 Caste Parties
According to the Hindu religion, society should be divided into four broad classes called VARNAS. A person had the same varna that his or her parents had. And he or she had it from birth to death — there was no way to change it. Hindus did not question the varna system. It was simply considered a part of the way the universe works.
Hindus rank the four varnas from highest to lowest. In descending order of importance and prestige, they are the BRAHMIN, the KSHATRIYA, the VAISYA, and the SUDRA.
* The Four "Varnas"
The Brahmin varna comprises the priests and teachers in society. A person in this varna, often considered the highest, deserves respect from everyone else.
Warriors and rulers belong to the Kshatriya varna. Historically, this varna has contained most of the political leaders and kings, and it closely resembles the noble class of medieval Europe.
The third varna, called the Vaisyas, somewhat resembles the modern American middle class. Merchants, farmers, and artisans make up the vaishya varna.
The Sudra varna is the lowest of the four. The people who do hard work and labor are part of this varna, which very closely resembles the medieval European peasant class.
* The Untouchables
There is a fifth major class in Hinduism, but it is considered so low that it doesn't even qualify as a varna. Most people call it the "UNTOUCHABLE" class because its members are forbidden to touch anyone who belongs to one of the four varnas. If a Brahmin priest touches an untouchable, he or she must go through a ritual in which the pollution is washed away.
Untouchables do all the most unpleasant work in South Asia. They are forced to live on the outskirts of towns and villages, and they must take water downstream from and not share wells with varna Hindus.
Many Hindus in the past believed that untouchables deserved this treatment — a treatment that is in many ways even harsher than that inflicted on African Americans before the Civil Rights Movement. Hindus think that a person is born to this class because of bad karma he or she earned in a pervious life.
Job Placement
To a Westerner, this system seems complicated enough, but Hindus actually divide each varna into many little subsections. These subsections, called JATIS, work a lot like the varnas. A person is born in to the same jati as his or her parents and remains there for life.
There are different jatis for every kind of job, such as blacksmith, farmer, shoemaker, and accountant. There may be more than one jati that does a particular job, but most jatis do only one.
Ideally, a person will marry someone in the same jati. This can sometimes be a problem when most of the people in the jati are related in some way. A father in South Asia must take responsibility for finding a good match for his children, and will work hard to find someone in the same jati who is not a close blood relative.
Westerners may find this complicated and sometimes cruel system hard to understand. A Hindu, however, accepts it as natural. In fact, Hinduism teaches that in order to be assured of a good life in one's next reincarnation, a person must do everything he or she can to live up to the expectations of his or her varna and jati. A Sudra should work hard; a Brahmin should study religious texts and pray hard.
The caste system has relaxed somewhat over the last hundred years or so. People can take jobs that are not exactly what their jati requires, especially as new kinds of jobs — such as computer programming, flying airplanes, and installing cable television — that have no traditional association emerge.
In fact, the caste system is officially illegal in India. Affirmative action programs have been adopted to create new opportunities for lower-caste Indians. Even the untouchable caste has had some success getting better jobs, including government positions.
But, the system is not dead. Two of the questions South Asians often ask about each other when they first meet are "What is your jati?" and "What is your varna?" Although most Westerners and many modern Hindus don't believe that the caste system can really say much about a person on the inside, knowing someone's caste gives one some idea of what his or her life and family are like.
The caste system existed almost unchanged for at least 2,000 years, and its effects can still be felt today. But in the last half century, the system has begun to change and the idea of social mobility has arrived in India.
Many castes have begun to improve their status, and others have changed dramatically with the introduction of new technologies. Contact with other cultures has had the most profound change, and today a Sudra or even an untouchable really does have a chance of making a fortune.
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