Christianity and Caste (original) (raw)
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Remnants of Caste within Catholic Church in India
Caste is one of the most dominant social hierarchies that plague India. It works its way through myriad channels surpassing all shields of ethics and reform. Christianity as a religion is based on the fundamental equality of all human beings-it merits righteousness and shuns discrimination. However, Christians in India occupy a rather 'liminal' space-either converted from other dominant religions of India or descended from a colonial past, they retain a good amount of religious and caste practices from their previous ways of life. Caste relationships provide a cultural feature which, within the new structures, still reigns over certain frontiers and gives rise to divisions. In this paper, we will be looking at the extent of these influences within the Catholic Church and focuses on the visible and normalised caste practices within this body. The method used for analysis is qualitative and the relevance of this paper rests with the space occupied by caste within the cultural ...
Are Hinduism and Caste Consubstantial? /p. 236/ 'Hinduism' and 'caste' are both paradigmatic examples of one major paradox haunting social sciences concerned with the Indian field. However, crucial to our understanding of India's social and cultural realities, neither of these words-that we can fairly supposed to be among the most widely used through academic literature-can be translated accurately into an Indian language. What is at stake, then, is both defining precisely what we mean when using 'Hinduism' and 'caste', and how these two notions are connected one to the other. Is the caste system Hindu? Is Hinduism necessary for the caste system to exist? Is Hinduism chiefly dependent upon this one-and-only organization (Srivivas, 1956, p. 495)? And would Hinduism inevitably disappear 'if and when caste disappears' as Srinivas also argued (Srivivas, 1956)? Is there such thing as a casteless Hinduism? In other words: to what extent are Hinduism and caste consubstantial? Behind the misleading conceptions of Hinduism as a homogeneous category, a 'religion' shared by some 80 per cent of the Indian population, one must keep in mind the variety of Hindu practices and representations. Together with other criteria such as sectarian or regional traditions, caste affiliations are crucial to the structural diversity within Hinduism. The need to bring together such heterogeneity under a unique term and category has only grown relatively recently, boosted by colonization, and independence/ nationalist fights (Sontheimer and Kulke, 1989; Lorenzen, 1999), without radically undermining neither the diversity between castes, nor the utmost importance of the caste system in Indian social structures, daily life, and religious practices. Caste, Hinduism, and Society Most studies of Hindu castes rightfully start with the distinction between varnas and jatis. On the one hand, castes as varnas divide society into four orders: the Brahmins (religious specialists), the Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), the Vaishyas (farmers and merchants), and the Shudras (servants). Such a conception of caste as varna is inherited from Brahminical ideology. On the other hand, castes as jatis divide society into thousands of inherited, endogamous social groups-a conception close to the naturalist notion of species. Castes as varnas illustrate the intrinsically socio-religious dimension of Hinduism. Not only does the ability to perform certain rituals and to be initiated depend on one's varna, but such religious hierarchy matches a social role embedded in a truly organicist vision of society. The founding myth of varnas has them originate from the dismembering of the primordial being (Purusha)-Rig Veda hymn X/ 90: Brahmins are the mouth, Kshatriyas the arms, Vaishyas the thighs, and Shudras the feet.
Commentary on CASTES IN INDIA: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development
Edited by Frances W. Pritchett. Editing has consisted only of numbering the paragraphs and fixing a few typographical errors. The attempt here is to see positively what this young researcher says, and how he thinks, how he arrives at what he does. This is not an explication, or even a reading/ interpretation. This is a commentary, occasionally critical, to remember that it was a hundred and one years ago that this text was presented (read out) by this young scholar, studying for his M.A. degree. I am using this version of the text because it was the most easily accessible on the web. If there are any copyight issues, please use some other version. The commentary, will remain more or less the same. The commentary is in a different and smaller italic font, and has a few clickable links (in blue and underlined) to pages on the web. Some of the paragraph breaks are mine, for clarity about the lines on which I comment. This commentary is under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Aniket Jaaware, 08.05.2017. aniket.jaaware@gmail.com Caution: The commentary assumes that you have read this essay earlier, independent of intepretation and evaluations. If you have not, I strongly suggest that you read the essay separately before you read this version with commentary. I include the text herewith. Those who have read the essay earlier, or know it better than just a reading, can proceed to page 14 directly.
HISTORY OF THE INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM AND ITS IMPACT ON INDIA TODAY
The Indian Caste System is historically one of the main dimensions where people in India are socially differentiated through class, religion, region, tribe, gender, and language. Although this or other forms of differentiation exist in all human societies, it becomes a problem when one or more of these dimensions overlap each other and become the sole basis of systematic ranking and unequal access to valued resources like wealth, income, power and prestige. The Indian
HISTORY OF INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM AND ITS PREVALENCE POST-INDEPENDENCE
International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews (IJRAR), 2020
The caste system is prevalent in India since time immemorial. The Indian caste system is historically seen as a method of differentiation between people from different groups. The Indian Caste System is considered a closed system of stratification, which means that a person's social status is obligated to which caste they were born into. There are limits on interaction and behaviour with people from another social status (Sekhon 39). The caste system has been changed and altered time and again in the past. This research would limit its scope on studying the history of the Indian caste system and the prevalence of caste system post-independence till date. We study the history of the Indian Caste system in the first half, followed by the research question-Has there been any significant change in the caste system of India after independence till today? If so, how? 1.INTRODUCTION. Risley defines caste as "a collection of families or group of families bearing a common name; claiming a common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine; professing to follow the same hereditary calling; and regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community" (Hutton 47). The Indian caste system is divided into four varnas. The two upper castes dominate over the lower castes and are consider ed to be superior. The Brahmins are at the top, followed by the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. The Brahmin class is essentially defined by its supposed priority (as the class created first by the creator god), by knowledge of the Veda, and by the monopoly this class holds on the operation of sacrifice. These traits justify the social position of the class vis-à-vis others: they are predominant because they are prior, and they claim to stand outside of the power relations that govern social life for others because of their superior knowledge and sole possession of the ultimate "weapons," sacrificial techniques (Smith 48). There are certain characteristics of the Indian caste system with which discrimination and social stratification is fixed. Castes have other sub castes or jatis. People of these sub castes earned their livelihood from a particular occupation. For instance, Brahmins were the upper castes, but there were varying degrees of Brahmins such as Tamil Brahmins, Tanjore etc. "A society is characterized by such a system if it is divided into a large number of hereditarily specialized groups, which are hierarchically superposed and mutually opposed. It does not tolerate the principle of rising in the status of groups' mixture and of changing occupation". (Velassery 2) There are many rules and barriers a person needs to adhere to in order to breathe in the society. Not adhering to these rules and practices resulted in exclusion from the caste as well as from there own families. 2.HIERARCHY OF CASTE SYSTEM Hierarchy and occupational specialisation are one of the most important and major elements of the Indian caste system. Rules regarding endogamy and occupation were very strict. A person is not allowed to marry outside their own caste or sub caste. Every sub caste had an occupation and the person is bound to that particular occupation. A no tolerance policy was followed in mixing of higher castes with the lower castes. There were rules regarding the level of interaction between people of different castes. There was than the concept of purity and pollution. Mere touch of a Shudra or an untouchable to a person of a higher caste was termed as polluting the individual of the higher caste.
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.
The caste system in India has been affecting the life of Indians for the last 4000 years although there was a little weakening of the system as long as Mahatma Gandhi's spell lasted in India.