Caste system of India: Devil and Unavoidable

Caste system is the single most important factor in present India. If we see the history of Indian civilization aand compare it with those who have recent human populations, we find it comparatively lesser complicated. India has more than two thousand ethnic groups, and every major religion is represented, as are four major families of languages (Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages) as well as a language isolate (the Nihali language spoken in parts of Maharashtra). Further complexity is lent by the great variation that occurs across this population on social parameters such as income and education. Only the continent of Africa exceeds the linguistic, cultural and genetic diversity of the nation of India. It should be noted that Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic are mainly linguistic terms and denote speakers of these linguistic groups.

Although 80.5% of the people are Hindus, India, with 13.4% of its population Muslim, is also home to the third-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. India also contains the majority of the world's Zoroastrians, Sikhs and Jains. Other religious groups include Christians (2.3%), Buddhists (0.8%), Jews and Bahá'ís.

There are 216 languages with more than 10,000 native speakers in India. The largest of these is Hindi with some 337 million (the second largest being Bengali with some 207 million). 22 languages are recognized as official languages. In India, there are 1,652 languages and dialects in total.

Hindi dialects 422,048,642 41.03% 336 M

Bengali 83,369,769 8.11% 69.9M

Telugu 74,002,856 7.19% 69.7 M

Marathi 71,936,894 6.99% 68.0 M

Tamil 60,793,814 5.91% 66.0 M

Urdu 51,536,111 5.01% 60.3 M

Gujarati 46,091,617 4.48% 46.1 M

Kannada 37,924,011 3.69% 40.3 M

Malayalam 33,066,392 3.21% 35.7 M

Oriya 33,017,446 3.21% 32.3 M

Punjabi 29,102,477 2.83% 57.1 M

Assamese 13,168,484 1.28% 15.4 M

Bhili/Bhilodi 5,572,308 0.665%

Maithili 12,179,122 1.18%

Santali 6,469,600 0.63%

Gondi 2,124,852 0.253%

Kashmiri 5,527,698 0.54%

Sindhi 2,122,848 0.253%

Nepali 2,076,645 0.248%

Konkani 2,489,015 0.24%

Tulu 1,552,259 0.185%

Dongri 2,282,589 0.22%

Kurukh 1,426,618 0.170%

Meitei (Manipuri) 1,270,216 0.151% 21

Bodo 1,221,881 0.146%

Sanskrit 14,135

The northern Indian languages from the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indo-Aryan such as Sanskrit, by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit languages and Apabhramsha of the middle Ages. There is no consensus for a specific time where the modern north Indian languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bengali and Oriya emerged, but CE 1000 is commonly accepted. Each language had different influences, with Hindi/Urdu and closely related languages being strongly influenced by Persian and Arabic. The South Indian (Dravidian) languages had a history independent of Sanskrit. However in later stages all the Dravidian languages had been heavily influenced by Sanskrit. The major Dravidian languages are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

By explaining these, my aim is to stress upon and bring out the complexity cropped up in our social and national life. There has long drawn mixing of races, languages and civilization in this part of the world. The fact is that even after so many centuries (no one knows exactly about the time period) there are adequate signs of existence of all those groups. No one has been devastated/ eliminated. I feel we should be proud of that. But our politicians and few short sighted intellectuals, both for their own mean purposes, try to deepen the furrows and utilize the history for their own purpose. This demographic variation was sought as basis for division of the country on religious grounds. Luckily by our leaders many more divisions have been prevented. Of course our democracy has worked as the basis to mitigate all the problems.

Dear friends, caste system is not only due to the caste system of ancient India which had divided as per the profession in to 4- varnas. There are different “jaat” in each varnas and many more divisions and subdivisions. And after all these divisions the hierarchy keeps maintained at every level starting from varnaas till the sub- sub caste.

Now where is the problem? Problem was in untouchability. The untouchability feature in the caste system is one of the cruelest features of the caste system. It is seen by many as one of the strongest racist phenomenon in the world. This one factor we as Indians, as Hindus are trying to overcome. But few people have started taking benefit of their birth in those communities. When the social stigma attached was going to die, they want to keep the memories alive so that they can take benefit out of it in socio- political terms.

There can be everlasting discussion about these things. The fact is that caste system if untouchability excluded, was the result of evolution and civilization. Cruelty associated if we leave the untouchability factor, has never been different from the usual contemporary behaviour anywhere in this world.

In my opinion this caste system is like self made social and political cocoon of India and Indians. I request every one to forget this caste muddle and to come out of it and come forward to live and enjoy the world as a free individual.