Caste Based Reservation In India
Caste Based Reservation In India
Introduction
The origin of caste system in India dates back to the vedic period. The first picture of the social life of indo-aryans was drawn in Rig-Veda, the earliest record of the Vedic period. It points to the functional theory of the origin of the classes and shows how their life was organized on the principles of division of labour which divided the whole society into four major divisions, the Brahmans, the Kashtriyas, the Vaisyas and the Shudras.
Caste System has been the bane of Hindu society for centuries. In terms of damage to human progress and suffering, it did much greater damage for a much longer period to a great many people than the slave system of the western world. The caste system was a clever invention of the later Vedic people, who found it to be a convenient way of perpetuating their religious distinction and social privileges.
The idea of keeping oneself away from unclean people is understandable in a society that was obsessed with the concept of physical and mental purity. Even in modern societies people would not like to interact with people who are physically unclean and are into wrong ways of living. But what was wrong with Vedic society was to attribute these qualities to a group of people on a hereditary basis irrespective of their individual distinctions and then deny them perpetually the right to lead a normal and decent life through self effort.
In due course of time, the Shudras were deprived of any justice whatsoever. The untouchables represented the despised group of population consisting of outcastes, aborigines and the offsprings of mixed unions. With the ritual disadvantages of the group, economic disadvantages coincided due to the concentration of power in the hands of upper castes, and this stabilised the existing structure of the castes.
The initiative to reform this system was already taken...
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