The Indian Castes
All of us are childs of God.
Gandhi, the Mahatma
In Sanskrit, the varna means the color, the aspect, the physical form or the characteristic
- The Brahmanes are priests,
born from the mouth of Lord Brahma
- Kshatriyas are warriors,
born from His arms
- Vaisyas are farmers and traders,
born from His thighs
- Shudras are craftsmen, workmen, servants,
(tolerated by the first castes, and who serve them),
born of His feet
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In the primitive Hinduism came to constitute another class of people who do not have any position in one from these four varnas, and which consequently, was associated work more degrading. The higher castes, who are supposed to maintain the purity ritual and body, had suddenly regarded these last as the untouchable ones, constituting a kind of fifth varna, which some indicate like coming from "nowhere". These people are also called: Dalits ("oppressed") or Harijans (Gandhi re-elected the untouchable ones, "Harijan", "sons of God" in Hindi in order to reconsider them).
Beside the system of varna exists another cutting of the Indian company, the system of the jati (birth), and which rather precisely covers cutting in professions. The members of two jâtis different live in a separate way. In particular, they do not share food and do not marry between them. In fact, each jâti has its own culinary practices, sometimes a clean language, often its own divinities and serving them of these divinities who belong to the jâti and are thus not Brahmins.
The system of the castes was strongly fought by several Indian reformers, most known of them is Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, writer of the Constitution of India and itself untouchable before converting with Buddhism. It was theoretically abolished and any discrimination is prohibited by the Indian laws. Even if the varna often coincides with social prosperity, that does not have anything systematic. Thus, among the most prosperous men of Bénarès, one finds the untouchable ones who dealt with the trade related to death, the supply of wood necessary to the cremations for example, a trade refused by the varnas because impure since concerning with death.
In India, since independence in 1947, all the citizens are equal in rights. There is not thus any more legal inequality. While breaking with an old system three millenia, by nature unequal, India carried out, approximately 50 years ago, a true revolution: From now on, everyone is equal to the eyes of the State, whether he is Brahman or dalit. In same time, the very new Indian nation obtained the fundamental personal freedoms to a democracy of the liberal type: freedom to express itself, of opinion, marriage, work etc, in contradiction with the values of the castes.
However, the system of the castes was simply regarded as non-existent, and was not abolished, nor declared illegal. To destroy the system of the castes would be for much, to destroy India quite simply since the religion Hinduist, is the only unifying bond of the nation. The Indians are not, for the majority, aware of the inequality generated by the system. By respecting the division of the world as castes, they think of living in harmony with the universe. (the "darmha"). Thus, it would be for them foolish to break this harmony, while calling into question the existence of the castes. That however does not prevent some from fighting with dimensions the "untouchable ones".
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