Is Caste System only Practiced in India?
Caste system is one of the biggest evils in Indian culture and it is so unfortunate that it is still present in our country. We have made a lot of progress in removing it, however changes like these take centuries. Many of us blame our culture for being backwards and corrupt because we had caste system. In this article though, I want to look at caste system with a global perspective and explore if thing such as caste system is unique to only our culture?
Whenever living beings live in groups, they form a hierarchy. This is prevalent in animals, as well as humans. Be it a group of baboons or a pack of wolf, whenever living beings live in a group a social hierarchy comes into existence automatically. Infact a society cannot function efficiently without a hierarchy. Such hierarchies have existed in all cultures; still exists in current societies and will continue to exist in future.
The Caste system of the Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra is such a hierarchy. There were similar hierarchies elsewhere. In Europe there was the hierarchy of Kings, Nobles, Knights and Serfs. Japan the hierarchy of the Shogun, Diamyos, Samurais, Ronin, Peasants and Merchants. These were system exactly the same as our caste system. So thinking that only India had a caste system is completely wrong. All cultures had caste systems just with a different name.
Caste System Origins
At the time of Rigveda there was only two castes, the Aryans and the Das. The Aryans was the term Vedic people used for themselves, while Das was for the native inhabitants. By the time of Atharveda we do see the four varna, of Brahmin, Kshtriya, Vaish and Shudra. The original das were included in the Shudra and the term das was used for slaves. There is no evidence in the ancient scriptures that such a varna system was rigid. It was mostly based on the occupation of the individuals rather than birth. Since in the old times a son usually took the same occupation as that of the father, it started to become associated with birth and later became rigid.
It is this rigidity of this system that is the problem. However, again this is not something unique to our culture. The feudal system in Europe was also rigid. A serf could not become a knight. The only difference is that the Feudal system fell by 14th to 15th century in Western Europe, but not in India. Why?
Why Feudal System Fell in Europe but Caste System Remained in India
The powerful are never interested in relinquishing their power for the greater good. So be under no impression that Europeans culture was better and realized the ills of such rigid hierarchies. It was population shock of the Beubonic plague of 1350s that caused the demise of Feudal system in Western Europe.
With that epidemic the population of Western Europe decreased by half. So there was a lot of land but not many people to work on it. We all know that when we force workers to work without personal incentive, they do a bad job. If we have a lot of slaves then it is ok, as the less productive but numerous workers can do the job. But when the population in Europe fell there was not enough manpower to work on the land. To improve productivity the landowners had to provide personal incentive to the laborers and the serfs were freed. Such a population drop did not happen in India, so the caste system did not disappear.
Human nature remains the same everywhere. The privileged class does not want to lose power, while oppressed class always want to get out of oppression. With the changes in the environmental situations, the balance of power shifts and societies transform. Such environmental changes are random and societies have little to no control over them. So saying the Indians were morally inferior and kept practicing caste system while the Europeans were superior is unfounded. USA and many other countries had their own caste system based on race and colors up until five decades ago. So get out of your inferiority complex and realize the truth. Just because one nation could dominate us for a few years does not mean that everything they do is great and we are a nation of idiots..
