Caste System in Hinduism

Casteism in India

Human beings have different kinds of social structures. The immediate being the family and then the community. Now, this community can be either a tribe or people following a single religious code or it could be a vocation. In India, it was Vocation that defined group of people so-called the Jatis. And there were thousands and thousands of Jatis. And what we know from sub Genetic Information that before 2000 years there was fairly a lot of intermingling between these Jatis. But somewhere 2000 years ago Endogamy (the custom of marrying only within the limits of a local community, clan, or tribe) came it means that a member of jati would not share roti or food with other jatis and would not share their daughters with other jatis. 

                             Chaturvarna System

     The problem starts around 1000 years ago where these jatis started organizing themselves along the hierarchy of 'purity'. The unique thing about the caste system is the hierarchy of purity. Some jatis considered themselves to be pure and some being considered, from birth, to be impure and dirty. And this is conceivably the darkest aspect of Hinduism. In Temple structures, we see the purest members stayed close to the Temple and the least pure people stayed away from the Temple. And this creates a bunch of economic and political turbulence in society. 

     And this is what the French and Portuguese saw when they came to India 400 years ago and they applied the word, Casta. The word caste is really not an Indian word it comes from the Portuguese Casta which means clan. People formed a particular group according to their vocation. They tried to bundle them in what is the CHATURVARNA SYSTEM. The word Chaturvarna acknowledges the human society is always hierarchical. But people have mapped these jatis in these four Varna systems which is an artificial construct. Except for the first Varna Brahmin where you can put all the Brahmin jati in the Brahmin Varna for the rest it is a big problem.