The Caste System in India

[Music] [Music] the caste system is a traditional form of stratification from Hinduism that classifies people into four different group the caste one is born into will determine his or her social status job diet and behavior this 3,000 year old system still to this day has a significant impact on Indian society the socio historical origin of the caste system dates back to the Year 1500 BC when the Aryans from Central Asia invaded India creating the system as a means to control the local Indian population throughout the years the system was transformed by the ruling elites and became part of Hinduism the largest religion in India in the 19th century during the colonial period the British saw the caste system as a way to maintain social stability and used it to their advantage the Brits separated the peoples from different castes and targeted those from the lowest castes as explained by the writer Shashi Tharoor caste had been much fuzzier a much more fungible identity in the past the whole notion of the system being imposed as the only way India was supposed to be was because the British looked at it in this way so the Brits in the entire process of trying to understand India classified and codified things it was a means for controlling India after the British left in 1947 the Indian Constitution was written and the caste system was formally abolished but this social structure is still affecting Indians to this day the religious explanation for the caste system is that each caste comes from a body part of the Hindu creator god brahma [Music] according to Hindu mythology they believe that every human they came out from one of the most prestigious and one of the creator god brahma huh they believe that the human itself its is divided into different kind of work it's like your head it's for thinking so they believe the upper castes which came out from Burma's mind was the Brahmins which is the first caste second group of people they came from his shoulder they were the Kshatriya Shah dreamy through those who can fight for you so they believe from the stomach brahma stomach they came out with the third cast that is shoddy voracious these brushes are the businessman's then they find out the legs from legs the fourth or the lower caste came out that was the sudras historically there were forecasts Brahmins Kshatriyas and Visayas are known as the general castes or upper guests while shudra was the bottom caste one additional lower caste was recently added to the system the daleks which I will talk more about later the bottom castes are also known as the B C's which stands for backward castes each caste is further broken down into 25,000 sub guests each sub caste has a designated profession that theoretically its members must follow for example Mali is a sub caste of the sudras and they are gardeners it is important to know that caste determined jobs but also social life for instance one is not allowed to marry or even have social interactions with someone from another caste and people who do face discrimination today the easiest way to know someone's caste is by looking at their last name so if someone has the last name Mali this means they are from the Mali caste at first people were assigned their caste according to their skill and the next generation would inherit the cast from his or her parents initially there was no social mobility meaning that one would die in the same caste he or she was born into basically the way it works is is that if you're born assured that I you stare should draw and you do the jobs that should rather men to do so like the Brahmins are meant to you know say the Word of God they're meant to advise the kingdom and like people on religious matters the Kshatriyas of the warrior class maybe the noblemen they'll be involved in politics and be involved in walls but you can you can't have a Kshatriya convert from a sudra Convertible sure there are all vice oversee in a car sustainer past those from the lower castes were not allowed to move up socially after the legal abolition of the caste system in 1950 people were allowed to pursue any job however the caste system is still existent socially and there is no social mobility this has not always been like that back in the 18th century when Maharaja's ruled India people were allowed to change their caste if permission from the king was granted ma my gosh the gartner before finally can listen until my task was no boy so my great-grandfather he don't want to fight so they went to manager they saying we don't like the job so this thing what you like then my great way to learn obviously we like to farm then mildest okay you are to do - to the gardener but now we come gentle gospel Marathi don't have power you can change the job even though changing castes is not possible it is possible for people to move up economically there are some rich people who come from backward castes as there are for people from general castes however still today the vast majority of the rich are from general castes while the vast majority of the poor are from backward castes the caste system also has its positive sides it has helped to keep skills alive that are passed down generation after generation for the royal families for the wall painting in food and some of famous old temples last 7 the lesson be too simple military bases miniature pendants and do you do it because your forecast yeah become from especially touched that will be speciality to do painting work I'm born in my family so then I'm older so I just see all the time the world the paintings colors in my house so my hobby also convert in like this way so that's the reason easily to be picked this life is big help you because my brother my uncle my father they all are to this morning so I play with the colors in them then I'm fixed so it's very easy to choose the career on this week different cast also have different customs and traditions for instance people from the two highest caste the brahmanas and the cafeterias are not supposed to eat meat drink alcohol or smoke these habits are viewed as impure it should only be adopted by the lowest castes the upper caste people you know they are most people mostly they are the priests you know who always live in temples you're always very close to the gods so they are not allowed to eat meat if they will admit in front of the people people will be angry on on them or they also want they also don't want to eat the meat and by the lower caste people they eat the meat you know because those people you know in the previous time they were working with that bodies I said you know you know they were not able to find any work so sometimes they don't have food to eat so they started eating the meat also however as India progresses people are caring less and less about caste diet restrictions now now no more meaning still we have like a same system but people they don't believe now we people are very well educated today they're like that they don't care about these things they never try to follow these things but few people they can follow but new generation that don't care about these kinds of things in the past the color of the turban was determined by the caste nowadays this has changed and people wear whatever they want and all the people toss the music the totally different like yellows they used to warrior people being theater businessman Brahmins the religious caste have a unique hairstyle called Sica like the one you're seeing right now and they wear a piece of string around their chest the fifth caste that was recently added to the system in the early 20th century is the Dalit caste also known as The Untouchables or the harijan this caste is considered to be an outcast untouchable jobs include things like handling dead animals and humans sweeping the streets and handling any form of human waste like blood feces urine and saliva by doing these impure jobs they are considered spiritually polluting in India dirty and impure are two different concepts rubbish on the floor and rats may be seen as dirty but not impure so anyone from any caste would touch whereas fresh human wastes or dead bodies are viewed as impure so people from higher castes would not touch it this leads to untouchability which is the practice of ostracizing and not touching the dalek group hence the nickname The Untouchables still to this day the people who are doing these jobs come from the dalek caste the men you are seeing right now are responsible for carrying the bodies of dead cows to a dumping site they are all from the Dalit caste today Untouchables make up 16% of India's population and this represents over 200 million people although untouchability was outlawed the whole caste system in 1950 it is still practiced to this day especially in rural parts of India urban areas it is not but yes in rural areas is still there where most of the cleaning work because in India as you are aware of many villages they don't have a toilet facility so they are using the public toilets and this public toilets cleaning and everything still the lower caste people are doing and they have their separate colonies they have separate houses which is not along with the normal lab so if every upper caste people are inside the city these people are staying outside the city so even still nowadays in most of their like no village areas these people they have their colony separate where most of them they don't have amenities like no water no roads no toilet facilities even not even they have a security systems like they have a palace and everyone but most of these colonies are still they need more points to be concerned historically Untouchables have always been disadvantaged in comparison to other castes they were not allowed to go to school with students from different castes and people would refuse to work with or for them when India was the British colony that time the lower caste people they were not allowed to get education because of the rigid mentality as I mentioned before they were always considered as untouchable they are not allowed to mingle with others they are not allowed to play with them they are not allowed to go to school they were not allowed to enter temples this is all which has come together the kind of work they were involved with keeping that humanity in mind but when India received independence the very first thing which they thought of removing untouchability so Gandhiji I think everyone know the personality he came up and he say untouchable is not a word which we can use for them so they have started calling them the hydrogen hydrogen means the son of God this name was given by him and in Constitution they made equal rights for these Untouchables although the Constitution states of people from all castes have the same right discrimination is still prevalent in Indian society in general people from higher castes do not want to be anywhere near the untouchables so people from the highest caste they don't want to be near the people from the lowest caste so that their forecasts the highest caste were the Brahmins people who want to do intellectuals the second was the warrior caste the third was the emergence and the fourth was the cast that used to do all the manual work so say the merchants and the Warriors they would get along the Warriors and the Brahmins would get along but the Brahmins we want to mix with the lowest caste until the 1950s Indians from upper caste would not go to restaurants because they were afraid Untouchables worked in the kitchen and could touch their food but as India develops at a fast rate people's mindset is changing in regards to caste relationship an inter caste friendship that would be considered inappropriate twenty or thirty years ago is now becoming more and more normal this new generation is the most open-minded generation ever in regards to the caste system I have four five friends who are from lower caste so I don't care at all like super low class I would be able to I would love to have a friend like you if you I know I'll try to be with me if you try to light with me so I have a lot of you know the muslim shia muslims friend I have not lost family friends so I don't care not because I am you know open-minded I can say it's still there are some people in in my villages who will discriminate me because I have lower class dynamic friends who discreetly because say come on distribute know you are from a very high class family so you're not supposed to make those feds for furloughed class but I don't care at all because I'm very open minded in 1997 kr Narayanan was elected the President of India he was the first and so far only Dalit person to ever be elected president this was a huge step forward and it showed that Indians are becoming more progressive and open to end discrimination still today he remains as one of the most popular Indian presidents ever he was accepted by everyone as the President and people were happy bother because he represented a large section of the population you think you change people's opinion on different castes for the good but not everyone is open to change there are still many people who discriminate on people from the Dalit caste even if they do not work with impure things they believe that getting in contact are being anywhere near and untouchable is polluting and that will lower them to the same level as the untouchables Omarion I saw a turkey this ridge at Komara kercadiou Burton's hotel now bonito sector or Yugi's like mine a bullet a kg q hum log mid-march any captain the example I latina that are are killed Otto attends of cotton this little D 910 would you let the kids be friends no I don't I really don't like but I would you shake hands with an untouchable person know why because it because you know in my culture it's our in my culture is not allowed we have just touched the hydrogen and I know he is a hydrogen so I go to the home and I take shower yes because there were king I know I told you before because they are cleaning the street and they clean the toilet they have a we have a very special card because this is so we call that hydrogen everybody's know that when they kids small they know very well because they still today in approximately 30 percent of rural villages public health workers refused to enter dollar homes untouchables are prevented from entering police stations and Dalek children are not allowed to sit with children from other castes in school when Daleks disobey the authority the consequences can be drastic every week 13 dots are murdered and $5 homes are burned in that case may be nice beaten to death it happens or can be like non worried but forcefully like dragged him out from there and our come here to try to compensate the historical disadvantaged the Indian government has special reservations for a Dalek people for education seats in the parliament and public jobs in the Indian Parliament da let's have twenty four point one three percent of seats reserved for them that is 130 one out of 543 seats in education students who come from backward castes can get accepted into college with lower grades than one from a general caste in schools students from backward castes get scholarships the reservation addresses the historical oppression inequality and discrimination faced by the Dalek people at first reservations were a provisional measure that was adopted after independence and was only supposed to happen for ten years but it is still happening today for $1 to get a reserved spot they must apply for a certificate the process to get the certificate is lengthy and bureaucratic and they make certificate even this and some people for some way they will come to your house they will ask their neighbors also is there from the caste or not when I have applied for my caste certificate if it happens to people came to my house and they be deserving so I am also I also have that certificate this controversial program has been a topic for debate between the Indians in the past few decades some argue that this helps take Dalits out of the poverty cycle while others argue that the system is not fair for those who work hard and our part of the general castes so and this is bronze so we never think they going to the very building useful to the school because English medium speed is very expensive in India so one year price may be 70 thousand rupees like a thousand meters taller so I can't effort but thank God I am in lower caste so I have a certificate for the lower caste so I show that certificate for the private school they give me scholarship like a 50% off so thirty-five thousand rupees one year my one children is prime so both heavy 70 thousand rupees so I do manage because I know value of education you know when I do puja that they won't oppose each other it'll jump you but turkey cutlet them or did some cool you authenticity circus you see it seems you through how may this is the poet anatomic good mark a goddess is malleable back or make her game - tsunami poem can make a mocha meantime nowadays they have opportunities to do other jobs also but what is the thing like for example a family of like many oral like removing from the house that family their whole family have understudied from their last five six generations so what do you think like this the Sun like which is the in this century the new generations they are also like uneducated and whatever they are learning from their parents what they see their parents doing you think this is our like future until unless they have another opportunity which is like our certificate from the government and getting a opportunity into the Tokyo for study otherwise he cannot go his family is not making that much money to send him even into the government school which is free they only charge for 10 or 20 or 100 rupees for a month so even then they cannot afford so that's why they are like those people have forced to do that job there are still people mainly from general castes who disagree with this program they argue that because the caste system was abolished all Indians have equal chances so the system should be based on meritocracy these days as I told you no more meaning of the caste system these are all system almost disappear so now people they are rich or not rich he said depend on his quality degree ability not because of the cost oh no I hid the concept of reservations honestly the way I think it should be there should be a meritocracy irrespective of where you come from it doesn't matter who you are what he do if you can show that you're capable you should be allowed to be in that College you shouldn't depend on your birth or your nationality or your religion but you know and it's not just that it's also the fact that when they do get these reservations of Dalits and you know other castes it's not the needy Dalits who are discriminated against that get the seeds it's the rich ones in the community then manage to grab them and often because they're rich and they can they have access to this colleges they can get in with lower grades so it's a completely broken system in my opinion another common argument is that reservation should be given according to people's economic situation another class this should be based on economy not based on caste so if you want to give reservations give reservations to don't them those who are economically poor not those are based on the caste or peace if Romeo and Juliet were set in India there would be no Montague's or Capulets instead there would be people from different castes according to the Hindu tradition marriage should only happen between the same caste this wasn't short by arranged marriage a tradition where the parents choose their children's partners 20 years before just like you who's the parents Buddha and her house and we choose the girl yeah and they didn't see that boy but now after 20 years ago the people doing the same task for the expect of each other boy is the heavy scent parents get mad but before it is the just like a parent choose now as India develops and people are becoming more broad-minded we are seeing more and more inter-caste marriages today 5% of all marriages are inter caste I'm a little cotton C heavy I like middle class so when we get married in trouble in Milan to hear her father's mother say get out in my from here and my father and mother say why you not made with similar movement it is the trouble did your parents attend your wedding did they go no leave one and a half month in my home house and he is always me please make me one week my husband I just called I love Rishi and I fancy fishy but my mom said no is a different community and is the toggle clasp is not okay yeah [Laughter] today only one in five Millennials are against it but especially in the rural areas it is considered shameful to marry someone from another caste and the consequences range from getting ostracized to beaten to death but people still marry cooking different costs or never met never doesn't happen to know then what happens if they do marry then maybe in some extreme cases young people have committed suicide after their parents prohibited them from marrying someone from a different caste to try to make inter caste marriage more acceptable the Indian government provides many facilities to inter caste couples if you have it in the caste marriage the government of India gives a lot of facilities for example if you marry if I marry anybody from another caste I get a better privilege and my children get better privileged than any other children so in India as a garment garment promotes it but some people think the other way but it's changing rapidly the caste system is connected to almost everything in India even its health problem in the Indian subcontinent India is by far the wealthiest and most developed country yet they have a higher infant mortality rate than Myanmar Bangladesh and even Nepal the reason for this has a direct link to the caste system India's sanitation is still for seven hundred thirty two million people do not have access to toilets and that represents 56 percent of the population traditionally indigent have always defecated in the open open defecation is when people relieve themselves in a field a roadside a riverbank or a forest for example they do so not only due to poverty but also because human feces are impure and they should not be inside the house today around fifty percent of Indians defecate in the open this rate is 10 percent higher than the rate in some of the poorest sub-saharan countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda the problem with open defecation is that no one will collect the feces so after it rains the bacterial will fall into water streams and crops thus polluting them the local population who depend on those resources are going to eat and drink contaminated water and food which causes many diseases like guinea worm typhoid cholera and dysentery there is a type of toilet that is used to solve this problem it is known as a pit toilet this pit toilet has a latrine that is connected to one of two pits people will relieve themselves and the feces will travel to the pit through the pipe the pit will take two to five years to get full depending on the size of it after one is full the family will start using the other pit all they must do is connect the pipe to the empty pit when the second pit is full it will be enough time so that the feces in the first bit have decomposed and this becomes manure this makes it both spiritually clean and safe for people to handle human waste 20 composition it is converted into manual that's a good manual but they don't want to touch that phrase Suman the Indian government is now building this type of toilet for people however mainly due to corruption they often only build one pit instead of two this takes away the whole point of avoiding handling fresh human waste because when the pit is fooled there is not enough time for the faeces to decompose so they will have to handle the fresh human waste in response many people who have toilets with only one pit in their house prefer to continue doing open defecation another big problem is that many people do not want human feces to be anywhere near their houses because it is spiritually polluting so even if they have a toilet with two pits they will do open defecation this is why awareness is just as important as building toilets before construction started first we aware the people of that village where we started and after the awareness they started stencil then they otherwise if you construct the toilet and the people they sometimes they will use this toilet room they will convert it into a store in neighboring Bangladesh a much more impoverished country than India they suffered from a cholera pandemic 20 years ago that had direct causes to open defecation since then the Bangladeshi government has started to build one pit toilets just like in India for the people the only difference is that Bangladesh is a Muslim country with no caste system so after the bid is full people will handle the fresh human waste and dispose of it safely surely the Bangladeshis do not enjoy doing this dirty job but it is not spiritually polluting to them and they do not suffer discrimination so they do it for they are good the caste system is becoming less critical to Indians now than what it was during the colonial time but the discrimination is still there it is affecting everyone in all aspects of society and as long as this system stays in place inequality in India will persist [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mundi

Views: 620,279

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Keywords: india, caste, caste system, culture, hinduism, religion, tradition, marriage, toilet, taboo, untouchability, asia, south asia, indian, hindi, brahma, documentary, information, journalism, delhi, new delhi, rajhastan, mumbai, uttar pradesh, untouchable, god, job, history, humanities

Id: P8idvu5zJ8c

Length: 33min 6sec (1986 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 01 2018

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