De-Essentializing the Practice of Casteism as an in human Practice in the Contemporary Times De-Essentializing the Practice of Casteism as an in human Practice in the Contemporary Times (original) (raw)
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De-Essentializing the Practice of Casteism as an in human Practice in the Contemporary Times
2019
This paper is written to attempt to highlight the historical wrongs that have been done to certain mistakenly defined marginalized communities. These communities have been made to suffer due to some social, cultural, and religious myths that have unjustly been consolidated throughout the ages. Factually, there has been some apparent evidence onground situation that are inhuman and illogical from ethical point of view. An urgent need arises to highlight the unjust state of so-called low caste communities and the immediate initiative must be taken by the guardians of the nation to reclaim the lost respect related to these marginalized communities. Only then there would be caste-free society wherein multicultural, and good inter-caste relations would be possible in terms of social harmony and that an elevated mental state with co-operative spirit for tolerance would be a step forward to humanism.
The future of Caste System in India : An Introspection
PURVADEVA, Peer Revied Bilingual International Research Journal, 2022
The caste system categorizes people into various hierarchical levels, which determine and define their social, religious, and hegemonic standings within the society. The caste system has also maintained a nexus and a sense of community for caste members for more than 2,000 years. A classic example of the caste system is the one found in India, which has existed there for hundreds of years. The caste system in India was traditionally a graded hierarchy based on a purity-pollution scale; it has undergone many changes over the years. After India’s independence, there has been a de-ritualization of caste, and it has moved toward being a community based on affinity or kinship rather than representing a fixed hierarchy. The association of each caste with a distinct occupation has weakened considerably, and inter-caste marriages across different ritual strata, even crossing the Varna boundaries, are not uncommon. In present day society because of industrialization, urbanization, modern education system, modern means of transport and communication, remarkable changes have been experienced in features of caste system, such as occupation, marriage, food, drink, social intercourse etc. But at the same time there are some factors like emergence of political parties, method of election, constitutional provision for S.C., S.T. and other backward classes have gradually encouraged the problem of casteism in India. So, it is difficult to predict about the future of caste system in India. In this context, I am trying to find out the present position and future of Indian caste system. The aim of this paper is to understand the continuity and the changes in the caste system in India.
Some Theoretical Considerations on Caste
Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 7: 51-86. , 2013
Caste as a system of social stratification was an encompassing system in the past. There was reciprocal system of exchange goods and services. With time, occupation and mode of generation of livelihood of various caste groups changed, and the traditional form of jajmani system fizzled out. This paper provides an account of changing perspectives of caste relations in social science writing and political discourse. The discourse of caste has been shifted from ritual hierarchy and social discrimination to an instrument to mobilize people for economic and political gain.
Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1996
It presents a discussion of some issues of caste that are not well understood.
Minds of caste – Discrimination and its affects
Is it any longer meaningful to talk about the Indian caste system? Has revisionist history and contemporary economic transformation dispensed with caste? Today, debate on caste is at once silenced and yet noisier than ever, and views on caste and caste-based discrimination are both diverse and socially dividing. While most researchers would agree that caste, however understood, is simultaneously weakened and strengthened in the contemporary moment, the political alignments around these debates are more sharply drawn. Unsurprisingly, the view of caste as benign or threatening, opportunity or constraint, an orientalist abuse of Indian culture or an abuse of human rights needing the attention of the United Nations, depends upon people's social position and the freedoms they enjoy. For example, Satish Deshpande observes that '[u]pper caste identity is such that it can be completely overwritten by modern professional identities of choice, whereas lower caste identity is so indelibly engraved that it overwrites all other identities' (Deshpande 2013). Within this socially situated and contested field, we want to point to one current trend in interdisciplinary research that opens up an inner terrain of caste. *** Post-colonial anti-essentializing anthropologists have been drawn more towards deconstructive accounts of institutions such as caste caught up in forms of colonial government, than to representing the inner experiences of caste: that is, towards studying the 'castes of mind' (Dirks 2001) rather than paying attention to the inner minds of caste. With some exceptions, even those interested in emancipatory politics have tended to externalize caste as a structural constraint or a field of power within which oppressed Dalits operate as strategic individuals or groups, rather than following Dr B.R. Ambedkar's lead by paying attention to the way that people's subjectivity is damaged by oppressions of caste and to the inner dynamics of caste prejudice and the perpetration of harm. A gathering of those interested in the affects of caste recently took place in London. 1 Attention was drawn to the fear and anxiety that are the pervasive affects of caste violence and its threat, and to their cultural expression. For instance, Veerachami, a leader of the Arunthathiyar (Dalit) community in a village in Tamil Nadu studied by Murali Shanmugavelan, lives with the fear that the dominant Maravar caste with whom he interacts daily could turn on him should he no longer be useful to them. Explaining how this feels, he says that 'talking with them is like shaking hands while holding an egg in your armpit', an analogy that speaks to the cognitive and embodied fragility of Veerachami's everyday life.
Institutionalization of Caste in Indian Culture: A Pandora Box
2015
Caste as a social system has always been in limelight for those who made effort to understand the Hindu culture, and often vaguely interpreted due to its complexity and genesis. Caste is expansion of Varna due to further development of social needs. However, they both are different things. The article focuses on the influence of various cultural elements and concurrent process happened in course of time which propelled to emerge a system that became a reality and has been affecting the Indian social setup positively and negatively both respects. Indian society is divided into several castes and groups. Each Caste group is distinctive than the others and reflects in various ways such as life style, thinking process, professional choice as well as social behavior etc. Indeed, caste system is a social institution full with unique reality and as an institution with hierarchy giving professional choice for those living in it as part. It concludes that Caste is a professional group with ...
Caste in Contemporary Indian Society
Bryan S. Turner (ed.) The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2017
This entry discusses the transformation of caste in the Indian context. The entry starts with a discussion of the Indological and anthropological accounts of caste and then examines whether “caste” is essentially unique to Hinduism. Furthermore, the entry discusses the possibility of mobility within the ritual hierarchy of caste. In the final section, the entry shows how caste, once described by the Christian missionaries and the colonial state as an irrational traditional institution, has transformed into a modern entity and become a vital instrument of democratic mobilization in contemporary India.