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A caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to: marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), follow lifestyles often linked to a particular occupation, hold a ritual status observed within a hierarchy, and interact with others based on cultural notions of exclusion, with certain castes considered as either more pure or more polluted than others. Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of India's Hindu society into rigid social groups. Its roots lie in South Asia's ancient history and it still exists. However, the economic significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanisation and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside Hinduism and India. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in eusocial insects such as ants, bees, and termites.
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader who headed the committee drafting the Constitution of India from the Constituent Assembly debates, served as Law and Justice minister in the first cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru, and inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement after renouncing Hinduism.
The Maratha caste is composed of 96 clans, originally formed in the earlier centuries from the amalgamation of families from the peasant (Kunbi), shepherd (Dhangar), blacksmith (Lohar), carpenter (Sutar), Bhandari, Thakar and Koli castes in Maharashtra. Many of them took to military service in the 16th century for the Deccan sultanates or the Mughals. Later in the 17th and 18th centuries, they served in the armies of the Maratha Empire, founded by Shivaji, a Maratha Kunbi by caste. Many Marathas were granted hereditary fiefs by the Sultanates, and Mughals for their service.
Dalit, also previously known as untouchables, is the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Dalits predominantly follow Hinduism, with significant populations of the adherents of Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam. Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits, who get reservation under Positive discrimination, as per the constitution of India.
Kunbi is a generic term applied to castes of traditional farmers in Western India. These include the Dhonoje, Ghatole, Masaram, Hindre, Jadav, Jhare, Khaire, Lewa, Lonare and Tirole communities of Vidarbha. The communities are largely found in the state of Maharashtra but also exist in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Goa. Kunbis are included among the Other Backward Classes (OBC) in Maharashtra.
Mahar is an Indian caste found largely in the state of Maharashtra and neighbouring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century. As of 2017 the Mahar caste was designated as a Scheduled Caste in 16 Indian states.
The Mahar Regiment is an infantry regiment of the Indian Army. Although it was originally intended to be a regiment consisting of troops from the Mahar community of Maharashtra, today the Mahar Regiment is composed of different communities from mainly states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.
Chamar is a Dalit community classified as a Scheduled Caste under modern India's system of affirmative action. They are found throughout the Indian subcontinent, mainly in the northern states of India and in Pakistan and Nepal.
The caste system in Kerala differed from that found in the rest of India. While the Indian caste system generally divided the four-fold Varna division of the society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, in Kerala, that system was absent. The Malayali Brahmins formed the priestly class, and they considered all other castes to be either Shudra or Avarna. The exception to this were the military elites among the Samantha Kshatriyas and the Nairs, who were ritually promoted to the status of Kshatriya by means of the Hiranyagarbha ceremony. This was done so that the Samanthans and Nairs could wield temporal ruling powers over the land, as they constituted the aristocratic class.
The caste system in India has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in the history of India, especially during the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. The discrimatory practices of the caste system is prohibited in India's current constitution. However, in practice, caste still exert a dominant force in modern Indian society and its diaspora; discussion about caste is often met with self-censorship. The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system.
In India, a caste is a social group where membership is decided by birth. Castes often have related political preferences. Broadly, Indian castes are divided into the Forward Castes, Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes; sometimes Indian Christians and Indian Muslims may also function as castes. The reservation system in India essentially acts as affirmative action to provide representation to caste groups that have been systematically disadvantaged.
Navayāna, otherwise known as Navayāna Buddhism, refers to the modern re-interpretation of Buddhism founded and developed by the Indian jurist, social reformer, and scholar B. R. Ambedkar; it is otherwise called Neo-Buddhism and Ambedkarite Buddhism.
Sukhadeo Thorat an Indian economist, educationist, professor and writer. He is the former chairman of the University Grants Commission. He is professor emeritus in Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is an expert on B. R. Ambedkar.
The Battle of Koregaon was fought on 1 January 1818 between the British East India Company and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy, at Koregaon Bhima.
The Bara Balutedar system was a hereditary system of twelve trades used historically in villages of regions that is now the Indian state of Maharashtra. The balutedars used get paid for the services provided with village produce under a complex barter system. The system had similarities to the jajmani system prevalent in North India during the same period. Under the former system, the castes in the village worked for the landlord (Jajman) or the biggest landholding family in the village whereas with the latter system, the castes worked for the village.
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. As commonly conceptualized, the modern states of South Asia include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir mountains in the north.
Yadav refers to a grouping of traditionally non-elite, peasant-pastoral communities or castes in India that since the 19th and 20th centuries have claimed descent from the mythological king Yadu as a part of a movement of social and political resurgence. The term Yadav now covers many traditional peasant-pastoral castes such as Ahirs of the Hindi belt and the Gavli of Maharashtra.
The Dalit Panthers is a social organisation that seeks to combat caste discrimination. It was led by a group of Mahar writers and poets, including Raja Dhale, Namdeo Dhasal, and J. V. Pawar in some time between the second and the third semester of 1972. The movement's heyday lasted from the 1970s through the 1980s, and it was later joined by many Dalit-Buddhist activists.
Gopal Baba Walangkar, also known as Gopal Krishna, is an early example of an activist working to release the untouchable people of India from their historic socio-economic oppression, and is generally considered to be the pioneer of that movement. He developed a racial theory to explain the oppression and also published the monthly journal Vital-Vidhvansak, targeted at the Brahmanical Orthodoxy.
Rajputs in Bihar are members of the Rajput community living in the eastern Indian state Bihar. They are popularly known as Babu Saheb, a term that is mainly used in Bihar, the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand. They traditionally formed part of the feudal elite in Bihari society. Rajputs were pressed with the Zamindari abolition and Bhoodan movement in post-independence India; along with other Forward Castes, they lost their significant position in Bihar's agrarian society, leading to the rise of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
References
- ↑ Paul Hockings (May 1992). Encyclopedia of world cultures: South Asia. G. K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-1812-0 . Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ↑ Unesco. Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia (1961). Social and cultural factors affecting productivity of industrial workers in India. Unesco Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ↑ Govind Sadashiv Ghurye (1969). Caste and Race in India. Popular Prakashan. pp. 38–. ISBN 978-81-7154-205-5 . Retrieved 26 June 2013.
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