There is no possible positive justification for the existence of castes: It's plainly just a softer version of slavery. It should be of the utmost importance to not only prevent the spread of castes, but to utterly destroy them as a concept.
> It should be of the utmost importance to not only prevent the spread of castes, but to utterly destroy them as a concept.
I don't think castes are spreading ideologically outside of India. A lot of Indian immigrants in the US completely ignore caste once they get here.
One problem is that the upper castes benefit from the system. They're sometimes wealthier and speak better English, so it's easier for them to immigrate and become managers at companies.
My experience is, an Indian born in India never leaves caste behind. Yes, Jatts pay no importance to caste when hiring, but them & every other caste makes matrimonial connections, social groups, gathering etc only in their caste. Only the third or fourth generation I have seen is kind of out of that shadow.
Indians born in India 90% of the time want to marry indian only, maybe by choice or by parent's or society's pressure. That too in same religion and caste.
Like I said in my original comment, caste mostly doesn't matter when hiring at work, but people don't marry out of caste, religion. Intercaste Love marriages happen, no doubt, but maybe in a single digit percentage in USA in Indians.
First few generations still know & believe in caste for matrimonial. Brahmins, rajpur, jatt etc still is the factor. The third or fourth generation born starts paying minimal attention to caste when finding love.
That will never work. Caste discrimination is bad and deserves to be gutted but there are aspects of caste that are deeply intertwined with the religion. For instance, certain families(regardless of their own caste) only permit Brahmins to carry-out certain religious rituals at their household. Castes also ensure that benign traditions are forwarded to the next generation. Affirmative action and criminalization of discrimination are much better approaches than attacking castes as a whole.
It isn't. However, attacking harmless religious practices isn't always wise. It might work in the west but it can have disastrous consequences in a religious country like India.
Not all schools of Hinduism recognize caste, much less consider it unchangeable.
People can practice their religion however they want, but it is also entirely fair to judge religions on the basis of the actual impact they have on the societies where they are dominant. I certainly do with Evangelical Christianity & its support of racism, classism, and sexism.
While I agree with you in this case we do have to acknowledge that such a statement can only be made from a position of moral superiority. That’s an uncomfortable position to take in the general case.
Yep. So am I. But we have to acknowledge that requires enforcing our morality on other cultures. And the consequence of that is that we believe our morality is superior.
I don't feel bad about objective moral superiority. Just beacuse the caste system is ingraind in Indian culture doesn't mean it should be respected or allowed.
Your sentence is what a typical fence sitter would say, where they think you can go through life not offending bad people and thinking that makes you tolerant.
