Caste System prevailing in Modern India

India is classified to be one of the most diversified countries in the world. The world is aware of our rich culture and traditions. With a total of 29 states, we have numerous religions, languages, and most importantly we have a huge number of ‘Castes’. India is becoming one of the most powerful nations in the world but not much has been known about the inner flaws of the country. The caste system is one such topic that needs to be addressed but is often left unnoticed. India has a total number of 3000 castes and 25000 subcastes which often leads to violent rages, honor killing, a sick mentality, and many more heinous crimes. It is written in our constitution and is even printed in all the civics books of children that “Discrimination of individuals based on caste, creed, color, and religion is a punishable offense and should be prohibited” but this has been read and forgotten. In the times of technology, where people are trying to make their lives luxurious and hassle-free with time, not much is changing in many parts of our country. The Reservation System which was once applied for the only tenure of 10 years for the upliftment of the people facing caste discrimination has now become a part of our daily lives and society. People of the upper caste such as ‘Brahmans’ were always considered to be hard-working, intelligent and are seen as idols to set examples in our nation, and all the people from the lower castes such as ‘Shudras’ and ‘Dalits’ were considered to be slaves or either ‘untouchables ’. But not all the people from the upper caste became heroes and not all the people from the lower caste turned thieves. Many people might say that things have changed for the better, but these norms still exist in rural areas and even in the mindset of some people of the urban areas. Some of the recent cases in the past indicate that the mindset of people might be hard to change for the next 20–30 years. A recent case dated 30th June 2020, states that an Indian–American employee named “John Doe ” working at Cisco accused his managers of harassing him because he is “Dalit” Indian, a population which was once referred to as “Untouchables”. Imagine if this is the situation that Indians are facing outside their country what might be the condition of people living in their motherland. Why are people differentiated based on their caste and religion and why not based on their good and bad deeds? Keeping this in mind, A 36-year-old father from Gujarat battled to get a “secular” school certificate for his daughter which does not mention her caste or religion and eventually won it after a fight of several days but this news was not given the importance it needed because this wouldn’t have given enough TRP ratings for Indian News channels. In older times, when there were no facilities and a few numbers of humans were alive, they adopted different work lives and skills and for the expansion in the amount of work and skills in humans they taught their coming generations the same things. This was misjudged and eventually, we named it in different castes. God never differentiates humans; he has a basic policy of karma which rewards the deserving and punishes the one who sins. As we all know, not every lower caste person is poor, and not every person belonging to the general caste is rich and if we want to reserve seats can it be not be done looking at the poverty line? Looking at the recent cases doing this seems impossible. Last year in May, a Dalit man was beaten by a group of upper caste people in a remote village just because he ate in front of them. He was beaten so brutally that he died after 9 days.
Even if the court decides to punish the criminals, a family was broken, and their loss is irreplaceable. Many of such cases are not even known to us, many families lose their loved ones and our country loses humanity with each such case.
An intelligent Scheduled caste person is always judged based on his quota and an intelligent general caste person often loses his/her seat to a privileged and a non-intelligent lower caste person. The reservation system needs to be looked upon and is a serious concern that might not give us the talent that our country needs.
Until every person is treated with respect and Is not judged based on, caste things cannot change. Inter-caste marriage is a prime example. Due to the caste system in India, only 5% percent of marriages are inter-caste and Someone who dares to marry a person from the other caste is either murdered or is left with no family. Who started these norms? Our elders? And if yes then on what basis?
According to the Hindu mythological book “The Bhagavat Geeta,” there are four types of castes that are divided based on the work that people do and can even be changed with the work of the person.
People in our country were standing up for “Racism” faced by people in “America” but nobody wants to take up the issue of casteism prevailing in our “Modern India”.