=Olivelle | first=Patrick | title=''Chapter 9. Caste and Purity'' in Collected essays | publisher=Firenze University Press | location=Firenze, Italy | year=2008 | isbn=978-88-8453-729-4 | pages=240–241}}</ref> Olivelle adds that the overwhelming focus in matters relating to purity/impurity in the Dharma-sastra texts concerns "individuals irrespective of their ''varna'' affiliation" and all four ''varnas'' could attain purity or impurity by the content of their character, ethical intent, actions, innocence or ignorance (acts by children), stipulations, and ritualistic behaviors.<ref>{{cite book | last=Olivelle | first=Patrick | title=''Chapter 9. Caste and Purity'' in Collected essays | publisher=Firenze University Press | location=Firenze, Italy | year=2008 | isbn=978-88-8453-729-4 | pages=240–245}}</ref> | |||
| Dumont, in his later publications, acknowledged that ancient varna hierarchy was not based on purity-impurity ranking principle, and that the Vedic literature is devoid of the untouchability concept.{{sfnp|Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus|1980|pp=66, 68, 73, 193}} | |||
| ==History== | |||
| ===Vedic period (1500–1000 BCE)=== | |||
| During the time of the ], there were two ''varnas'': ''] varna'' and ''] varna''. The distinction originally arose from tribal divisions. The Vedic tribes regarded themselves as ''arya'' (the noble ones) and the rival tribes were called ''dasa'', ''dasyu'' and ''pani''. The ''dasas'' were frequent allies of the Aryan tribes, and they were probably assimilated into the Aryan society, giving rise to a class distinction.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|p=18 (1990:20)}} Many ''dasas'' were however in a servile position, giving rise to the eventual meaning of ''dasa'' as servant.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|pp=22–23}} | |||
| The ''Rigvedic'' society was not distinguished by occupations. Many husbandmen and artisans practised a number of crafts. The chariot-maker (''rathakara'') and metal worker (''karmara'') enjoyed positions of importance and no stigma was attached to them. Similar observations hold for carpenters, tanners, weavers and others.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|p=27–28 (1990:31–32)}} | |||
| Towards the end of the ] period, new class distinctions emerged. The erstwhile ''dasas'' are renamed Shudras, probably to distinguish them from the new meaning of ''dasa'' as slave. The ''aryas'' are renamed ''vis'' or Vaishya (meaning the members of the tribe) and the new elite classes of Brahmins (priests) and Kshatriyas (warriors) are designated as new ''varnas''. The Shudras were not only the erstwhile ''dasas'' but also included the aboriginal tribes that were assimilated into the Aryan society as it expanded into Gangetic settlements.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|pp=29–31 (1990:33–35)}} There is no evidence of restrictions regarding food and marriage during the Vedic period.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|p=40}} | |||
| ===Later Vedic period (1000–600 BCE)=== | |||
| In an early Upanishad, Shudra is referred to as ''Pūşan'' or nourisher, suggesting that Shudras were the tillers of the soil.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|p=44}} But soon afterwards, Shudras are not counted among the tax-payers and they are said to be given away along with the lands when it is gifted.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|pp=46–47}} The majority of the artisans were also reduced to the position of Shudras, but there is no contempt indicated for their work.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|p=48}} The Brahmins and the Kshatriyas are given a special position in the rituals, distinguishing them from both the Vaishyas and the Shudras.{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|p=58}} The Vaishya is said to be "oppressed at will" and the Shudra "beaten at will."{{sfn|R. S. Sharma, Śūdras in Ancient India|1958|pp=59–60}} | |||
| ===Second urbanisation (500–200 BCE)=== | |||
| Our knowledge of this period is supplemented by ] Buddhist texts. Whereas the Brahmanical texts speak of the four-fold ''varna'' system, the Buddhist texts present an alternative picture of the society, stratified along the lines of ''jati'', ''kula'' and occupation. It is likely that the ''varna'' system, while being a part of the Brahmanical ideology, was not practically operative in the society.{{sfnp|Chakravarti, Historical Sociology|1985|p=358}} In the Buddhist texts, Brahmin and Kshatriya are described as ''jatis'' rather than ''varnas''. They were in fact the ''jatis'' of high rank. The ''jatis'' of low rank were mentioned as '']'' and occupational classes like bamboo weavers, hunters, chariot-makers and sweepers. The concept of ''kulas'' was broadly similar. Along with Brahmins and Kshatriyas, a class called ''gahapatis'' (literally householders, but effectively propertied classes) was also included among high ''kulas''.{{sfnp|Chakravarti, Historical Sociology|1985|p=357}} The people of high ''kulas'' were engaged in occupations of high rank, ''viz''., agriculture, trade, cattle-keeping, computing, accounting and writing, and those of low ''kulas'' were engaged in low-ranked occupations such as basket-weaving and sweeping.{{sfnp|Chakravarti, Historical Sociology|1985|p=359}} The ''gahapatis'' were an economic class of land-holding agriculturists, who employed ''dasa-kammakaras'' (slaves and hired labourers) to work on the land. The ''gahapatis'' were the primary taxpayers of the state. This class was apparently not defined by birth, but by individual economic growth.{{sfnp|Chakravarti, Historical Sociology|1985|p=359}} | |||
| While there was an alignment between ''kulas'' and occupations at least at the high and low ends, there was no strict linkage between class/caste and occupation, especially among those in the middle range. Many occupations listed such as accounting and writing were not linked to ''jatis''.{{sfnp|Chakravarti, Gendering Caste|2003|pp=47,49}} | |||
| Peter Masefield, in his review of caste situation in India states that anyone could in principle perform any profession. The texts state that the Brahmin took food from anyone, suggesting that strictures of commensality were as yet unknown.{{sfnp|Masefield, Pali Buddhism|1986|p=148}} The '']'' texts also imply that endogamy was not mandated.{{sfnp|Masefield, Pali Buddhism|1986|p=149}} | |||
| <!-- This has been contradicted above: | |||
| Masefield concludes, "if any form of caste system was known during the Nikaya period - and it is doubtful that it was - this was in all probability restricted to certain non-Aryan groups".{{sfnp|Masefield, Pali Buddhism|1986|p=149}} --> | |||
| The contestations of the period are evident from the texts describing dialogues of Buddha with the Brahmins. The Brahmins maintain their divinely ordained superiority and assert their right to draw service from the lower orders. Buddha responds by pointing out the basic facts of biological birth common to all men and asserts that the ability to draw service is obtained economically, not by divine right. Using the example of the northwest of the subcontinent, Buddha points out that ''aryas'' could become ''dasas'' and vice versa. This form of social mobility was endorsed by Buddha.{{sfnp|Chakravarti, Gendering Caste|2003|pp=45–46}} | |||
| ===Classical period (320–650 CE)=== | |||
| The Mahabharata, whose final version is estimated to have been completed by the end of the fourth century, discusses the ''varna'' system in section 12.181, presenting two models. The first model describes ''varna'' as a colour-based system, through a character named Bhrigu, "Brahmins ''varna'' was white, Kshtriyas was red, Vaishyas was yellow, and the Shudras' black". This description is questioned by Bharadvaja who says that colors are seen among all the ''varnas'', that desire, anger, fear, greed, grief, anxiety, hunger and toil prevails over all human beings, that bile and blood flow from all human bodies, so what distinguishes the ''varnas'', he asks. The Mahabharata then declares, "There is no distinction of ''varnas''. This whole universe is ]. It was created formerly by ], came to be classified by acts."<ref name="Hiltebeitel 2011 529–531">{{cite book | last=Hiltebeitel | first=Alf | title=Dharma : its early history in law, religion, and narrative | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-19-539423-8 | pages=529–531}}</ref> The epic then recites a behavioral model for ''varna'', that those who were inclined to anger, pleasures and boldness attained the Kshtriya ''varna''; those who were inclined to cattle rearing and living off the plough attained the Vaishya ''varna''; those who were fond of violence, covetousness and impurity attained the Shudra ''varna''. The Brahmin class is modeled in the epic as the archetype default state of man dedicated to truth, austerity and pure conduct.<ref>{{cite book | last=Hiltebeitel | first=Alf | title=Dharma : its early history in law, religion, and narrative | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-19-539423-8 | page=532}}</ref> In the Mahabharata and pre-medieval era Hindu texts, according to Hiltebeitel, "it is important to recognise, in theory, ''varna'' is nongenealogical. The four ''varnas'' are not lineages, but categories."<ref>{{cite book | last=Hiltebeitel | first=Alf | title=Dharma : its early history in law, religion, and narrative | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-19-539423-8 | page=594}}</ref> | |||
| ], an 8th-century text of Jainism by ], is the first mention of ''varna'' and ''jati'' in ] literature.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=The Jaina path of purification | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass | year=1998 | isbn=978-81-208-1578-0 | pages=294, 285–295}}</ref> Jinasena does not trace the origin of ''varna'' system to Rigveda or to Purusha, but to the ] legend. According to this legend, Bharata performed an "]-test" (test of non-violence), and during that test all those who refused to harm any living beings were called as the priestly ''varna'' in ancient India, and Bharata called them ''dvija'', twice born.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=The Jaina path of purification | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass | year=1998 | isbn=978-81-208-1578-0 | page=289}}</ref> Jinasena states that those who are committed to the principle of non-harming and non-violence to all living beings are ''deva-Brahmaṇas'', divine Brahmins.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=The Jaina path of purification | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass | year=1998 | isbn=978-81-208-1578-0 | page=290}}</ref> The text Adipurana also discusses the relationship between varna and jati. According to ], a professor of Indic studies, in Jainism and Buddhism, the Adi Purana text states "there is only one ''jati'' called ''manusyajati'' or the human caste, but ] arise on account of their different professions".<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=Collected papers on Jaina studies | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers | year=2000 | isbn=978-81-208-1691-6 | page=340}}</ref> The caste of Kshatriya arose, according to Jainism texts, when ] procured weapons to serve the society and assumed the powers of a king, while Vaishya and Shudra castes arose from different means of livelihood they specialised in.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=Collected papers on Jaina studies | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers | year=2000 | isbn=978-81-208-1691-6 | pages=340–341}}</ref> | |||
| ===Late classical and early medieval period (650 to 1400 CE)=== | |||
| Scholars have tried to locate historical evidence for the existence and nature of ''varna'' and ''jati'' in documents and inscriptions of medieval India. Supporting evidence for the existence of ''varna'' and ''jati'' systems in medieval India has been elusive, and contradicting evidence has emerged.{{sfnp|Talbot, Precolonial India|2001|pp=50–51}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Orr | first=Leslie | title=Donors, devotees, and daughters of God temple women in medieval Tamilnadu | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2000 | isbn=978-0-19-509962-1 | pages=30–31}}</ref> | |||
| ''Varna'' is rarely mentioned in the extensive medieval era records of ], for example. This has led Cynthia Talbot, a professor of History and Asian Studies, to question whether ''varna'' was socially significant in the daily lives of this region. The mention of ''jati'' is even rarer, through the 13th century. Two rare temple donor records from warrior families of the 14th century claim to be Shudras. One states that Shudras are the bravest, the other states that Shudras are the purest.{{sfnp|Talbot, Precolonial India|2001|pp=50–51}} Richard Eaton, a professor of History, writes, "anyone could become warrior regardless of social origins, nor do the ''jati'' - another pillar of alleged traditional Indian society - appear as features of people's identity. Occupations were fluid." Evidence shows, according to Eaton, that Shudras were part of the nobility, and many "father and sons had different professions, suggesting that social status was earned, not inherited" in the Hindu ] population in the ] region between the 11th and 14th centuries.<ref>{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=A social history of the Deccan, 1300–1761 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-521-51442-2 | pages=15–16}}</ref> | |||
| In ] region of India, studied by Leslie Orr, a professor of Religion, "Chola period inscriptions challenge our ideas about the structuring of (south Indian) society in general. In contrast to what Brahmanical legal texts may lead us to expect, we do not find that caste is the organising principle of society or that boundaries between different social groups is sharply demarcated."<ref>{{cite book | last=Orr | first=Leslie | title=Donors, devotees, and daughters of God temple women in medieval Tamilnadu | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2000 | isbn=978-0-19-509962-1 | page=30}}</ref> In Tamil Nadu the ] were during ancient and medieval period the elite caste who were major patrons of literature.<ref>]: Vijayanagara by ] p.134</ref><ref>The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel by Kanakalatha Mukund p.166</ref><ref>Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the making of the Indo-Islamic World by André Wink p.321</ref> They ranked higher in the social hierarchy than the Brahmins.<ref>Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon and North-West Pakistan by E. R. Leach p. 67–68</ref> | |||
| For northern Indian region, Susan Bayly writes, "until well into the colonial period, much of the subcontinent was still populated by people for whom the formal distinctions of caste were of only limited importance; Even in parts of the so-called Hindu heartland of Gangetic upper India, the institutions and beliefs which are now often described as the elements of traditional caste were only just taking shape as recently as the early eighteenth century - that is the period of collapse of Mughal period and the expansion of western power in the subcontinent."{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=3–4}} | |||
| For western India, Dirk Kolff, a professor of Humanities, suggests open status social groups dominated Rajput history during the medieval period. He states, "The omnipresence of cognatic kinship and caste in North India is a relatively new phenomenon that only became dominant in the early Mughal and British periods respectively. Historically speaking, the alliance and the open status group, whether war band or religious sect, dominated medieval and early modern Indian history in a way descent and caste did not."<ref>{{cite book | last=Kolff | first=Dirk | title=Naukar, Rajput, and sepoy : the ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-521-52305-9 | pages=198–199}}</ref> | |||
| ===Medieval era, Islamic Sultanates and Mughal empire period (1000 to 1750)=== | |||
| Early and mid 20th century Muslim historians, such as Hashimi in 1927 and Qureshi in 1962, proposed that "caste system was established before the arrival of Islam", and it and "a nomadic savage lifestyle" in the northwest Indian subcontinent were the primary cause why ] non-Muslims "embraced Islam in flocks" when Arab Muslim armies invaded the region.<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=30–31}}</ref> According to this hypothesis, the mass conversions occurred from the lower caste Hindus and Mahayana Buddhists who had become "corroded from within by the infiltration of Hindu beliefs and practices". This theory is now widely believed to be baseless and false.<ref name="Eaton 1993 117–122">{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204–1760 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-520-08077-5 | pages=117–122}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=31–34, 49–50}}</ref> | |||
| Derryl MacLein, a professor of social history and Islamic studies, states that historical evidence does not support this theory, whatever evidence is available suggests that Muslim institutions in north-west India legitimised and continued any inequalities that existed, and that neither Buddhists nor "lower caste" Hindus converted to Islam because they viewed Islam to lack a caste system.<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=31–32, 49}}</ref> Conversions to Islam were rare, states MacLein, and conversions attested by historical evidence confirms that the few who did convert were Brahmin Hindus (theoretically, the upper caste).<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=32–33, 49–50}}</ref> MacLein states the caste and conversion theories about Indian society during the Islamic era are not based on historical evidence or verifiable sources, but personal assumptions of Muslim historians about the nature of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism in northwest Indian subcontinent.<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=33–34, 49–50}}</ref> | |||
| Richard Eaton, a professor of History, states that the presumption of a rigid Hindu caste system and oppression of lower castes in pre-Islamic era in India, and it being the cause of "mass conversion to Islam" during the medieval era suffers from the problem that "no evidence can be found in support of the theory, and it is profoundly illogical".<ref name="Eaton 1993 117–122"/> | |||
| ], a professor of Medieval History and Muslim India, writes that the speculative hypotheses about caste system in Hindu states during the medieval Delhi Sultanate period (~1200 to 1500) and the existence of a caste system as being responsible for Hindu weakness in resisting the plunder by Islamic armies is appealing at first sight, but "they do not withstand closer scrutiny and historical evidence".<ref name="Jackson 2003 14–15">{{cite book | last=Jackson | first=Peter | title=The Delhi Sultanate : a political and military history | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2003 | isbn=978-0-521-54329-3 | pages=14–15}}</ref> Jackson states that, contrary to the theoretical model of caste where Kshatriyas only could be warriors and soldiers, historical evidence confirms that Hindu warriors and soldiers during the medieval era included other castes such as Vaishyas and Shudras.<ref name="Jackson 2003 14–15"/> Further, there is no evidence, writes Jackson, that there ever was a "widespread conversion to Islam at the turn of twelfth century" by Hindus of lower caste.<ref name="Jackson 2003 14–15"/> Jamal Malik, a professor of Islamic studies, extends this observation further, and states that "at no time in history did Hindus of low caste convert ''en masse'' to Islam".<ref name="Malik 2008 157">{{cite book | last=Malik | first=Jamal | title=Islam in South Asia a short history | publisher=Brill | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 | page=157}}</ref> | |||
| ] states that caste as a social stratification is a well-studied Indian system, yet evidence also suggests that hierarchical concepts, class consciousness and social stratification had already occurred in Islam before Islam arrived in India.<ref name="Malik 2008 157"/> The concept of caste, or '''qaum''<nowiki/>' in Islamic literature, is mentioned by a few Islamic historians of medieval India, states Malik, but these mentions relate to the fragmentation of the Muslim society in India.<ref>{{cite book | last=Malik | first=Jamal | title=Islam in South Asia a short history | publisher=Brill | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 | pages=152–157, 221}}</ref> Zia al-Din al-Barani of ] in his ''Fatawa-ye Jahandari'' and Abu al-Fadl from Akbar's court of ] are the few Islamic court historians who mention caste. ]'s discussion, however, is not about non-Muslim castes, rather a declaration of the supremacy of ''Ashraf'' caste over ''Ardhal'' caste among the Muslims, justifying it in Quranic text, with "aristocratic birth and superior genealogy being the most important traits of a human".<ref>{{cite book | last=Malik | first=Jamal | title=Islam in South Asia a short history | publisher=Brill | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 | pages=149–153|quote="Islamic norms permit hierarchical structure, i.e., equality in islam is only in relation to God, rather than between men. Early Muslims and Muslim conquerors in India reproduced social segregation among Muslims and the conquered religious groups. (...) The writings of Abu al-Fadl at Akbar's court mention caste. (...) The courtier and historian Zia al-Din al-Barani not only avowedly detested Hindus, in his Fatawa-ye Jahandari, he also vehemently stood for ashraf supremacy.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Cook | first=Michael | title=The new Cambridge history of Islam | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-521-84443-7 | page=481}}</ref> | |||
| ], an Indian historian, states that ]'s Ain-i Akbari provides a historical record and census of the ''Jat'' peasant caste of Hindus in northern India, where the '']s'' and ''Zamindars'' (tax collecting noble classes), the armed cavalry and infantry (warrior class) doubling up as the farming peasants (working class), were all of the same ''Jat'' caste in the 16th century. These occupationally diverse members from one caste served each other, writes Habib, either because of their reaction to taxation pressure of Muslim rulers or because they belonged to the same caste.<ref>{{cite book | last=Habib | first=Irfan | title=Essays in Indian history : towards a Marxist perception, with the economic history of Medieval India: a survey | publisher=Anthem Press | location=London | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-84331-061-7 | pages=250–251}}</ref> Peasant social stratification and caste lineages were, states Habib, tools for tax revenue collection in areas under the Islamic rule.<ref name="Habib2002tax">{{cite book | last=Habib | first=Irfan | title=Essays in Indian history : towards a Marxist perception, with the economic history of Medieval India: a survey | publisher=Anthem Press | location=London | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-84331-061-7 | pages=150–152}}</ref> | |||
| The origin of caste system of modern form, in the Bengal region of India, may be traceable to this period, states Richard Eaton.<ref name="Eaton 1993 103">{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204–1760 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-520-08077-5 | page=103}}</ref> The medieval era Islamic Sultanates in India utilised social stratification to rule and collect tax revenue from non-Muslims.<ref name="eaton1993tax">{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204–1760 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-520-08077-5 | pages=102–103, 224–226}}</ref> Eaton states that, "Looking at Bengal's Hindu society as a whole, it seems likely that the caste system – far from being the ancient and unchanging essence of Indian civilisation as supposed by generations of Orientalists – emerged into something resembling its modern form only in the period 1200–1500".<ref name="Eaton 1993 103"/> | |||
| ===Post-Mughal period (1700 to 1850)=== | |||
| Susan Bayly, an anthropologist, notes that "caste is not and never has been a fixed fact of Indian life" and the caste system as we know it today, as a "ritualised scheme of social stratification," developed in two stages during the post-Mughal period, in 18th and early 19th century. Three sets of value played an important role in this development: priestly hierarchy, kingship, and armed ascetics.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=25–28}} | |||
| With the Islamic Mughal empire falling apart in the 18th century, regional post-Mughal ruling elites and new dynasties from diverse religious, geographical and linguistic background attempted to assert their power in different parts of India.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=29–30}} Bayly states that these obscure post-Mughal elites associated themselves with kings, priests and ascetics, deploying the symbols of caste and kinship to divide their populace and consolidate their power. In addition, in this fluid stateless environment, some of the previously casteless segments of society grouped themselves into caste groups.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=26–27|ps= what happened in the initial phase of this two-stage sequence was the rise of the royal man of prowess. In this period, both kings and the priests and ascetics with whom men of power were able to associate their rule became a growing focus for the affirmation of a martial and regal form of caste ideal. (...) The other key feature of this period was the reshaping of many apparently casteless forms of devotional faith in a direction which further affirmed these differentiations of rank and community.}} However, in 18th century writes Bayly, India-wide networks of merchants, armed ascetics and armed tribal people often ignored these ideologies of caste.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=30}} Most people did not treat caste norms as given absolutes writes Bayly, but challenged, negotiated and adapted these norms to their circumstances. Communities teamed in different regions of India, into "collective classing" to mold the social stratification in order to maximise assets and protect themselves from loss.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=30–31}} The "caste, class, community" structure that formed became valuable in a time when state apparatus was fragmenting, was unreliable and fluid, when rights and life were unpredictable.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=31}} | |||
| In this environment, states Rosalind O'Hanlon, a professor of Indian History, the newly arrived colonial East India Company officials, attempted to gain commercial interests in India by balancing Hindu and Muslim conflicting interests, by aligning with regional rulers and large assemblies of military monks. The British Company officials adopted constitutional laws segregated by religion and caste.<ref name="Peers 2012 104–108">{{cite book | last=Peers | first=Douglas | title=India and the British empire | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-19-925988-5 | pages=104–108}}</ref> The legal code and colonial administrative practice was largely divided into Muslim law and Hindu law, the latter including laws for Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. In this transitory phase, Brahmins together with scribes, ascetics and merchants who accepted Hindu social and spiritual codes, became the deferred-to-authority on Hindu texts, law and administration of Hindu matters.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|p=27}}{{efn|Sweetman notes that the Brahmin had a strong influence on the British understanding of India, thereby also influencing the British rule and western understandings of Hinduism, and gaining a stronger position in Indian society.{{sfnp|Sweetman|2004|p=13}}}} | |||
| While legal codes and state administration were emerging in India, with the rising power of the colonial Europeans, Dirks states that the late 18th-century British writings on India say little about caste system in India, and predominantly discuss territorial conquest, alliances, warfare and diplomacy in India.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=28}} Colin Mackenzie, a British social historian of this time, collected vast numbers of texts on Indian religions, culture, traditions and local histories from south India and Deccan region, but his collection and writings have very little on caste system in 18th-century India.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=29–30}} | |||
| ===During British rule (1857 to 1947)=== | |||
| Although the ''varnas'' and ''jatis'' have pre-modern origins, the caste system as it exists today is the result of developments during the post-Mughal period and the ], which made caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=25–27, 392}}{{sfnp|St. John, Making of the Raj|2012|p=10|ps=3}}{{sfnp|Sathaye|2015|p=214}} | |||
| ====Basis==== | |||
| ''Jati'' were the basis of caste ethnology during the British colonial era. In the 1881 census and thereafter, colonial ethnographers used caste (''jati'') headings, to count and classify people in what was then ] (now India, ], ] and ]).{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=125–126}} The 1891 census included 60 sub-groups each subdivided into six occupational and racial categories, and the number increased in subsequent censuses.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=212–217}} The British colonial era census caste tables, states Susan Bayly, "ranked, standardised and cross-referenced jati listings for Indians on principles similar to zoology and botanical classifications, aiming to establish who was superior to whom by virtue of their supposed purity, occupational origins and collective moral worth". While bureaucratic British officials completed reports on their zoological classification of Indian people, some British officials criticised these exercises as being little more than a caricature of the reality of caste system in India. The British colonial officials used the census-determined jatis to decide which group of people were qualified for which jobs in the colonial government, and people of which jatis were to be excluded as unreliable.{{sfnp|Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics|2001|pp=125–127}} These census caste classifications, states Gloria Raheja, a professor of Anthropology, were also used by the British officials over the late 19th century and early 20th century, to formulate land tax rates, as well as to frequently target some social groups as "criminal" castes and castes prone to "rebellion".<ref>{{cite book | last=Raheja | first=Gloria | title=Colonial subjects : essays on the practical history of anthropology (editors: Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink) | publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=2000 | isbn=978-0-472-08746-4 | pages=120–122}}</ref> | |||
| The population then comprised about 200 million people, across five major religions, and over 500,000 agrarian villages, each with a population between 100 and 1,000 people of various age groups, which were variously divided into numerous castes. This ideological scheme was theoretically composed of around 3,000 castes, which in turn was claimed to be composed of 90,000 local endogamous sub-groups. {{sfnp|de Zwart|2000}}{{sfnp|Stokes|1973}}<ref name=ldj1>{{cite book |title=Identity and Identification in India (see review of sociology journal articles starting page 42)|first=Laura |last=Dudley-Jenkins |isbn=978-0-415-56062-7 |publisher=Routledge |date=October 2009}}</ref><ref name=bates95>{{cite journal|title=Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry |first=Crispin |last=Bates |journal=Edinburgh Papers In South Asian Studies |issue=3 |year=1995 |url=http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/38426/WP03_BATES_RaceCaste_and_Tribe.pdf |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130614132128/http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/38426/WP03_BATES_RaceCaste_and_Tribe.pdf |archivedate=14 June 2013 |df=dmy }}</ref> | |||
| The strict ] may have influenced the British colonial preoccupation with the Indian caste system as well as the British perception of pre-colonial Indian castes. British society's own similarly rigid class system provided the British with a template for understanding Indian society and castes.<ref name="ghuman">{{cite book|last1=Ghuman|first1=Paul|title=British Untouchables: A Study of Dalit Identity and Education|date=2013|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|page=18|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iNahAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA18&dq=british+class+system+india+caste&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB_eub47HTAhUK5yYKHeiKBBQQ6AEIPzAF#v=onepage&q=british%20class%20system%20india%20caste&f=false}}</ref> The British, coming from a society rigidly divided by class, attempted to equate India's castes with British ]es.<ref name="jha">{{cite book|last1=Jha|first1=Pravin Kumar|title=Indian Politics in Comparative Perspective|publisher=Pearson Education India|page=102|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I8OuIjo6KOAC&pg=PA102&dq=indian+caste+system+%22equatE%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwi9et9LHTAhWK1CYKHWllC-QQ6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=indian%20caste%20system%20%22equatE%22&f=false}}</ref><ref name="jt">{{cite book|last1=JT|title=Origin of Caste in India|date=2014|publisher=Partridge Publishing|page=18|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rrSEAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18&dq=british+class+system+india+origin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0mve-9bHTAhVE6SYKHbjgCIsQ6AEIIzAA#v=onepage&q=british%20class%20system%20india%20origin&f=false}}</ref> According to ], Indian castes merged with the traditional British class system during the British Raj.<ref name="malesevic">{{cite book|last1=Malešević|first1=Siniša|last2=Haugaard|first2=Mark|title=Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought|date=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yL81fd7VIGoC&pg=PA67&dq=british+class+system+india+caste&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB_eub47HTAhUK5yYKHeiKBBQQ6AEISjAH#v=onepage&q=british%20class%20system%20india%20caste&f=false}}</ref><ref name="cannadine">{{cite book|last1=Cannadine|first1=David|title=Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire|date=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> | |||
| ====Race science==== | |||
| Colonial administrator ], an exponent of ], used the ratio of the width of a ] to its height to divide Indians into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.{{sfnp|Trautmann|1997|=p=203}}{{sfnp|Walsh|2011|=p=171}} | |||
| ====Enforcement==== | |||
| ]) people classified by castes.<ref>{{cite web|title=Online Collection (The Riddell Gifts)|publisher=National Galleries of Scotland|year=1985|url=http://www.nationalgalleries.org/}}</ref> Above is an 1860s photograph of ]s, classified as a high Hindu caste.]] | |||
| =====Jobs for upper castes===== | |||
| The role of the British Raj on the caste system in India is controversial.{{sfnp|Stokes|1980|pp=38–43}} The caste system became legally rigid during the Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during their ] and meticulously codified the system.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=198–225}}{{sfnp|Stokes|1973}} Between 1860 and 1920, the British segregated Indians by caste, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to the upper castes.{{sfnp|Burguière|Grew|2001|pp=215–229}} | |||
| =====Targeting criminal castes and their isolation===== | |||
| Starting with the 19th century, the British colonial government passed a series of laws that applied to Indians based on their religion and caste identification.<ref>{{cite book | last=K. Parker (Gerald Larson: Editor) | title=Religion and personal law in secular India a call to judgment | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-253-21480-5 | pages=184–189}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=S Nigam | year=1990| title=Disciplining and Policing the "Criminals by Birth", Part 1: The Making of a Colonial Stereotype - The Criminal Tribes and Castes of North India|journal= Indian Economic & Social History Review|volume= 27|issue = 2|pages=131–164|doi=10.1177/001946469002700201}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=S Nigam | year=1990| title=Disciplining and Policing the "Criminals by Birth", Part 2: The Development of a Disciplinary System, 1871–1900|journal = Indian Economic & Social History Review| volume = 27| issue = 3| pages = 257–287| doi=10.1177/001946469002700302}}</ref> These colonial era laws and their provisions used the term "Tribes", which included castes within their scope. This terminology was preferred for various reasons, including Muslim sensitivities that considered castes by definition Hindu, and preferred ''Tribes'', a more generic term that included Muslims.<ref name="Stern2001">{{cite book | last=Stern | first=Robert | title=Democracy and dictatorship in South Asia | publisher=Praeger | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-275-97041-3 | pages=53–54}}</ref> | |||
| The British colonial government, for instance, enacted the ] of 1871. This law declared everyone belonging to certain castes to be born with criminal tendencies.<ref name="Cole2001"/> Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of History and specialising in social exclusion in Indian subcontinent, states that the criminal-by-birth castes under this Act included initially ]s, ]s and ]s, but its enforcement expanded by the late 19th century to include most Shudras and untouchables, such as ]s,<ref name="Rawat2011">{{cite book | last=Rawat | first=Ramnarayan | title=Reconsidering untouchability : Chamars and Dalit history in North India | publisher=Indiana University Press | location=Bloomington | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-253-22262-6 | pages=26–27}}</ref> as well as ] and hill tribes.<ref name="Cole2001">{{cite book | last=Cole | first=Simon | title=Suspect identities : a history of fingerprinting and criminal identification | publisher=Harvard University Press | location=Cambridge, MA, USA | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-674-01002-4 | pages=67–72|quote=" amateur ethnographers believed that Indian castes, because of their strictures against intermarriage, represented pure racial types, and they concocted the notion of '''racially inferior criminal castes''' or 'criminal tribes', inbred ethnic groups predisposed to criminal behavior by both cultural tradition and hereditary disposition"}}</ref> Castes suspected of rebelling against colonial laws and seeking self-rule for India, such as the previously ruling families ]s and the ]s in south India and non-loyal castes in north India such as Ahirs, Gurjars and Jats, were called "predatory and barbarian" and added to the criminal castes list.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|pp=176–188}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Schwarz | first=Henry | title=Constructing the criminal tribe in colonial India : acting like a thief | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | location=USA | year=2010 | isbn=978-1-4051-2057-9 | pages=69–78}}</ref> Some caste groups were targeted using the Criminal Tribes Act even when there were no reports of any violence or criminal activity, but where their forefathers were known to have rebelled against Mughal or British authorities,<ref>{{cite book | last=Schwarz | first=Henry | title=Constructing the criminal tribe in colonial India : acting like a thief | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | location=USA | year=2010 | isbn=978-1-4051-2057-9 | pages=71–74}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=Birinder P. Singh | title=Criminal tribes of Punjab : a social-anthropological inquiry | publisher=Routledge | location=New York | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-415-55147-2 | pages=liv-lvi, Introduction}}</ref> or these castes were demanding labour rights and disrupting colonial tax collecting authorities.<ref>{{cite book | last=Chaturvedi | first=Vinayak | title=Peasant pasts history and memory in western India | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley, USA | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-520-25076-5 | pages=122–126 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MzPlZSOjCpsC |quote=" In 1911, the entire ] population of nearly 250,000 individuals in Kheda district was declared a criminal tribe under Act IIII of 1911, the Criminal Tribes Act."}}</ref> | |||
| The colonial government prepared a list of criminal castes, and all members registered in these castes by caste-census were restricted in terms of regions they could visit, move about in or people with whom they could socialise.<ref name="Cole2001"/> In certain regions of colonial India, entire caste groups were presumed guilty by birth, arrested, children separated from their parents, and held in penal colonies or quarantined without conviction or due process.<ref name="Schwarz2010"/><ref name="Karade2008"/><ref name="Brown2014">{{cite book | last=Brown | first=Mark | title=Penal power and colonial rule | publisher=Routledge | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-415-45213-7 | pages=176, 107, 165–188|quote=" criminal tribes are destined by the usage of '''caste''' to commit crime and whose dependents will be offenders against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounted for..."}}</ref> This practice became controversial, did not enjoy the support of all colonial British officials, and in a few cases this decades-long practice was reversed at the start of the 20th century with the proclamation that people "could not be incarcerated indefinitely on the presumption of bad character".<ref name="Schwarz2010">{{cite book | last=Schwarz | first=Henry | title=Constructing the criminal tribe in colonial India : acting like a thief | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | location=USA | year=2010 | isbn=978-1-4051-2057-9 | pages=99–101}}</ref> The criminal-by-birth laws against targeted castes was enforced until the mid-20th century, with an expansion of criminal castes list in west and south India through the 1900s to 1930s.<ref name="Karade2008">{{cite book | last=Karade | first=Jagan | title=Development of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in India | publisher=Cambridge Scholars | location=Newcastle, UK | year=2014 | isbn=978-1-4438-1027-2 | pages=25, 23–28}}</ref><ref name="Terry1995">{{cite book | last=Rachel Tolen (Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla: Editors) | title=Deviant bodies | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=1995 | isbn=978-0-253-20975-7 | pages=84–88}}</ref> Hundreds of Hindu communities were brought under the Criminal Tribes Act. By 1931, the colonial government included 237 criminal castes and tribes under the act in the ] alone.<ref name="Terry1995"/> | |||
| While the notion of hereditary criminals conformed to orientalist stereotypes and the prevailing racial theories in Britain during the colonial era, the social impact of its enforcement was profiling, division and isolation of many communities of Hindus as criminals-by-birth.<ref name="Rawat2011"/><ref name="Brown2014"/><ref name="Yang1985">{{cite book | last=Yang | first=A. | title=Crime and criminality in British India | publisher=University of Arizona Press | location=USA | year=1985 | isbn=978-0-8165-0951-5 | pages=112–127}}</ref>{{efn|Karade states, "the caste quarantine list was abolished by independent India in 1947 and criminal tribes law was formally repealed in 1952 by its first parliament".<ref name="Karade2008"/>}} | |||
| =====Religion and caste segregated human rights===== | |||
| Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of History and Religions in India, states that the colonial government hardened the caste-driven divisions in British India not only through its caste census, but with a series of laws in early 20th century.<ref name="Nesbitt2005c">{{cite book | last=Nesbitt | first=Eleanor | title=Sikhism a very short introduction | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=Oxford New York | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-19-280601-7 | pages=119–120}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Guilhem Cassan |title= Law and Identity Manipulation: Evidence from Colonial Punjab | url = http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/IMG/pdf/JobMarket-1paper-CASSAN-PSE.pdf | publisher=London School of Economics and Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee (LEA-INRA), Paris|year=2011 | pages=2–3}}</ref> The British colonial officials, for instance, enacted laws such as the ] in 1900 and Punjab Pre-Emption Act in 1913, listing castes that could legally own land and denying equivalent property rights to other census-determined castes. These acts prohibited the inter-generational and intra-generational transfer of land from land-owning castes to any non-agricultural castes, thereby preventing economic mobility of property and creating consequent caste barriers in India.<ref name="Nesbitt2005c"/><ref name="Ballantyne2007"/> | |||
| ] a Sikh historian, and ] a professor of History, state that these British colonial era laws helped create and erect barriers within land-owning and landless castes in northwest India.<ref name="Ballantyne2007">{{cite book | last=Ballantyne | first=Tony | title=Textures of the Sikh past : new historical perspectives | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=New York | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-19-568663-0 | pages=134–142}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Singh | first=Khushwant | title=A history of the Sikhs | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=New Delhi | year=2004 | isbn=978-0-19-567309-8 | pages=155–156}}</ref> Caste-based discrimination and denial of human rights by the colonial state had similar impact elsewhere in British India.<ref name="Debin2011">{{cite book | author=Debin Ma and Jan Luiten Van Zanden (Editors) | title=Law and long-term economic change a Eurasian perspective (Anand Swamy) | publisher=Stanford University Press | location=Stanford, California | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-8047-7273-0 | pages=149–150}}</ref><ref name="Nair2011">{{cite book | last=Nair | first=Neeti | title=Changing homelands | publisher=Harvard University Press | location=Cambridge, MA | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-674-05779-1 | pages=85–86}}</ref><ref name="Guha2013">{{cite book | last=Guha | first=Sumit | title=Beyond Caste | publisher=Brill Academic | location=Leiden, Netherlands | year=2013 | isbn=978-90-04-24918-9 | pages=199–200}}</ref> | |||
| =====Social identity===== | |||
| ] has argued that Indian caste as we know it today is a "modern phenomenon,"{{efn|{{harvtxt|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001|p=5}}: "Rather, I will argue that caste (again, as we know it today) is a modern phenomenon, that it is, specifically, the product of an historical encounter between India and Western colonial rule. By this I do not mean to imply that it was simply invented by the too clever British, now credited with so many imperial patents that what began as colonial critique has turned into another form of imperial adulation. But I ''am'' suggesting that it was under the British that 'caste' became a single term capable of expressing, organising, and above all 'systematising' India's diverse forms of social identity, community, and organisation. This was achieved through an identifiable (if contested) ideological canon as the result of a concrete encounter with colonial modernity during two hundred years of British domination. In short, colonialism made caste what it is today."}} as caste was "fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule."{{efn|{{harvtxt|Dirks, Scandal of Empire|2006|p=27}}: "The institution of caste, for example, a social formation that has been seen as not only basic to India but part of its ancient constitution, was fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule."}} According to Dirks, before colonialism caste affiliation was quite loose and fluid, but the British regime enforced caste affiliation rigorously, and constructed a much more strict hierarchy than existed previously, with some castes being criminalised and others being given preferential treatment.{{sfnp|Dirks, Castes of Mind|2001}}{{page needed|date=June 2015}}{{sfnp|Dirks, Scandal of Empire|2006|p=27}} | |||
| De Zwart notes that the caste system used to be thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life and that contemporary scholars argue instead that the system was constructed by the British colonial regime. He says that "jobs and education opportunities were allotted based on caste, and people rallied and adopted a caste system that maximized their opportunity". De Zwart also notes that post-colonial affirmative action only reinforced the "British colonial project that ex hypothesi constructed the caste system".{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000|p=235}} | |||
| Sweetman notes that the European conception of caste dismissed former political configurations and insisted upon an "essentially religious character" of India. During the colonial period, caste was defined as a religious system and was divorced from political powers. This made it possible for the colonial rulers to portray India as a society characterised by spiritual harmony in contrast to the former Indian states which they criticised as "despotic and epiphenomenal",{{sfnp|Sweetman|2004|pp=14–15}}{{efn|Sweetman cites Dirks (1993), ''The Hollow Crown'', University of Michigan Press, p.xxvii}} with the colonial powers providing the necessary "benevolent, paternalistic rule by a more 'advanced' nation".{{sfnp|Sweetman|2004|p=14}} | |||
| ====Further development==== | |||
| Assumptions about the caste system in Indian society, along with its nature, evolved during British rule.{{sfnp|Stokes|1980|pp=38–43}}{{efn|For example, some British believed Indians would shun train travel because tradition-bound South Asians were too caught up in caste and religion, and that they would not sit or stand in the same coaches out of concern for close proximity to a member of higher or lower or shunned caste. After the launch of train services, Indians of all castes, classes and gender enthusiastically adopted train travel without any concern for so-called caste stereotypes.<ref>{{cite book |title=Engines of change: the railroads that made India|first=Ian |last=Kerr |year=2007 |publisher=Praeger Publishers |isbn=0-275-98564-4 |pages=89–99}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=White colonization and labour in 19th century India |first=David |last=Arnold |journal=Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |volume=XI |issue=2 |date=January 1983 |pages=133–157 |doi=10.1080/03086538308582635}}</ref>}} Corbridge concludes that British policies of ] of India's numerous princely sovereign states, as well as enumeration of the population into rigid categories during the 10-year census, particularly with the 1901 and 1911 census, contributed towards the hardening of caste identities.{{sfnp|Corbridge|Harriss|2000|pp=8, 243}} | |||
| Social unrest during 1920s led to a change in this policy.{{sfnp|Burguière|Grew|2001|pp=215–229}} From then on, the colonial administration began a policy of positive discrimination by reserving a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes.<ref>The Economist (29 June 2013), , India Reservations</ref> | |||
| In the round table conference held on ], upon the request of Ambedkar, the then Prime Minister of Britain, ] made a ] which awarded a provision for separate representation for the Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, ], Europeans and Dalits. These depressed classes were assigned a number of seats to be filled by election from special constituencies in which voters belonging to the depressed classes only could vote. Gandhi went on a hunger strike against this provision claiming that such an arrangement would split the Hindu community into two groups. Years later, Ambedkar wrote that Gandhi's fast was a form of coercion.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Omvedt |first=Gail |authorlink=Gail Omvedt |year=2012 |title=A Part That Parted |journal=Outlook India |url=http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281929 |accessdate=12 August 2012}}</ref> This agreement, which saw Gandhi end his fast and Ambedkar drop his demand for a separate electorate, was called the ].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lv3fDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PT6#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=Motivating Thoughts of Ambedkar|last=Sharma|first=Mahesh Dutt|date=27 May 2017|publisher=Prabhat Prakashan|isbn=9789351869375|language=en}}</ref> | |||
| After India achieved independence, the policy of caste-based reservation of jobs was formalised with lists of ]. | |||
| ====Other theories and observations==== | |||
| Smelser and Lipset propose in their review of Hutton's study of caste system in colonial India the theory that individual mobility across caste lines may have been minimal in British India because it was ritualistic. They state that this may be because the colonial social stratification worked with the pre-existing ritual caste system.{{sfnp|Smelser|Lipset|2005|pp=8–15, 160–174}} | |||
| The emergence of a caste system in the modern form, during the early British colonial rule in the 18th and 19th century, was not uniform in South Asia. Claude Markovits, a French historian of colonial India, writes that Hindu society in north and west India (Sindh), in late 18th century and much of 19th century, lacked a proper caste system, their religious identities were fluid (a combination of Saivism, Vaisnavism, Sikhism), and the Brahmins were not the widespread priestly group (but the ''Bawas'' were).<ref>{{cite book | last=Markovits | first=Claude | title=The global world of Indian merchants, 1750–1947 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location=Cambridge | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-521-08940-1 | pages=48–49}}</ref> Markovits writes, "if religion was not a structuring factor, neither was caste" among the Hindu merchants group of northwest India.<ref>{{cite book | last=Markovits | first=Claude | title=The global world of Indian merchants, 1750–1947 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location=Cambridge | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-521-08940-1 | page=251}}</ref> | |||
| ===Contemporary India=== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| ====Caste politics==== | |||
| {{main|Caste politics}} | |||
| Societal stratification, and the inequality that comes with it, still exists in India,<ref name="lcweb2" /><ref name="ifad" /> and has been thoroughly criticised.<ref name="Gopal" /> Government policies aim at reducing this inequality by ], quota for backward classes, but paradoxically also have created an incentive to keep this stratification alive. The Indian government officially recognises historically discriminated communities of India such as the Untouchables under the designation of Scheduled Castes, and certain economically backward castes as ].<ref name="Gosal">{{cite journal|last=Gosal|first=R. P. S.|date=September 1987|title=Distribution of scheduled caste population in India|journal=Social Science Information|volume=26|issue=3|pages=493–511|doi=10.1177/053901887026003002}}</ref>{{Request quotation|date=August 2016}} | |||
| ====Loosening of caste system==== | |||
| Leonard and Weller have surveyed marriage and genealogical records to study patterns of exogamous inter-caste and endogamous intra-caste marriages in a regional population of India in 1900–1975. They report a striking presence of exogamous marriages across caste lines over time, particularly since the 1970s. They propose education, economic development, mobility and more interaction between youth as possible reasons for these exogamous marriages.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Declining subcaste endogamy in India: the Hyderabad Kayasths, 1900–75 |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=7 |issue=3 |date=August 1980 |first1=Karen |last1=Leonard |first2=Susan |last2=Weller |url=http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~kbleonar/bio/Karen%20declining%20subcaste%20endogamy%20in%20India.pdf |doi=10.1525/ae.1980.7.3.02a00080 |pages=504–517}}</ref> | |||
| A 2003 article in '']'' claimed that inter-caste marriage and dating were common in urban India. Indian societal and family relationships are changing because of female literacy and education, women at work, urbanisation, the need for two-income families, and global influences through television. Female role models in politics, academia, journalism, business, and India's feminist movement have accelerated the change.<ref>{{cite news|title=THE DOLLAR BRIDES—Indian girls marrying NRIs often escape to a hassle-free life |date=28 January 2003 |work=The Telegraph |url=http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030128/asp/opinion/story_1611909.asp |location=Calcutta, India}}</ref> | |||
| ====Caste-related violence==== | |||
| {{Main article|Caste-related violence in India}} | |||
| Independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. According to a 2005 UN report, approximately 31,440 cases of violent acts committed against Dalits were reported in 1996.<ref>"". CBC News. 2 March 2007.</ref><ref name=undp1>{{cite web|title=Caste, Ethnicity and Exclusion in South Asia: The Role of Affirmative Action Policies in Building Inclusive Societies|url=http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr2004_dl_sheth.pdf}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2015}} The UN report claimed 1.33 cases of violent acts per 10,000 Dalit people. For context, the UN reported between 40 and 55 cases of violent acts per 10,000 people in developed countries in 2005.<ref>{{cite web|title=Crime statistics, 87 major countries|publisher=UN ODC|year=2007|url=http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/United-Nations-Surveys-on-Crime-Trends-and-the-Operations-of-Criminal-Justice-Systems.html}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2015}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Crimes and Crime Rates by Type of Offense: 1980 to 2009|publisher=Census—US|year=2010|url=https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0306.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020121607/http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0306.pdf|dead-url=yes|archive-date=20 October 2011}}</ref> One example of such violence is the ] of 2006. | |||
| == Affirmative action == | |||
| Article 15 of the ] prohibits discrimination based on caste and Article 17 declared the practice of untouchability to be illegal.<ref name="C2011">{{cite web|url=http://lawmin.nic.in/olwing/coi/coi-english/coi-indexenglish.htm|title=Constitution of India|publisher=Ministry of Law, Government of India}}</ref> In 1955, India enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act (renamed in 1976, as the Protection of Civil Rights Act). It extended the reach of law, from intent to mandatory enforcement. The ] was passed in India in 1989.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-16.htm|title=India: (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989; No. 33 of 1989|year=1989|publisher=Human Rights Watch}}</ref> | |||
| *The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was established to investigate, monitor, advise, and evaluate the socio-economic progress of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ncst.nic.in/index.asp?langid=1 |title=About NCST |year=2011 |publisher=Government of India |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114013721/http://ncst.nic.in/index.asp?langid=1 |archivedate=14 January 2012 |df=dmy }}</ref> | |||
| * A reservation system for people classified as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has existed for over 50 years. The presence of privately owned free market corporations in India is limited and public sector jobs have dominated the percentage of jobs in its economy. A 2000 report estimated that most jobs in India were in companies owned by the government or agencies of the government.<ref>Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India. Delhi: Oxford University | |||
| Press, 1984, 84–85</ref> The reservation system implemented by India over 50 years, has been partly successful, because of all jobs, nationwide, in 1995, 17.2 percent of the jobs were held by those in the lowest castes.{{citation needed|date=July 2014}} | |||
| * The Indian government classifies government jobs in four groups. The Group A jobs are senior most, high paying positions in the government, while Group D are junior most, lowest paying positions. In Group D jobs, the percentage of positions held by lowest caste classified people is 30% greater than their demographic percentage. In all jobs classified as Group C positions, the percentage of jobs held by lowest caste people is about the same as their demographic population distribution. In Group A and B jobs, the percentage of positions held by lowest caste classified people is 30% lower than their demographic percentage. | |||
| * The presence of lowest caste people in highest paying, senior most position jobs in India has increased by ten-fold, from 1.18 percent of all jobs in 1959 to 10.12 percent of all jobs in 1995.<ref>"Caste-based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law", p. 257, by David Keane</ref> | |||
| * In 2007, India elected ], a Dalit, to the office of Chief Justice.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/22bala.htm|title=K G Balakrishnan, first Dalit Chief Justice of India|date=22 December 2006|accessdate=14 November 2014}}</ref> | |||
| * In 2007, Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, elected ] as the Chief Minister, the highest elected office of the state. BBC claims, "Mayawati Kumari is an icon for millions of India's Dalits, or untouchables as they used to be known."<ref name="bbc1">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1958378.stm|title=Profile: Mayawati Kumari|date=16 July 2009|publisher=BBC News}}</ref> | |||
| * In 2009, the Indian parliament unanimously elected a Dalit,<ref name="meira">{{cite web|url=http://www.nchro.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6863:meira-kumar-a-dalit-leader-is-the-new-lok-sabha-speaker&catid=5:dalitsatribals&Itemid=14|title=Meira Kumar, a Dalit leader is the new Lok Sabha Speaker|year=2009|publisher=NCHRO}}</ref> ], as the first female speaker. | |||
| === Recognition === | |||
| The Indian government officially recognises historically discriminated communities of India such as the Untouchables under the designation of ], and certain economically backward Shudra castes as ].<ref name="Gosal" />{{Request quotation|date=July 2014}} The Scheduled Castes are sometimes referred to as Dalit in contemporary literature. In 2001, Dalits comprised 16.2 percent of India's total population.<ref name="censtat01">{{cite web|url=http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/India_at_glance/scst.aspx|title=Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes population: Census 2001|year=2004|publisher=Government of India}}</ref> Of the one billion Hindus in India, it is estimated that Hindu ] comprises 26%, Other Backward Class comprises 43%, Hindu Scheduled Castes (Dalits) comprises 22% and Hindu Scheduled Tribes comprises 9%.<ref name="Sachar 2006">{{cite web|url=http://www.teindia.nic.in/Files/Reports/CCR/Sachar%20Committee%20Report.pdf|title=Sachar Committee Report (2004–2005)|last=Sachar|first=Rajinder|authorlink=Rajinder Sachar|year=2006|publisher=Government of India|format=PDF|accessdate=27 September 2008|page=6}}</ref> | |||
| In addition to taking affirmative action for people of schedule castes and scheduled tribes, India has expanded its effort to include people from poor, backward castes in its economic and social mainstream. In 1990, the government reservation of 27% for Backward Classes on the basis of the ]'s recommendations. Since then, India has reserved 27 percent of job opportunities in government-owned enterprises and agencies for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs). The 27 percent reservation is in addition to 22.5 percent set aside for India's lowest castes for last 50 years.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ncbc.nic.in/Pdf/annual.pdf|title=Annual Report, 2007–2008|year=2009|publisher=National Commission for Backward Classes, Government of India}}</ref> | |||
| ===Mandal commission=== | |||
| The Mandal Commission was established in 1979 to "identify the socially or educationally backward" and to consider the question of ] for people to redress caste discrimination.<ref name="Bhattacharya">Bhattacharya, Amit. {{cite web|url=http://www.theotherindia.org/caste/who-are-the-obcs.html|title=Who are the OBCs?|accessdate=19 April 2006|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627065912/http://www.theotherindia.org/caste/who-are-the-obcs.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive -->|archivedate=27 June 2006}} ''Times of India'', 8 April 2006.</ref> In 1980, the commission's report affirmed the ] practice under Indian law, whereby additional members of lower castes—the other backward classes—were given exclusive access to another 27 percent of government jobs and slots in public universities, in addition to the 23 percent already reserved for the Dalits and Tribals. When ]'s administration tried to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission in 1989, massive protests were held in the country. Many alleged that the politicians were trying to cash in on caste-based reservations for purely pragmatic electoral purposes.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} | |||
| Many political parties in India have indulged in caste-based ] politics. Parties such as ] (BSP), the ] and the ] claim that they are representing the backward castes, and rely on OBC support, often in alliance with Dalit and Muslim support, to win elections.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://countrystudies.us/india/116.htm|title=Caste-Based Parties|publisher=Country Studies US|accessdate=12 December 2006}}</ref> | |||
| ===Other Backward Classes (OBC)=== | |||
| There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBCs in India; it is generally estimated to be sizable, but many believe that it is lower than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey.<ref>,''Yahoo News''.</ref> | |||
| The reservation system has led to widespread protests, such as the ], with many complaining of ] against the Forward Castes (the castes that do not qualify for the reservation).{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} | |||
| In May 2011, the government approved a poverty, religion and caste census to identify poverty in different social backgrounds.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/caste-religion-poverty-census-gets-cabinet-nod-106959|title=Caste, religion, poverty census gets Cabinet nod|date=19 May 2011|publisher=NDTV|accessdate=23 July 2014}}</ref> The census would also help the government to re-examine and possibly undo some of the policies which were formed in haste such as the Mandal Commission in order to bring more objectivity to the policies with respect to contemporary realities.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1718/17180910.htm|title=Caste and the Census|work=The Hindu|location=Chennai, India}}</ref> Critics of the reservation system believe that there is actually no social stigma at all associated with belonging to a backward caste and that because of the huge constitutional incentives in the form of educational and job reservations, a large number of people will falsely identify with a backward caste to receive the benefits. This would not only result in a marked inflation of the backward castes' numbers, but also lead to enormous administrative and judicial resources being devoted to social unrest and litigation when such dubious caste declarations are challenged.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/caste-in-doubt/619760/|title=Caste in doubt|date=17 May 2010|publisher=Indian Express|accessdate=20 January 2013}}</ref> | |||
| In 20th century India, the upper-class (''Ashraf'') Muslims dominated the government jobs and parliamentary representation. As a result, there have been campaigns to include the Muslim untouchable and lower castes among the groups eligible for ] under ''SC and STs provision act''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/01-15Sep04-Print-Edition/011509200449.htm |title=On reservation for Muslims |author=Asghar Ali Engineer |work=The Milli Gazette |publisher=Pharos |accessdate=1 September 2004 }}</ref> and have been given additional reservation based on the ] report. | |||
| ===Effects of Government aid=== | |||
| In a 2008 study, Desai et al. focussed on education attainments of children and young adults aged 6–29, from lowest caste and tribal populations of India. They completed a national survey of over 100,000 households for each of the four survey years between 1983 and 2000.<ref name="desai2008">{{cite journal|date=May 2008|title=Changing Educational Inequalities in India in the Context of Affirmative Action|journal=Demography|volume=45|issue=2|pages=245–270|doi=10.1353/dem.0.0001|pmc=2474466|pmid=18613480|author=Desai and Kulkarni}}</ref> They found a significant increase in lower caste children in their odds of completing primary school. The number of dalit children who completed either middle-, high- or college-level education increased three times faster than the national average, and the total number were statistically same for both lower and upper castes. However, the same study found that in 2000, the percentage of dalit males never enrolled in a school was still more than twice the percentage of upper caste males never enrolled in schools. Moreover, only 1.67% of dalit females were college graduates compared to 9.09% of upper caste females. The number of dalit girls in India who attended school doubled in the same period, but still few percent less than national average. Other poor caste groups as well as ethnic groups such as Muslims in India have also made improvements over the 16-year period, but their improvement lagged behind that of dalits and adivasis. The net percentage school attainment for Dalits and Muslims were statistically the same in 1999. | |||
| A 2007 nationwide survey of India by the ] found that over 80 percent of children of historically discriminated castes were attending schools. The fastest increase in school attendance by Dalit community children occurred during the recent periods of India's economic growth.<ref name="wb1">{{cite web|url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/2132853-1191444019328/21497941/SankarProgressinElementaryEducationusingNSS.pdf|title=What is the progress in elementary education participation in India during the last two decades?|last=Shankar|first=Deepa|year=2007|publisher=The World Bank}}</ref> | |||
| A study by Darshan Singh presents data on health and other indicators of socio-economic change in India's historically discriminated castes. He claims:<ref name="review1">{{cite journal|last=Singh |first=Darshan |year=2009 |title=DEVELOPMENT OF SCHEDULED CASTES IN INDIA – A REVIEW |url=http://www.nird.org.in/NIRD_Docs/OctLevel209.pdf |journal=Journal of Rural Development |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=529–542 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140211051046/http://www.nird.org.in/NIRD_Docs/OctLevel209.pdf |archivedate=11 February 2014 |df=dmy }}</ref> | |||
| * In 2001, the literacy rates in India's lowest castes was 55 percent, compared to a national average of 63 percent. | |||
| * The childhood vaccination levels in India's lowest castes was 40 percent in 2001, compared to a national average of 44 percent. | |||
| * Access to drinking water within household or near the household in India's lowest castes was 80 percent in 2001, compared to a national average of 83 percent. | |||
| * The poverty level in India's lowest castes dropped from 49 percent to 39 percent between 1995 and 2005, compared to a national average change from 35 to 27 percent. | |||
| The life expectancy of various caste groups in modern India has been raised; but the ] report suggests that poverty, not caste, is the bigger differentiation in life expectancy in modern India.<ref name="mr1">{{cite web|url=http://www.iipsindia.org/pdf/RB-13%20file%20for%20uploading.pdf|title=LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH AMONG SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC GROUPS IN INDIA|date=November 2010|publisher=International Institute for Population Sciences|author=Mohanty and Ram}}</ref> | |||
| ==Influence on other religions== | |||
| While identified with Hinduism, caste systems are found in other religions on the Indian subcontinent, including other religions such as Buddhists, Christians and Muslims.<ref name="barth">{{cite book |last=Barth |first=Fredrik |chapter=Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon and North-West Pakistan |editor-first=E. R. |editor-last=Leach |title=Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon, and North-West Pakistan |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1971 |isbn=978-0-521-09664-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlU7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA113 |page=113}}</ref><ref name="mills40">{{cite book |title=Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism |first=Martin A. |last=Mills |year=2002 |pages=40–41 |isbn=978-0-7007-1470-4 |publisher=Routledge}}</ref><ref name="ballhatchet1998">{{cite book|title=Caste, Class and Catholicism in India 1789–1914 |first=Kenneth |last=Ballhatchet |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-7007-1095-9}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2015}} | |||
| ===Christians=== | |||
| {{Main article|Caste system among Indian Christians}} | |||
| Social stratification is found among the Christians in India based on caste as well as by their denomination and location.<ref name="britannica"/> The caste distinction is based on their caste at the time that they or their ancestors converted to Christianity since the 16th century, they typically do not intermarry, and sit separately during prayers in Church.<ref name="britannica"> Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref> | |||
| The earliest reference to caste among Indian Christians comes from ].{{Request quotation|date=July 2014}} ] observes that "Nowhere else in India is there a large and ancient Christian community which has in time immemorial been accorded a high status in the caste hierarchy. ... Syrian Christian community operates very much as a caste and is properly regarded as a caste or at least a very caste-like group."{{sfnp|Forrester|1980|pp=98, 102}} Amidst the Hindu society, the ] of Kerala had inserted themselves within the Indian caste society by the observance of caste rules and were regarded by the Hindus as a caste occupying a high place within their caste hierarchy.<ref name="Amaladass">{{cite book |editor-first=Harold |editor-last=Coward |title=Hindu-Christian dialogue: perspectives and encounters |chapter=Dialogue between Hindus and the St. Thomas Christians |first=Anand |last=Amaladass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6eHgNyNimoAC |pages=14–20 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |year=1993 |origyear=1989 |isbn=81-208-1158-5}}</ref>{{sfnp|Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings|2004|pp=243–253}} Their traditional belief that their ancestors were high-caste Hindus such as ]s and ]s, who were ] by ], has also supported their upper-caste status.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Fuller |first=Christopher J. |title=Indian Christians: Pollution and Origins |journal=Man |series=New |volume=12 |issue=3/4 |date=December 1977 |pages=528–529}}</ref> With the arrival of European missionaries and their evangelistic mission among the lower castes in Kerala, two new groups of Christians, called ] Christians and New Protestant Christians, were formed but they continued to be considered as lower castes by higher ranked communities, including the Saint Thomas Christians.<ref name="Amaladass" /> | |||
| ===Muslims=== | |||
| {{Main article|Caste system among South Asian Muslims}} | |||
| Caste system has been observed among Muslims in India.<ref name="barth"/> They practice ], ], hereditary occupations, avoid social mixing and have been stratified.{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|p=149}} There is some controversy<ref>{{cite journal |first=Imtiaz |last=Ahmad |date=13 May 1967 |jstor=4357934 |title=The Ashraf and Ajlaf Categories in Indo-Muslim Society |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=2 |issue=19 |page=687 |subscription=yes}}</ref> if these characteristics make them social groups or castes of Islam. | |||
| Indian Muslims are a mix of ] (majority), ] and other sects of Islam. From the earliest days of Islam's arrival in South Asia, the Arabic, Persian and Afghan Muslims have been part of the upper, noble caste. Some upper caste Hindus converted to Islam and became part of the governing group of Sultanates and ], who along with Arabs, Persians and Afghans came to be known as Ashrafs (or nobles).{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|p=149}} Below them are the middle caste Muslims called ''Ajlafs'', and the lowest status is those of the ''Arzals''.{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|p=149–150}}<ref name="ahmad p.210">{{Cite book|last=Ahmad|first=Imtiaz|title=Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India|publisher=Manohar|year=1978 |pages=210–211}}</ref><ref name="zarina_muslim">{{cite book |chapter=Social Stratification Among Muslims in India |first=Zarina |last=Bhatty |title=Caste: Its Twentieth Century Avatar |editor-first=M. N. |editor-last=Srinivas |publisher=Viking |year=1996|pages=249–253}}</ref> Anti-caste activists like Ambedkar called the ''Arzal'' caste among Muslims as the equivalent of Hindu untouchables,<ref name="Ambedkar_Pakistan">{{Cite book|last=Ambedkar |first=Bhimrao |authorlink=B. R. Ambedkar |title=Pakistan or the Partition of India |publisher=Thackers Publishers }}</ref> as did the controversial colonial British ethnographer Herbert Hope Risley.<ref>{{cite book|author=H. H. Risley|authorlink=H. H. Risley|title=Ethnographic Appendices, in GOI, Census of India, 1901 (see tables on Ajlaf and Arzal, and Risley discussion of these Muslim castes versus Hindu castes)|volume=1|publisher=Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing|year=1903|pages=45–62|isbn=978-1-246-03552-0 |url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/ambedkar_partition/410.html}}</ref> | |||
| In ], some Muslims refer to the social stratification within their society as ''qaum'' (or Quoms),<ref>{{Cite book|last=Leach |first=Edmund Ronald|authorlink=Edmund Leach |title=Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon and North-West Pakistan|page=113 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=24 November 1971 }}</ref> a term that is found among Muslims elsewhere in India, as well as in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Qaums have patrilineal hereditary, with ranked occupations and endogamy. Membership in a qaum is inherited by birth.<ref name=jamalmalik/> Barth identifies the origin of the stratification from the historical segregation between ''pak'' (pure) and ''paleed'' (impure) - - defined by the family's social or religious status, occupation and involvement in sexual crimes. Originally, ''Paleed/Paleet'' qaum included people running or working at brothels, prostitution service providers or professional courtesan/dancers ('']'') and musicians. There is history of skin color defining Pak/Paleed, but that does not have historical roots, and was adopted by outsiders using analogy from Hindu Caste system.<ref>{{cite book |last=Barth |first=Fredrik |title=Political Leadership among Swat Pathans |year=1995 |publisher=London School of Economics/Berg |isbn=978-0-485-19619-1 |pages=16–21}}</ref> | |||
| Similarly, Christians in Pakistan are called "''Isai''", meaning followers of Isa (]). But the term originates from Hindu Caste system and refers to the demeaning jobs performed by Christians in Pakistan out of poverty. Efforts are being made to replace the term with "Masihi" (Messiah), which is preferred by the Christians citizens of Pakistan.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2015/11/4083530/ |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2016-11-30 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20161201020242/https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2015/11/4083530/ |archivedate=1 December 2016 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> | |||
| Endogamy is very common in Muslims in the form of arranged consanguineous marriages among Muslims in India and Pakistan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shami |last2=Grant |last3=Bittles |year=1994 |title=Consanguineous marriage within social/occupational class boundaries in Pakistan |journal=Journal of Biosocial Science |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=91–96 |doi=10.1017/s0021932000021088}}</ref> Malik states that the lack of religious sanction makes qaum a quasi-caste, and something that is found in Islam outside South Asia.<ref name="jamalmalik">{{cite book |last=Malik |first=Jamal |title=Islam in South Asia: A Short History |year=2008 |publisher=Brill Academic |isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 |pages=152–153}}</ref> | |||
| Some assert that the Muslim castes are not as acute in their discrimination as those of the Hindus,<ref>{{cite book |title=Muslim Communities of South Asia: Culture and Society |editor-first=T. N. |editor-last=Madan |publisher=Vikas Publishing House |year=1976 |page=114}}</ref> while critics of Islam assert that the discrimination in South Asian Muslim society is worse.<ref name="Ambedkar_Pakistan" /> | |||
| ===Sikh=== | |||
| Although the ] criticised the hierarchy of the caste system, one does exist in ] community. According to Sunrinder S, Jodhka, the Sikh religion does not advocate discrimination against any caste or creed, however, in practice, Sikhs belonging to the landowning dominant castes have not shed all their prejudices against the Dalits. While Dalits would be allowed entry into the village gurudwaras they would not be permitted to cook or serve langar (the communal meal). Therefore, wherever they could mobilise resources, the Dalits of Punjab have tried to construct their own gurudwara and other local level institutions in order to attain a certain degree of cultural autonomy.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jodhka |first=Surinder S. |title=Caste and Untouchability in Rural Punjab |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |date=11 May 2002 |volume=37 |issue=19 |page=1822 |jstor=4412102 |subscription=yes}}</ref> | |||
| In 1953, the Government of India acceded to the demands of the Sikh leader, ], to include Sikh castes of the converted untouchables in the list of scheduled castes. In the ], 20 of the 140 seats are reserved for low-caste Sikhs.<ref name="apnaorg.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.apnaorg.com/research-papers/harish-puri/|title=The Scheduled Castes in the Sikh Community – A Historical Perspective}}</ref><ref name="Harish K. Puri 2004">{{cite book|title=Dalits in Regional Context |page=214 |first=Harish K. |last=Puri |isbn=978-81-7033-871-0 |year=2004}}</ref> | |||
| The Sikh literature from the Islamic rule and British colonial era mention ''Varna'' as ''Varan'', and ''Jati'' as ''Zat'' or ''Zat-biradari''. Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of Religion and author of books on Sikhism, states that the ''Varan'' is described as a class system, while ''Zat'' has some caste system features in Sikh literature.<ref name="Nesbitt2005b">{{cite book | last=Nesbitt | first=Eleanor | title=Sikhism a very short introduction | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=Oxford New York | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-19-280601-7 | pages=116–117}}</ref> In theory, Nesbitt states Sikh literature does not recognise caste hierarchy or differences. In practice, states Nesbitt, widespread endogamy practice among Sikhs has been prevalent in modern times, and poorer Sikhs of disadvantaged castes continue to gather in their own places of worship. Most Sikh families, writes Nesbitt, continue to check the caste of any prospective marriage partner for their children. She notes that all Gurus of Sikhs married within their ''Zat'', and they did not condemn or break with the convention of endogamous marriages for their own children or Sikhs in general.<ref name="Nesbitt2005c"/> | |||
| ===Jains=== | |||
| Caste system in ] has existed for centuries, primarily in terms of endogamy, although, per Paul Dundas, in modern times the system does not play a significant role.<ref name="Dundas 2002 p. ">{{cite book | last=Dundas | first=Paul | title=The Jains | publisher=Routledge | location=London New York | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-415-26606-2 | pages=147–149}}</ref> This is contradicted by Carrithers and Humphreys who describe the major Jain castes in ] with their social rank.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carrithers|first1=M|last2=Humphrey|first2=C|title=The assembly of listeners: Jains in society|date=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge UK|isbn=0-521-36505-8|page=46|url=https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LW8czr_HzzwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=jainism+caste+endogamy&ots=-IGw7bpizL&sig=W8igVFEIz8AmXZLA_n_IBYDTLrU#v=onepage&q=jainism%20caste%20endogamy&f=false}}</ref> | |||
| {| class="wikitable sortable" width:45%; text-align:center;" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;" | |||
| |- style="background: #E9E9E9" | |||
| |+ Table 1. Distribution of Population by Religion and Caste Categories | |||
| ! Religion/Caste !! ]s !! ]s !! ]s !! ] | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 22.2% || 9% || 42.8% || 26% | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 0.8% || 0.5% || 39.2% || 59.5% | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 9.0% || 32.8% || 24.8% || 33.3% | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 30.7% || 0.9% || 22.4% || 46.1% | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 0.0% || 2.6% || 3.0% || 94.3% | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 89.5% || 7.4% || 0.4% || 2.7% | |||
| |- | |||
| | ] || 0.0% || 15.9% || 13.7% || 70.4% | |||
| |- | |||
| | Others || 2.6% || 82.5% || 6.25 || 8.7% | |||
| |- | |||
| | '''Total''' || '''19.7%''' || '''8.5%''' || '''41.1%''' || '''30.8%''' | |||
| |} | |||
| ===Distribution=== | |||
| Table 1 is the distribution of population of each Religion by Caste Categories, obtained from merged sample of Schedule 1 and Schedule 10 of available data from the ] 55th (1999–2000) and 61st Rounds (2004–05) Round Survey<ref name="Sachar 2006"/> The ] (OBCs) were found to comprise 52% of the country's population by the ] report of 1980, a figure which had shrunk to 41% by 2006 when the National Sample Survey Organisation's survey took place.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/OBCs-form-41-of-population-Survey/articleshow/2328117.cms|title=OBCs form 41% of population: Survey}}</ref> | |||
| ==Criticism== | |||
| <!-- {{Main|Criticism of the Indian caste system}} --> | |||
| There has been criticism of the caste system from both within and outside of India.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420014042/http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/georgesept62001.html |date=20 April 2006 }}.</ref> Since the 1980s, caste has become a major issue in the ].<ref name="caste_aditya_nigam">{{cite web|title=Caste Politics in India |author=Aditya Nigam |url=http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/Journal/castepolitics_india.htm |accessdate=11 December 2006 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050828053452/http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/Journal/castepolitics_india.htm |archivedate=28 August 2005 }}</ref> | |||
| ===Indian social reformers=== | |||
| The caste system has been criticised by many Indian social reformers. | |||
| ====Basava==== | |||
| ] (1105–1167) Arguably one of the first social reformers,{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} Basava championed devotional worship that rejected temple worship and rituals, and replaced it with personalised direct worship of Shiva through practices such as individually worn icons and symbols like a small linga. This approach brought Shiva's presence to everyone and at all times, without gender, class or caste discrimination. His teachings and verses such as Káyakavé Kailása (Work is the path to Kailash (bliss, heaven), or Work is Worship) became popular. | |||
| ====Jyotirao Phule==== | |||
| ] (1827–1890) vehemently criticised any explanations that the caste system was natural and ordained by the ''Creator'' in Hindu texts. If ''Brahma'' wanted castes, argued Phule, he would have ordained the same for other creatures. There are no castes in species of animals or birds, so why should there be one among human animals. In his criticism Phule added, "Brahmins cannot claim superior status because of caste, because they hardly bothered with these when wining and dining with Europeans." Professions did not make castes, and castes did not decide one's profession. If someone does a job that is dirty, it does not make them inferior; in the same way that no mother is inferior because she cleans the excreta of her baby. Ritual occupation or tasks, argued Phule, do not make any human being superior or inferior.<ref>{{cite book|title=Indian Political Thought: Themes and Thinkers|author=Singh and Roy|publisher=Pearson|year=2011|pages=82–90|isbn=978-81-317-5851-9}}</ref> | |||
| ====Vivekananda==== | |||
| ] similarly criticised caste as one of the many human institutions that bars the power of free thought and action of an individual. Caste or no caste, creed or no creed, any man, or class, or caste, or nation, or institution that bars the power of free thought and bars action of an individual is devilish, and must go down. Liberty of thought and action, asserted Vivekananda, is the only condition of life, of growth | |||
| and of well-being.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (8 vols., Calcutta)|year=1952|author=Swami Vivekananda|volume=V|pages=25–30|isbn=978-81-85301-46-4}}</ref> | |||
| ====Gandhi==== | |||
| In his younger years, ] disagreed with some of Ambedkar's observations, rationale and interpretations about the caste system in India. "Caste," he claimed, has "saved Hinduism from disintegration. But like every other institution it has suffered from excrescences." He considered the four divisions of Varnas to be fundamental, natural and essential. The innumerable subcastes or Jatis he considered to be a hindrance. He advocated to fuse all the Jatis into a more global division of Varnas. In the 1930s, Gandhi began to advocate for the idea of heredity in caste to be rejected, arguing that "Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far as it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil."<ref name="GandhiViews">{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/326347/Changes_in_Mahatma_Gandhis_views_on_caste_and_intermarriage|title=Changes in Mahatma Gandhi’s views on caste and intermarriage|first=Mark|last=Lindley|website=academia.edu|accessdate=11 July 2017}}</ref> | |||
| He claimed that ]shrama of the ]s is today nonexistent in practice. The present caste system is theory antithesis of ]. Caste in its current form, claimed Gandhi, had nothing to do with religion. The discrimination and trauma of castes, argued Gandhi, was the result of custom, the origin of which is unknown. Gandhi said that the customs' origin was a moot point, because one could spiritually sense that these customs were wrong, and that any caste system is harmful to the spiritual well-being of man and economic well-being of a nation. The reality of colonial India was, Gandhi noted, that there was no significant disparity between the economic condition and earnings of members of different castes, whether it was a Brahmin or an artisan or a farmer of low caste. India was poor, and Indians of all castes were poor. Thus, he argued that the cause of trauma was not in the caste system, but elsewhere. Judged by the standards being applied to India, Gandhi claimed, every human society would fail. He acknowledged that the caste system in India spiritually blinded some Indians, then added that this did not mean that every Indian or even most Indians blindly followed the caste system, or everything from ancient Indian scriptures of doubtful authenticity and value. India, like any other society, cannot be judged by a caricature of its worst specimens. Gandhi stated that one must consider the best it produced as well, along with the vast majority in impoverished Indian villages struggling to make ends meet, with woes of which there was little knowledge.<ref name=mkgan>{{cite book|title=Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi; Dr. Ambedkar's Indictment — I & II (see pages 205–207 for part I, and pages 226–227 for part II, see other pages on castes as well)|author=M.K. Gandhi|volume=69: 16 May 1936—19 OCTOBER|year=1936|url=http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL069.PDF}}</ref> | |||
| ==== B. R. Ambedkar==== | |||
| ] | |||
| ] was born in a caste that was classified as untouchable, became a leader of human rights in India, a prolific writer, and a key person in drafting modern India's constitution in the 1940s. He wrote extensively on discrimination, trauma and what he saw as the tragic effects of the caste system in India.<ref name=bramb>{{cite web|title=Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability: Social|author=B.R. Ambedkar|year=1939|url=http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/23.%20Essay%20on%20Untouchables%20and%20Untouchability_Social.htm#c05}}</ref> | |||
| In his writings "Castes in India: Their mechanism, genesis and development", Ambedkar traces the origin of caste system to origin of the practise of endogamy. Later the custom spread among other groups too due to imitation. He wrote that initially, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras existed as classes wherein choice of occupation was not restricted by birth and exogamy was prevalent. But Brahmins started the custom of endogamy and enclosed themselves. Thus Ambedkar defines caste as "enclosed class". After Brahmins enclosed themselves, they had to deal with the problem of surplus women and surplus men. He says that, roughly the population of both the sexes is distributed equally across age groups. So, surplus women is the one who lost her husband. If she tries to remarry, she will be a competition for other girls of marriageable age. If she tries to marry outside the caste, it will violate endogamy and end the caste system. Thus the customs of Sati and enforced widowhood were created to take care of surplus women. Likewise surplus men is the one whose wife has died. Men are considered as an asset to the group and hence can't be isolated or burnt. Hence the custom of child marriage was created in which men were given a girl of lesser than marriageable age. Alternatively, they were made to choose celibacy. Thus the 3 main customs Sati, enforced widowhood and child marriages originated among the Brahmin caste. Shastras were used to glorify these practices so that they are observed without being questioned. Later, other caste groups imitated these customs. Thus Ambedkar, uses the psychological approach of psychologist Gabriel Tarde to indicate how caste system spread. But he also explain in the same article that, Brahmins or Manu can't be blamed for the origin of the caste system. He also dicredits theories which trace the origin of caste system in races and emphasizes that Endogamy is the main and peculiar feature of the caste system.<ref>http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_ambedkar_castes.html</ref>{{primary-source-inline|date=November 2017}} | |||
| ==Caste politics== | |||
| {{See also|Caste politics}} | |||
| ===Economic inequality=== | |||
| Economic inequality seems to be related to the influence of inherited social-economic stratification.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}} A 1995 study notes that the caste system in India is a system of exploitation of poor low-ranking groups by more prosperous high-ranking groups.<ref name="lcweb2">.</ref> A report published in 2001 note that in India 36.3% of people own no land at all, 60.6% own about 15% of the land, with a very wealthy 3.1% owning 15% of the land.<ref name="ifad">, Chapter 3, p. 77. IFAD, 2001.</ref> A study by Haque reports that India contains both the largest number of rural poor, and the largest number of landless households on the planet. Haque also reports that over 90 percent of both scheduled castes (low-ranking groups) and all other castes (high-ranking groups) either do not own land or own land area capable of producing less than $1000 per year of food and income per household. However, over 99 percent of India's farms are less than 10 hectares, and 99.9 percent of the farms are less than 20 hectares, regardless of the farmer or landowner's caste. Indian government has, in addition, vigorously pursued agricultural land ceiling laws which prohibit anyone from owning land greater than mandated limits. India has used this law to forcibly acquire land from some, then redistribute tens of millions of acres to the landless and poor of the low-caste. Haque suggests that Indian lawmakers need to reform and modernise the nation's land laws and rely less on blind adherence to land ceilings and tenancy reform.<ref>{{cite web|title=Improving land access to India's rural poor|author=Hanstad|publisher=The World Bank|year=2005|url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/Resources/Hanstad.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=IMPROVING THE RURAL POORS' ACCESS TO LAND IN INDIA|author=Haque|publisher=DARPG, Government of India|year=2006|url=https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:vxY1IPEXqzAJ:indiagovernance.gov.in/download.php%3Ffilename%3Dfiles/improving-rural-poor-access-to-land-t-haque.pdf+IMPROVING+THE+RURAL+POORS’+ACCESS+TO+LAND+IN+INDIA&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESidX9QY5wysZgM5_jhc4UmHrhL5HbDo2OqqV7M1-f6tGCWkDktMCC3ukXgu7vitDprhfsbzorTjIy2TcwPJ8OG3rNozW939xqne-Cq0XGO_7aC_-vlFtdZSzWENCUQgziiO_bk6&sig=AHIEtbSF9z4Tlo5TR6OBVX2pdAC-JS7LLQ}}</ref> | |||
| In a 2011 study, Aiyar too notes that such qualitative theories of economic exploitation and consequent land redistribution within India between 1950 and 1990 had no effect on the quality of life and poverty reduction. Instead, economic reforms since the 1990s and resultant opportunities for non-agricultural jobs have reduced poverty and increased per capita income for all segments of Indian society.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Elephant That Became a Tiger, 20 Years of Economic Reform in India |first=Swaminathan S. Anklesaria |last=Aiyar |date=July 2011 |url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/dpa/dpa13.pdf}}</ref> For specific evidence, Aiyar mentions the following {{quote|Critics believe that the economic liberalisation has benefited just a small elite and left behind the poor, especially the lowest Hindu caste of dalits. But a recent authoritative survey revealed striking improvements in living standards of dalits in the last two decades. Television ownership was up from zero to 45 percent; cellphone ownership up from zero to 36 percent; two-wheeler ownership (of motorcycles, scooters, mopeds) up from zero to 12.3 percent; children eating yesterday's leftovers down from 95.9 percent to 16.2 percent ... Dalits running their own businesses up from 6 percent to 37 percent; and proportion working as agricultural labourers down from 46.1 percent to 20.5 percent.}} | |||
| Cassan has studied the differential effect within two segments of India's Dalit community. He finds India's overall economic growth has produced the fastest and more significant socio-economic changes. Cassan further concludes that legal and social program initiatives are no longer India's primary constraint in further advancement of India's historically discriminated castes; further advancement are likely to come from improvements in the supply of quality schools in rural and urban India, along with India's economic growth.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Impact of Positive Discrimination in Education in India: Evidence from a Natural Experiment |first=Guilhem |last=Cassan |publisher=Paris School of Economics and Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee |date=September 2011 |url=http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.com/cassan-guilhem/stuff/area_restriction_removal.pdf}}</ref> | |||
| ===Apartheid and discrimination=== | |||
| The maltreatment of Dalits in India has been described by some authors as "India's hidden apartheid".<ref name="Gopal">Gopal Guru, with Shiraz Sidhva. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070111213049/http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_09/uk/doss22.htm |date=11 January 2007 }}.</ref><ref name=hav1>William A. Haviland, ''Anthropology: The Human Challenge'', 13th edition, Thomson Wadsworth, 2010, {{ISBN|978-0-495-81084-1}}, p. 536 (see note 9).</ref> Critics of the accusations point to substantial improvements in the position of Dalits in post-independence India, consequent to the strict implementation of the rights and privileges enshrined in the Constitution of India, as implemented by the Protection of Civil rights Act, 1955.<ref>The Constitution of India by P.M. Bakshi, Universal Law Publishing Co, {{ISBN|81-7534-500-4}}.</ref> They also argue that the practise had disappeared in urban public life.{{sfnp|Mendelsohn|Vicziany|1998}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}} | |||
| Sociologists Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman and Angela Bodino, while critical of caste system, conclude that modern India does not practice ] since there is no state-sanctioned discrimination.<ref name="Reilley et al.">Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman, Angela Bodino, Racism: A Global Reader P21, M.E. Sharpe, 2003 {{ISBN|0-7656-1060-4}}.</ref> They write that casteism in India is presently "not apartheid. In fact, untouchables, as well as tribal people and members of the lowest castes in India benefit from broad affirmative action programmes and are enjoying greater political power."<ref>.</ref> | |||
| A hypothesis that caste amounts to race has been rejected by some scholars.<ref name="npr">{{cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010828.caste.html |title=An Untouchable Subject? |publisher=Npr.org |date=29 August 2001 |accessdate=20 January 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=B. R. |last=Ambedkar |title=] |page=49 |series=Writings and Speeches |volume=1 |publisher=Education Department, Government of Maharashtra |year=1979}}</ref>{{sfnp|Beteille|2001}} Ambedkar, for example, wrote that "The ] of Punjab is racially of the same stock as the ] of Punjab. The Caste system does not demarcate racial division. The Caste system is a social division of people of the same race." Various sociologists, anthropologists and historians have rejected the racial origins and racial emphasis of caste and consider the idea to be one that has purely political and economic undertones. Beteille writes that "the Scheduled Castes of India taken together are no more a race than are the Brahmins taken together. Every social group cannot be regarded as a race simply because we want to protect it against prejudice and discrimination", and that the 2001 Durban conference on racism hosted by the U.N. is "turning its back on established scientific opinion".{{sfnp|Beteille|2001}} | |||
| ==In popular culture== | |||
| ]'s debut novel, '']'' (1935), is based on the theme of untouchability. The Hindi film '']'' (Untouchable Maiden, 1936), starring ] and ], was an early reformist film. The debut novel of ], '']'' (1997), also has themes surrounding the caste system across religions. A lawyer named Sabu Thomas filed a petition to have the book published without the last chapter, which had graphic description of sexual acts between members of different castes.<ref>{{cite web|title=The God of Small Things Background|url=http://www.gradesaver.com/the-god-of-small-things/study-guide/about/}}</ref> Thomas claimed the alleged obscenity in the last chapter deeply hurts the Syrian Christian community, the basis of the novel.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rediff.com/news/aug/07arun.htm |title=Obscenity case slammed against Arundhati Roy |publisher=Rediff.com |accessdate=20 January 2013}}</ref> | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| *] - a caste-based activity in India, officially abolished but still ongoing | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{notelist}} | |||
| {{reflist|group=note}} | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} | |||
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| * {{cite book | last=Masefield | first=Peter | title=Divine revelation in Pali Buddhism | publisher=Routledge | year=1986 | isbn=978-955-9028-02-4 | pages=148–151 |ref={{sfnref|Masefield, Pali Buddhism|1986}}}} | |||
| *{{citation |last1=Mendelsohn |first1=Oliver |last2=Vicziany |first2=Maria |title=The Untouchables, Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998}} | |||
| * {{citation | last1= Moorjani | first1= P. | year= 2013 | title= Genetic evidence for recent population mixture in India | last2= Thangaraj | first2= K. | last3= Patterson | first3= N. | last4= Lipson | first4= M. | last5= Loh | first5= P. R. | last6= Govindaraj | first6= P. | last7= Singh | first7= L. | url= | journal= The American Journal of Human Genetics | volume= 93 | issue= 3| pages= 422–438 | doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2013.07.006 | pmid=23932107 | pmc=3769933 | ref={{sfnref|Moorjani et al.|2013}}}} | |||
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| *{{citation |last=Sathaye |first=Adheesh A. |title=Crossing the Lines of Caste: Visvamitra and the Construction of Brahmin Power in Hindu Mythology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9FlMCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA214 |date=17 April 2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-027312-5}} | |||
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| {{refend}} | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| {{refbegin|30em}} | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Ahmed |first=Imtiaz |title=Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India |publisher=Manohar |year=1978 |isbn=0-8364-0050-X}} | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Ambedkar |first=Bhimrao |authorlink=B. R. Ambedkar |title=Pakistan or the Partition of India |publisher=AMS Press |year=1945 |isbn=978-0-404-54801-8}} | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Anthony |first=David W. |year=2007 |title=The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World |publisher=Princeton University Press}} | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Ansari |first=Ghaus |title=Muslim Caste in Uttar Pradesh: A Study of Culture Contact |publisher=Ethnographic and Folk Cultural Society |year=1960 |asin=B001I50VJG}} | |||
| *{{cite book |first=Christopher |last=Bayly |authorlink=Christopher Alan Bayly |title=Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1983}} | |||
| * Anand A. Yang, Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State in Bihar, ], 1999. | |||
| * Acharya ] Rachnawali, Rajkamal Prakashan, ]. | |||
| * ], Agrarian movements in India : studies on 20th century Bihar (Library of Peasant Studies), Routledge, ], 1982. | |||
| * Atal, Yogesh (1968) "]" Delhi, National Publishing House. | |||
| * Atal, Yogesh (2006) "]" Chapter on Varna and Jati. Jaipur, Rawat Publications. | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Béteille |first=André |authorlink=Andre Beteille |title=Caste, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village |publisher=University of California Press |year=1965 |isbn=0-520-02053-7}} | |||
| * Duiker/Spielvogel. ''The Essential World History Vol I: to 1800''. 2nd Edition 2005. | |||
| * ], 'Indian Christians' Attitudes to Caste in the Nineteenth Century,' in ''Indian Church History Review'' 8, no. 2 (1974): 131–147. | |||
| * ], 'Christian Theology in a Hindu Context,' in ''South Asian Review'' 8, no. 4 (1975): 343–358. | |||
| * ], 'Indian Christians' Attitudes to Caste in the Twentieth Century,' in ''Indian Church History Review'' 9, no. 1 (1975): 3–22. | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Gupta |first=Dipankar |authorlink=Dipankar Gupta |title=Caste in Question: Identity or Hierarchy? |publisher=Sage Publications |year=2004 |isbn=0-7619-3324-7}} | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Ghurye |first=G. S. |authorlink=G. S. Ghurye |year=1961 |title=Caste, Class and Occupation |publisher=Popular Book Depot, Bombay}} | |||
| *Jain, Meenakshi, Congress Party, 1967-77: Role of Caste in Indian Politics (Vikas, 1991), {{ISBN|0706953193}}. | |||
| *{{cite book |first=Christophe |last=Jaffrelot |authorlink=Christophe Jaffrelot |year=2003 |title=India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes |publisher=C. Hurst & Co.}} | |||
| *{{cite book |title='A Fist Is Stronger than Five Fingers': Caste and Dominance in Rural North India |first=Craig |last=Jeffrey |journal=Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series |volume=26 |year=2001 |pages=217–236 |jstor=3650669 |issue=2|doi=10.1111/1475-5661.00016}} | |||
| *{{cite book |first=Shridhar Venkatesh |last=Ketkar |title=The History of Caste in India: Evidence of the Laws of Manu on the Social Conditions in India During the 3rd Century A.D., Interpreted and Examined |publisher=Rawat Publications |year=1979 |origyear=1909 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kFUoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP1 |lccn=79912160}} | |||
| *{{cite book |first=Pandurang Vaman |last=Kane |authorlink=Pandurang Vaman Kane |title=History of Dharmasastra: (ancient and mediaeval, religious and civil law) |publisher=Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute |year=1962–1975}} | |||
| *{{cite book |first=K. S. |last=Lal |authorlink=K. S. Lal |title=Growth of Scheduled Tribes and Castes in Medieval India |year=1995}} | |||
| *{{cite encyclopedia |first=T. N. |last=Madan |authorlink=Triloki Nath Madan |title=Caste |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |url=//www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/98395/caste |accessdate=15 February 2013}} | |||
| * Murray Milner, Jr. (1994). ''Status and Sacredness: A General Theory of Status Relations and an Analysis of Indian Culture'', New York: Oxford University Press. | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Michaels |first=Axel |title=Hinduism: Past and Present |pages=188–97 |publisher=Princeton |year=2004 |isbn=0-691-08953-1}} | |||
| *{{cite journal |title=The Caste System of India |first=Mason |last=Olcott |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=9 |date=December 1944 |pages=648–657 |jstor=2085128 |issue=6 |doi=10.2307/2085128 |subscription=yes}} | |||
| *{{cite book |first=Robin J. |last=Moore |title=Sir Charles Wood's Indian Policy 1853–66 |publisher=Manchester University Press}} | |||
| *{{cite journal |last1=Raj |first1=Papia |first2=Aditya |last2=Raj |year=2004 |title=Caste Variation in Reproductive Health of Women in Eastern Region of India: A Study Based on NFHS Data |journal=Sociological Bulletin |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=326–346}} | |||
| * Ranganayakamma (2001). ''For the solution of the "Caste" question, Buddha is not enough, Ambedkar is not enough either, Marx is a must'', Hyderabad : Sweet Home Publications. | |||
| *{{cite book |title=The People Of India |first=Herbert |last=Risley |isbn=978-81-206-1265-5 |year=1915 |publisher=W. Thacker & Sons |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924024114773 |authorlink=Herbert Hope Risley}} | |||
| * Rosas, Paul, "Caste and Class in India," ''Science and Society,'' vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1943), pp. 141–167. . | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Srinivas |first=Mysore N. |title=Caste in Modern India and Other Essays |publisher=Asia Publishing House |year=1994 |origyear=1962 |authorlink=M. N. Srinivas}} | |||
| *{{cite book |first=Mysore N. |last=Srinivas |authorlink=M. N. Srinivas |title=Social Change in Modern India |publisher=Orient Longman |year=1995}} | |||
| {{refend}} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| {{Commons category|Castes in India}} | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| {{Reservation in India}} | |||
| {{Social issues in India}} | |||
| {{Social class}} | |||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Caste System In India}} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
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