In this series, author Kanchan Banerjee attempts to find the origin of casteism in India along with the nation’s original idea of varna classification and discusses how social classes were ostracized. He also explores how the original varna system had an evolutionary plan embedded in it as expressed by various Indian thinkers and in what ways many modern thinkers’ work especially in the fields of developmental psychology are following a similar pattern to classify socio-psycho evolution of people and societies.
In this series, author Kanchan Banerjee attempts to find the origin of casteism in India along with the nation’s original idea of varna classification and discusses how social classes were ostracized. He also explores how the original varna system had an evolutionary plan embedded in it as expressed by various Indian thinkers and in what ways many modern thinkers’ work especially in the fields of developmental psychology are following a similar pattern to classify socio-psycho evolution of people and societies.
The word caste, though of foreign origin, has almost become a part of common vocabulary of Indian languages. It evokes negative or emotive feelings since that is what it has been made to represent. Casteism is almost synonymous with apartheid in South Africa.
In India, it elicits debates and controversies regarding social order. In the Western world, when one reads various text books on India, invariably caste appears prominently. It seems, it is the only thing India has to worry about, and all the problems are connected to it. On the other hand certain groups, especially the ones involved with dalit (‘the oppressed lower caste’) movements, many of them are abroad, and some of their leaders are neither dalits nor Indian.
These groups are trying to internationalize the issue of caste to the world, especially to the UN, that the discrimination of people based on their caste identity is nothing but human rights violation. Indian government has taken innumerable steps to rectify caste problems. Untouchability was banned in 1950. The state has given many privileges to the people who are from backward classes. Indian politicians are known to be apt manipulators of caste fault lines.
However, unfortunately, caste has been grossly misunderstood from the outset, and the actions taken to correct this misunderstood system has not produced expected results namely, the elimination of what it stands for and its attendant misappropriations. And the mistakes were made by even by stalwarts like B R Ambedkar and other founding fathers of the Indian constitution. It is little wonder that the English system of education has done so much harm to the spirit of India; the subject of caste has been exploited by the Marxists to promote their agenda and many groups around the world, including Christian missionaries, who have taken advantage of this misunderstood social system to further religious conversion.
