What was indias caste system

Improvements have slowly been made as a result of government policies and powerful trade union action. Integration with the rest of society is more difficult owing to prejudice, but this is breaking down.

There are signs of upward mobility through education and non-discriminatory laws. Caste distinctions exist among themselves and complaints have been made that workers mostly Dalits are kept out of trade union office by high caste supervisors. The Sri Lankan government's development and social welfare programs have also failed to integrate the Rodiya into mainstream society, 58 leaving many to rely on menial wage labor as sanitation workers and hospital attendants.

Most Dalits in India also continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India's policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks as removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Dalit children make up the majority of children sold into bondage to pay off debts to upper-caste creditors.

According to government statistics, an estimated one million Dalits in India are "manual scavengers" a majority of them women who clear feces from public and private latrines and dispose of dead animals; unofficial estimates are much higher. Handling of human waste is a caste-based occupation, deemed too "polluting and filthy" for anyone but Dalits.

Manual scavengers exist under different caste names throughout the country, such as the Bhangis in Gujarat, the Pakhis in Andhra Pradesh, and the Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu. Members of these communities are invariably placed at the very bottom of the caste hierarchy, and even the hierarchy of Dalit sub-castes. Using little more than a broom, a tin plate, and a basket, they are made to clear feces from public and private latrines and carry waste to dumping grounds and disposal sites.

Though long outlawed, the practice of manual scavenging continues in most states. In November , after a cyclone slammed into India 's eastern state of Orissa, killing thousands and rendering millions homeless, the government brought in two hundred Dalit manual scavengers from New Delhi, and planned to bring five hundred more from other parts of Orissa, to load animal carcasses onto hand-drawn carts and take them away to be burned. Government officials had reportedly offered local upper-caste residents more than the daily minimum wage for each animal burned but they refused, citing the decayed conditions of the carcasses and the fact that the task was beneath them: they had "some self-respect left.

Discrimination against Buraku persists in Japan 's economy. In a high profile case in , according to Buraku civil rights groups, over seven hundred companies were discovered to have hired private investigators to unearth job applicants' Buraku origins, ethnic background, nationality, ideology, religion, and political affiliation. Already years before, in , the practice of selling "Buraku lists" had been exposed.

Also compiled by investigative companies, these lists included information on the names and locations of Buraku households and were marketed to private companies for the purposes of screening job applicants and to families seeking to arrange and approve marriages. Debt Bondage and Slavery The poor remuneration of manual scavenging, agricultural labor, and other forms of low-caste employment often force families of lower castes or caste-like groups into bondage.

A lack of enforcement of relevant legislation prohibiting debt bondage in most of the countries concerned allows for the practice to continue unabated. An estimated forty million people in India , among them some fifteen million children, are working in slave-like conditions in order to pay off debts as bonded laborers. Due to the high interest rates charged, the employers' control over records, and the abysmally low wages paid, the debts are seldom settled.

The Bonded Labour System Abolition Act, abolishes all agreements and obligations arising out of the bonded labor system. It aims to release all laborers from bondage, cancel any outstanding debt, prohibit the creation of new bondage agreements, and order the economic rehabilitation of freed bonded laborers by the state. It also punishes attempts to compel persons into bondage with a maximum of three years in prison and a Rs. However, relatively few bonded laborers have been identified, released, and rehabilitated in the country.

In Pakistan the debt bondage system is most prevalent in the agricultural provinces of southern Punjab and Sindh. Most laborers in these areas are minority Hindus from lower castes. While the loan agreement is often made between the landowner and the male head of the peasant household, the work to pay off the loan is performed by the entire family, including women and children. A disturbing reflection of the slavery of centuries past is the well-documented practice of tying up or chaining bonded laborers to hinder their escape.

Of the 7, bonded laborers reported to have escaped or been released since in the southern Sindh province, human rights organizations report that "several hundred" of them were found "tied up or in chains.

Most were only given flour and chili peppers as food and had no access to plumbing facilities or medical care. Provincial governments responsible for their enforcement have yet to establish mechanisms to put them into practice.

According to the United Nation Development Programme's "Nepal Human Development Report ," despite legal pronouncements to the contrary, bonded labor has not been eradicated in Nepal. The report adds:. In the mid-western and far western hills, the debt-bonded agricultural labourers, haliyas, mainly from "untouchable" castes, work under this system.

Such discrimination was designed to keep alive and intensify the system of debt bondage. Because the primary interest of the landlord lies in continued cultivation of his land and in regular assurance of labour supply, his lending is not directed towards earning interest in cash NRB The legacy of slavery as a form of caste and descent-based discrimination in Mauritania is an issue the government must do more to address. Both the Arab and Afro-Mauritanian groups have long distinguished community members on the basis of caste, and both included a caste-like designation of "slave" within these systems.

To this day a former "slave" distinction-particularly for the Haratines, Arabic speakers of Sub-Saharan African origin-still carries significant social implications. At best, members of higher and lower castes are discouraged from intermarrying. In Soninke communities, members of the slave caste are also buried in separate cemeteries. Though the government has long outlawed slave-like distinctions and practices, it has taken few steps to enforce these laws. A weak economy also leaves former slaves with few options other than remaining with the families of masters who owned their ancestors.

Caste and Socio-Economic Disparities Significant economic and educational disparities persist between lower and higher-caste communities in the countries highlighted in this report. Lower-caste communities are often plagued by low literacy levels and a lack of access to health care and education. A lack of formal education or training, as well as discrimination that effectively bars them from many forms of employment, and the nonenforcement of protective legislation, perpetuates caste-based employment and keeps its hereditary nature alive.

As of , there were reportedly only two Dalit medical doctors and fifteen Dalit engineers in Nepal. Nepal's Human Development Report revealed that development indicators closely followed caste lines.

Without a single exception, the lower the caste, the lower the life expectancy, the literacy rate, years of schooling, and per capita income. However, the gap between so-called higher and lower castes has not narrowed. There have hardly been any changes in the society or the living standard of the poor. Consequently, the people of backward communities have felt discriminated against and could not believe that the Government was doing anything for their welfare and development.

Access to Education High drop-out and lower literacy rates among lower-caste populations have rather simplistically been characterized as the natural consequences of poverty and underdevelopment.

Though these rates are partly attributable to the need for low-caste children to supplement their family wages through labor, more insidious and less well-documented is the discriminatory and abusive treatment faced by low-caste children who attempt to attend school, at the hands of their teachers and fellow students.

Over fifty years since India 's constitutional promise of free, compulsory, primary education for all children up to the age of fourteen-with special care and consideration to be given to promote the educational progress of scheduled castes-illiteracy still plagues almost two-thirds of the Dalit population as compared to about one-half of the general population.

The literacy gap between Dalits and the rest of the population fell a scant 0. Most of the government schools in which Dalit students are enrolled are deficient in basic infrastructure, classrooms, teachers, and teaching aids.

A majority of Dalit students are also enrolled in vernacular schools whose students suffer serious disadvantages in the job market as compared to those who learn in English-speaking schools. Despite state assistance in primary education, Dalits also suffer from an alarming drop-out rate. According to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes' and Report , the national drop-out rate for Dalit children-who often sit in the back of classrooms-was a staggering Rodiya children in Sri Lanka rarely study past elementary levels, if at all.

Instead, their parents require them to realize their income-earning potential even as young children, and often prematurely take them out of school. According to a Sri Lankan activist only 65 percent of plantation workers can read or write, compared to a high 90 percent national average.

Higher drop out rates among children of plantation workers stems partly from the employment of these children as domestic workers, hotel workers, or sanitation cleaners. The Buraku of Japan also suffer from lower levels of higher education than the national average, and higher dropout rates than the broader society. In particular, Buraku women report lower levels of literacy, high school and university enrollment, and employment. In Nepal the literacy rate for Dalits is appallingly low at 10 percent for men and 3.

According to the government's own fourteenth periodic report under ICERD, "The lowest literacy is among the occupational castes. Women constitute more than two thirds of the illiterates. Access to Land Most Dalit victims of abuse in India are landless agricultural laborers who form the backbone of the nation's agrarian economy.

Despite decades of land reform legislation, over 86 percent of Dalit households today are landless or near landless. Those who own land often own very little. Land is the prime asset in rural areas that determines an individual's standard of living and social status. As with many other low-caste populations, lack of access to land makes Dalits economically vulnerable; their dependency is exploited by upper- and middle-caste landlords and allows for many abuses to go unpunished.

Landless agricultural laborers throughout the country work for a few kilograms of rice or Rs. Many laborers owe debts to their employers or other moneylenders. Indian laws and regulations that prohibit alienation of Dalit lands, set ceilings on a single landowner's holdings, or allocate surplus government lands to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes have been largely ignored, or worse, manipulated by upper castes with the help of district administrations.

Although many of Nepal's agricultural laborers are Dalits, Dalits also have a startlingly low rate of land ownership-only 3. Moreover, 90 percent of Nepal Dalits live below the poverty line, compared to 45 percent of the overall population. Their per capita income amounts to a paltry U. Political Representation and Political Rights India 's policy of "reservations" or caste-based quotas is an attempt by the central government to remedy past injustices related to low-caste status.

To allow for proportional representation in certain state and federal institutions, the constitution reserves The reservation policy, however, has not been fully implemented. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes' and report indicates that of the total scheduled caste reservation quota in the Central Government, 54 percent remains unfilled. More than 88 percent of posts reserved in the public sector remain unfilled as do 45 percent in state banks.

A closer examination of the caste composition of government services, institutions of education and other services, however, reveals what Dalit activists call an "unacknowledged reservation policy" for upper-castes, particularly Brahmins, built into the system. Though they represented only 5 percent of the population in , Brahmins comprised 70 percent of the Class I officers in governmental services. At universities, upper-castes occupy 90 percent of the teaching posts in the social sciences and 94 percent in the sciences, while Dalit representation is only 1.

Dalits throughout India also suffer in many instances from de facto disenfranchisement. While India remains the world's largest democracy, for many of its Dalit citizens democracy has been a sham.

During elections, many are routinely threatened and beaten by political party strongmen in order to compel them to vote for certain candidates. Already under the thumb of local landlords and police officials, Dalit villagers who do not comply have been harassed, beaten, and murdered. Police and upper-caste militias, operating at the behest of powerful political leaders in India's states, have also punished Dalit voters. In February , police raided a Dalit village in Tamil Nadu that had boycotted the national parliamentary elections.

Women were kicked and beaten, their clothing was torn, and police forced sticks and iron pipes into their mouths. Kerosene was poured into stored food grains and grocery items and police reportedly urinated in cooking vessels. In Bihar, political candidates ensure their majority vote with the help of senas , civilian militias, whose members intimidate and kill.

The Ranvir Sena, a private militia of upper-caste landlords, was responsible for killing more than fifty people during Bihar's state election campaign. The sena was again used to intimidate voters in Ara district, Bihar, during the February national parliamentary elections.

Dalits who have contested political office in village councils and municipalities through seats that have been constitutionally "reserved" for them have been threatened with physical abuse and even death in order to get them to withdraw from the campaign.

In the village of Melavalavu, in Tamil Nadu's Madurai district, following the election of a Dalit to the village council presidency, members of a higher-caste group murdered six Dalits in June , including the elected council president, whom they beheaded. Unlike India, Nepal does not provide for reservations of posts or quotas in political bodies, civil sector jobs, and institutions of higher learning.

Though they comprise over 20 percent of the population, lower castes are dramatically underrepresented in government. Since , only fourteen Dalits in Nepal have become members of parliament upper house through a system of nomination, all of them men. Only one Dalit has been elected to the House of Representatives.

In Sri Lanka, Indian-origin Tamils-who have resided in the country since the nineteenth century-can only become citizens through registration. They are denied the right to citizenship by descent to which the rest of the Sri Lankan population is entitled. Physical and Economic Retaliation A principal weapon in sustaining the low status of Dalits in India is the use of social and economic boycotts and acts of retaliatory violence.

Dalits are physically abused and threatened with economic and social ostracism from the community for refusing to carry out various caste-based tasks. Any attempt to alter village customs, defy the social order, or to demand land, increased wages, or political rights leads to violence and economic retaliation on the part of those most threatened by changes in the status quo.

Dalit communities as a whole are summarily punished for individual transgressions; Dalits are cut off from community land and employment during social boycotts, Dalit women bear the brunt of physical attacks, and the law is rarely enforced.

Since the early s, violence against Dalits has escalated dramatically in response to growing Dalit rights movements. Between and , a total of 90, cases were registered with the police nationwide as crimes and "atrocities" against scheduled castes. Of these 1, were for murder, 12, for hurt, 2, for rape, and 31, for offenses listed under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. India's National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has reported that these cases typically fall into one of three categories: cases relating to the practice of "untouchability" and attempts to defy the social order; cases relating to land disputes and demands for minimum wages; and cases of atrocities by police and forest officials.

Most of the conflicts take place within very narrow segments of the caste hierarchy, between the poor and the not so poor, the landless laborer and the marginal landowner.

The differences lie in the considerable amount of leverage that the higher-caste Hindus or non-Dalits are able to wield over local police, district administrations, and even state governments. On the night of December 1, , an upper-caste landlord militia called the Ranvir Sena shot dead sixteen children, twenty-seven women, and eighteen men in the village of Laxmanpur-Bathe, Jehanabad district Bihar.

Five teenage girls were raped and mutilated before being shot in the chest. The villagers were alleged to have been sympathetic to a guerilla group known as Naxalites that had been demanding more equitable land redistribution in the area.

When asked why the sena killed children and women, one sena member told Human Rights Watch, "We kill children because they will grow up to become Naxalites.

We kill women because they will give birth to Naxalites. The senas, which claim many politicians as members, operate with virtual impunity. In some cases, police have accompanied them on raids and have stood by as they killed villagers and burned down their homes. On April 10, , in the village of Ekwari, located in the Bhojpur district of Bihar, police stationed in the area to protect lower-caste villagers instead pried open the doors of their residences as members of the sena entered and killed eight residents.

In other cases, police raids have followed attacks by the senas. Sena leaders are rarely prosecuted for such killings, and the villagers are rarely or inadequately compensated for their losses. Even in cases where police are not hostile to Dalits, they are generally not accessible to call upon: most police camps are located in the upper-caste section of the village and Dalits are simply unable to approach them for protection.

Caste and Gender Lower-caste women are singularly positioned at the bottom of caste, class, and gender hierarchies. The system which divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma work and dharma the Hindi word for religion, but here it means duty is generally accepted to be more than 3, years old.

Manusmriti , widely regarded to be the most important and authoritative book on Hindu law and dating back to at least 1, years before Christ was born, "acknowledges and justifies the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society".

The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras.

Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation. At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and are believed to have come from Brahma's head.

Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas, or the traders, who were created from his thighs. At the bottom of the heap were the Shudras, who came from Brahma's feet and did all the menial jobs.

The main castes were further divided into about 3, castes and 25, sub-castes, each based on their specific occupation. Outside of this Hindu caste system were the achhoots - the Dalits or the untouchables. For centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, with each group occupying a specific place in this complex hierarchy. Rural communities have long been arranged on the basis of castes - the upper and lower castes almost always lived in segregated colonies, the water wells were not shared, Brahmins would not accept food or drink from the Shudras, and one could marry only within one's caste.

The system bestowed many privileges on the upper castes while sanctioning repression of the lower castes by privileged groups. Each jati has some unique job, but not everyone in the jati performs it. Thus there are barbers who do not shave, carpenters who do not build, and Brahmins who do not act as priests.

A jati is identified in a local setting by whom its members will accept food and water from and to which jatis its members will give food and water. People will try to marry their sons and daughters to members of their same jati and will give their major loyalty to their jati. A jati will usually be organized into a biradari a brotherhood , and this organization carries out the business and oversees the working of the jati and has the power to exclude an offender from the jati.

The jati system is not static in which all groups stay in the same position. There is mobility in the system and jatis have changed their position over the centuries of Indian history. However, the jati moves up the social scale as a group and not as individuals.

A jati can improve its position in the class system by advancing economically and emulating social groups with money and power. At the same time, a jati can also move up in the caste hierarchy. To gain position in this process, a lower jati copies the habits and behavior patterns of the dominant jati in the area.

This may mean a lower jati will change its name to one of a higher jati, adopt vegetarianism, observe more orthodox religious practices, build a temple, and treat its women in a more conservative way. The type of emulation will depend on the habits of the dominant jati being copied. If the jati can gain acceptance for its new name, new history, and new status, it will then marry its daughters to members of the jati in which it is seeking to gain membership.

In due time the new position on the social scale will be solidified and accepted by other jatis. This practice is not totally unlike that of immigrant groups coming to America and copying the habits of the WASPs who were in control. In your own community you could probably identify the most prestigious group of people and observe other members of the community copying their behavior in ways such as sending their children to dancing classes and summer camps, and putting braces on their teeth.

The Indian Constitution has outlawed the practice of Untouchability and the Indian Government has established special quotas in schools and Parliament to aid the lowest jatis. Caste discrimination is not permitted in gaining employment and access to educational and other opportunities. But this does not mean that caste is illegal or has faded away. Caste groups as political pressure groups work very well in a democratic system.