Caste Discrimination in India

Introduction

India is considered to be one of the few countries in the world where various parts of the local population practice different religions ranging from Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity being the main four sectors of religion. However, while this is the case roughly '79.8% of the population' practices Hinduism which accounts for nearly '1 billion of the population' as practitioners of the religion.. Because hinduism is considered to be one of the oldest religions in the world, dating back around 4000 years, many sub systems have formulated, one of them being the Caste system. The purpose of this wikipedia page is to help explore the caste system and it's discriminatory nature against those not only within it but also how intersectionality plays a crucial role in how certain individuals are treated far worse than others.

What is the Caste System

Caste Pyramid

The caste system is a religious hierarchy formulated to divide Hindus into rigid groups "based on their karma and their duty".. The system is divided into five main classes with the Brahmins being considered the highest and most well respected while the Dalits or Untouchables are labelled the lowest class. The pyramid system illustrated in the figure to the right showcases not only the hierarchy of each class, but also what roles each class fills within this sub-society. For instance, people part of the Brahmin class fill the role of priests thus attaining the highest form of respect within this system, whereas people of lower classes fill the roles of workers and cleaners thus commanding far less respect than their upper counterparts.

Each class also acquires a set of privileges. These privileges not only translate towards higher rights, but also encompass the ability to repress the lower classes, thus inevitably leading towards discrimination, particularly oppression of the Dalits. Even though the system was never formally adopted in India, its influence has been a primary source of controversy due to its unsettling presence in a number of cases regarding assault, rape, and murder. While the Indian government has enacted several laws formalised within the constitution such as articles 12 to 35 which are not only "dedicated to protecting the individual rights" but also help abolish the caste system.The system's presence is one yet to be eliminated amongst certain sectors in India primarily those in the more rural parts of India. This prevalence is particularly due to the fact that "society itself is structured to keep this tradition going" and what this entails is that their are psychological barriers that have been implemented through decades of the system's presence and integration in society, thus making it difficult to get rid of such a rigid system.

Discrimination

The Dalits or Untouchables face the highest form of discriminations by the other groups within the Caste System. The primary areas of which they are discriminated are education, work, and marriage, with marriage being the most notorious of the three.

Education and Work

Education has always played a crucial role in bettering one's circumstances, and while the caste system initially disabled Untouchables to acquire a formal education, the government has issued reserve systems to ensure that certain quotes of students are from the Dalits class. Even with such a progressive movement, there have been repercussions particularly from the higher classes, many of which "felt that the system was not meritocratic, and provided an unjust advantage to the low caste members." This not only translated towards protests from the upper caste, but also discrimination towards the Untouchables in the work force to the point that it has "[conferred] almost a disadvantage bettering the chances of neither salaried work nor self-employment" due to upper class higher restrictions" while [also] increasing their likelihood of opting out of the labor force," because of their ability to receive an education thus deeming them overqualified for such positions.

Marriage

Within the Caste system, marriage is considered to be one of the most notorious subjects because of the implications inter-caste marriages hold. Inter-caste marriage is simply defined when two people of different castes marry each other. Such marriages that occur culminate in where those " violating the social norm had to face the consequences in terms of violence, social boycott, family boycott and death of the boys and girls(honour killing)." Such murders have most notably happened upon the person of lower caste in the marriage. An example of this was seen during a case in 2018 where a Dalit man had married a woman from a higher class, which led to the brutal murder of the man in the public streets to avoid any form or relationship existing.

Intersectionality

Evaluating discrimination through an intersectionality lens also gives a great deal of insight. A core example would be women within the caste system, particularly those within the Dalits (Untouchables) class. Even though India has made a lot of progress to bring forth gender equality, there are still many areas where women are still subjugated to unequal treatment. Dalit women suffer from a variety of characteristics as they suffer from the "the triple burden of economic deprivation, patriarchy, and caste- and untouchability-based discrimination," creating a set of discriminations that are unique towards Dalit women.

Because of these multiple layers of discrimination, the primary problems that Dalit women face are education, work, and sexual exploitation" Being part of the Dalits already reduces the type of jobs and education they attain as discussed in the previous section, however Dalit women face further discrimination because of their sex. For instance Dalit women only have a 55.9% literacy rate which is a near 20% less than compared to Dalit men who attain a literary rate of 75%. Additionally, because of their gender they are also subjugated to less paying jobs, "Dalit women are hardly ever employed for cooks — which commands higher wages than sweeping and cleaning do," making them even face further "difficulties in getting employment for cooking because of the notion of the purity and pollution of occupations."

Secondly, they are also more highly prone to sexual violence because of their gender and class. An example that conveys this was when a Dalit women who was part of a campaign to advocate women's equality was viciously raped after trying to stop a child marriage simply because she was part of the Dalit class. Moreover, the sexual violence associated with Dalit women comes from the notion that casting was viewed "as a form of institutionalised domination," and that "routinized sexual predation [was] an expression of caste dominance." What these comments indicated was that the sexual abuse of women was also justified simply as a way for upper caste men to showcase their dominance over lower caste woman thus indicating another dimension of discrimination based on Dalit women's intersectional attributes.

Conclusion

To conclude, the caste system is an archaic system that seeks to discriminate individuals based on their class within the system and is further worsened by the oppression of individuals in lower classes by higher classes, with the latter also treating certain people within a particular class far worse than others due to other general discriminatory traits those people have.