In the Vedic period the caste of a person was based on his occupation. An individual had total freedom to chose an occupation of his choice; whether it be the study of the Vedas, or farming , soldier any occupation he chose his caste was dependent on that. However in time the cast system started becoming more and more rigid. The caste system became dependent on a person's birth and not his occupation. A Bramhan's son was a Bramhan and he had to pursue the study of religious scriptures , a warriors son has to become a warrior whether he like it or not.
So the first evil that the caste system of ancient did was to take away individual freedom. Secondly it created a feeling of superiority among the people of higher class and a feeling of inferiority among the people of the the lower caste. The society was primarily divided into four castes
1) Bramhin :- They undertook the study of Vedas and other religious texts and performed various rituals.
2)Kshatriya : - This was the warrior and ruler caste, they were responsible for the protection of the people of the country.
3)Vashiya :- This was the caste of traders and businessmen.
4) Shudras :- This was the caste of people who did menial work like cleaning roads and other work that included farming.
The people who didn't belong to the above four castes were considered to be out castes and were looked down upon. Later on rules became so strict that they were not even being touched. The lower castes were not even allowed to take the same side of road as the higher castes. They were not allowed to drink water from the same well as the people of higher castes and education was banned for them. The Bramhins made it their birth right to study the Vedas and other castes were prevented from the study of Vedas.
If some person was born in a lower caste , he was told that his past life karma was responsible for his birth in the lower caste and he deserved to live a harsh life. Severe punishments were meted out to the people who broke the caste rules.
The greatest person to dissent against it was the greatest person even born Buddha. Buddha spent years in meditation to find out the cause of human sorrow and after his enlightenment he travelled across the length and breadth of the country to teach the dhamma(religion). Hence Buddha became the founder of Buddhism and the Buddhist society was totally caste less society. The Buddhist religion was compassionate and treated everyone as equal.
But later on the Buddhist teachers became too much on the negative side of lives, focused too much on sorrow. Which made people turn away from Buddhism and with Muslim invasion of India there was large scale destruction and massacre of Buddhists. The religion almost disappeared from the land and arrogant Brahmanism made a comeback.
Again the rigid caste system came back but since mostrulers across the nations were Muslims, the lower castes had one option to change their religion to Islam. Changing their religion to Islam meant that they would be treated with respect and have a good status in the society. So areas in the country where castism was maximum people changed over to Islam. This is particularly true about Bengal and Punjab.
However many who stayed Hindu had to live a painful life. Untouchability and social discrimination was very high. During Muslim rule the education of women was stopped and people became highly conservative. The uneducated Indian now became easy targets of British who ruled over India for 190 years.
After Independence lots of laws have been made against castism and cast based discrimination. Our Constitution treats all citizens as equal regardless of his/her caste, creed or religion.
But still even today caste based discrimination does exist in the rural side of India. Particularly north India , caste based discrimination is high in the states of UP, Bihar, Gujrat Haryana,certain states of South India. However there is hardly any discrimination on the basis of caste in the states of West Bengal and the north eastern states.
India must come out this ugly castism that weakened and destroyed the nation in the past. Caste must be made a thing of the past and should never come back to this country anymore.
So the first evil that the caste system of ancient did was to take away individual freedom. Secondly it created a feeling of superiority among the people of higher class and a feeling of inferiority among the people of the the lower caste. The society was primarily divided into four castes
1) Bramhin :- They undertook the study of Vedas and other religious texts and performed various rituals.
2)Kshatriya : - This was the warrior and ruler caste, they were responsible for the protection of the people of the country.
3)Vashiya :- This was the caste of traders and businessmen.
4) Shudras :- This was the caste of people who did menial work like cleaning roads and other work that included farming.
The people who didn't belong to the above four castes were considered to be out castes and were looked down upon. Later on rules became so strict that they were not even being touched. The lower castes were not even allowed to take the same side of road as the higher castes. They were not allowed to drink water from the same well as the people of higher castes and education was banned for them. The Bramhins made it their birth right to study the Vedas and other castes were prevented from the study of Vedas.
If some person was born in a lower caste , he was told that his past life karma was responsible for his birth in the lower caste and he deserved to live a harsh life. Severe punishments were meted out to the people who broke the caste rules.
The greatest person to dissent against it was the greatest person even born Buddha. Buddha spent years in meditation to find out the cause of human sorrow and after his enlightenment he travelled across the length and breadth of the country to teach the dhamma(religion). Hence Buddha became the founder of Buddhism and the Buddhist society was totally caste less society. The Buddhist religion was compassionate and treated everyone as equal.
But later on the Buddhist teachers became too much on the negative side of lives, focused too much on sorrow. Which made people turn away from Buddhism and with Muslim invasion of India there was large scale destruction and massacre of Buddhists. The religion almost disappeared from the land and arrogant Brahmanism made a comeback.
Again the rigid caste system came back but since mostrulers across the nations were Muslims, the lower castes had one option to change their religion to Islam. Changing their religion to Islam meant that they would be treated with respect and have a good status in the society. So areas in the country where castism was maximum people changed over to Islam. This is particularly true about Bengal and Punjab.
However many who stayed Hindu had to live a painful life. Untouchability and social discrimination was very high. During Muslim rule the education of women was stopped and people became highly conservative. The uneducated Indian now became easy targets of British who ruled over India for 190 years.
After Independence lots of laws have been made against castism and cast based discrimination. Our Constitution treats all citizens as equal regardless of his/her caste, creed or religion.
But still even today caste based discrimination does exist in the rural side of India. Particularly north India , caste based discrimination is high in the states of UP, Bihar, Gujrat Haryana,certain states of South India. However there is hardly any discrimination on the basis of caste in the states of West Bengal and the north eastern states.
India must come out this ugly castism that weakened and destroyed the nation in the past. Caste must be made a thing of the past and should never come back to this country anymore.
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