SOCIAL INEQUALITIES- CASTE AND CLASS

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SOCIAL INEQUALITIES- CASTE AND CLASS BY MARY KAY

To what extent can relations of caste be explained by class relations?

Today, we acknowledge the fact that we have a set structure in place to understand how things and people work within a society. As Professor Raja Jayaraman would have it “the social structure of a society is the product of the interaction of different variables such as ecology, technology, economy and culture.” (3) While these are an integral part of society I predominantly want to focus your attention on the Class system working the western world. While Australia is a multicultural society, we must see ourselves as one and part of one system and we must recognise ourselves as a westernised culture. But to veer away from this for a moment we must concede that this structure differs in each culture. Here I introduce caste. To further grasp these concepts of caste as well as class, we must first define each and then attempt to understand how they work and make up society, how they relate to each other and how they differ.    

There are different meanings which describe a caste. A Caste is mainly associated with Hinduism. As the Human Rights Watch would see it, ‘it is the ordering of society on the basis of ritual purity.’ (.) Leach defines it ‘as a system of social organization peculiar to Hindu India.’ (111) it’s about a system recognising the religious purity and individual positioning of people in society. While a caste system exists in cultures beside India, this is the most well known caste which I will be predominantly focusing on, to be exact the Varna Model.

These divisions of status seen in a caste are religiously ruled ‘arranged in hierarchical order…the Brahmins (priests), Kshatriya (warrior/ king), Vaishya (merchants) and Shudra (servants)’ (Jayaraman 4). Below the Shudra is an even lower class known as the Harijan which have been labeled as the “untouchables”. The original idea in India (by Gandhi) was that nobody was superior or inferior, but it did develop into a model of hierarchy as seen above. As modern day studies reveal there is a gigantic inequality in the way this system works and by looking at labour, marriage, education and inescapability we can understand why.

When referring to caste and labor, according to the Human Rights Watch, members of the Varna model and most other models are born into their jobs. ‘Sanitation Job; that of cleaning the streets and the handling of human waste’ (.) are performed by the Harijan’s. No matter how many human rights groups step in to try and do something about this severe inequality, it continues to exist. Some caste’s, like that in Japan, the employment system hires a private investigator to search people backgrounds to see if they have an Baraku (equivalent to untouchables) background. According to Jayaraman, such jobs as ‘leather-working and barbering’ are considered the lowest jobs (beside that of course of the Harijan’s).

Marriage in a caste system is probably the most severe. There are barriers in place where higher caste members cannot marry lower caste members. There are ruthless punishments in place. For example “an upper Brahmin boy and a lower-caste girl were dragged to the roof of a house and hung by members of their own family.” (.) In other caste systems such as in Japan, again private investigators are hired to be positive that a bride or groom is not of a Baraku family. In all known cases of inter-caste relationships and marriages, each are frowned upon and majority of the time, parties involved face serious punishment if caught.

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Looking at education, many members of the lower caste are illiterate and uneducated. Sometimes education isn’t even an option because the families are so poor that they require as much income they can get. If education is an option for a lower caste member, then usually discrimination within the classroom is seen, with members of the Harijan being made to sit right at the back of the classroom, away from children of upper caste. ‘There are signs of an upward mobility through education and non discriminatory law’ (.) but it is not highly seen in the Caste system. Some castes ...

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