Caste System – The Prevailing Curse

The title suggests that the caste system in India is a lethal curse, but there’s something fascinating about its history that we cannot deny the fact that at some point of time in the ancient past, it was more of a boon to the society of those days.

It’s a common belief that the caste system was established many centuries ago. Hinduism was more of a culture back then and people were set jobs according to their behavior, conduct, knowledge, mental states and capabilities [or so, I believe]. Even in the Bhagavad-Gita, it’s stated that God set the caste system on the basis of gunas and karma. So anyone who is rational can understand that the castes didn’t define the social standards of a person. They simply defined what sort of work a person can do, that will help him achieve his true potential. It’s a simple idea: Imagine what would happen if a person who has a calculative, money-making mind gets into nation-building [which is completely different from what he is most adept at].

This probably, was the reason why the people of those days classified themselves into various castes. But they evidently failed to realize that generations to come millennia later would hardly think of ‘caste’ the same way as they did. And that is why the caste system is now a prevailing curse in India.

Apart from Untouchability and discrimination [of which almost everyone is well aware of], there is this new form of peril swarming our country. People don’t vote for candidates in an election based on the candidates’ capabilities as a leader, knowledge, education, conduct or even their popularity. The main basis of helping a person to ascend to a powerful post and decide the fate of the country is……………. caste. You can notice hundreds of such events during elections within India and it’s very much questionable if the people exercising their political power in such ways is not-so-much of a hindrance for the nation's welfare or not.
Caste is not even a symbol of social / economic / [any other] statuses, as it was many years back. There are people of the low castes who are quite rich and educated. And there are high caste people who are poor and helpless. The reservation based on castes does nothing, but makes people fake their community certificates or even illegally change their castes to a lower one, so as to get inside a respectable college or university. In fact, India will probably be the only nation where people compete to be 'backward'. It's far from sensible, because reservation should benefit the downtrodden people, not those who want an easy entrance into an educational institution or job. It's discrimination in plain sight... but unfortunately, few people really seem to realize this.

Then there is the society which talks ill of those of lower castes and the usual problem of generalization. But such behavior of the society could only be uprooted in an environment which does not promote caste differentiation and discrimination [something we have to create to ensure basic human dignity and rights].
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