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Thanks for sharing this! Those who are not exposed to the caste based discrimination or even the concept of caste can't begin to appreciate how insidious it is. Your comment brings forward perfectly how caste acts at multiple levels and is pervasive in the Indian society.

My favourite example about this is from a (for the lack of better word) sub-religion named "Lingayats". It traces origins to a philosopher named Basavanna. He wanted a community sans discrimination so that every one from regardless of caste would be treated equally. And yet here we are, after hundreds of years, where there are 50+ castes/sub-castes in Lingayats too.



I had a classmate in France whose father was a Catholic Indian from Mangalore, a former Portuguese colony, and he mentioned that there were Catholics from right and wrong backgrounds for marriage (he married a French woman). Muslims have not escaped the caste system entirely either.


> exposed to the caste based discrimination or even the concept of caste

I think there's two sides of caste. One is the socio-economic and the other is religious. It's very very hard for me to make a generality about the Hindu religion but my understanding is that (at least from what I have seen in one specific location) Hindu priests and religious leaders had to be Brahmin. It seemed like cleaniness, washing, and purity for things like pooja were taken extremely seriously. I don't see how you can hold those beliefs and not be exposed to the concept of caste. I know Hinduism has many sects and Brahmin is not even the only upper caste, so there might be other views and I have seen non Brahmins claim to be priests, etc. But at least mainstream, traditional Hinduism seemed like caste was a part of it. I would also distinguish that in India, a lot of Brahmin priests were actually poor so it's not necessarily higher in socio-economic status.

I would be interested in hearing other perspectives though on views of caste because I definitely don't know a lot about Hinduism.


From what I recall, theoretically, and perhaps actually in the very distant past, caste was not hereditary. You gained your caste by your own actions. If you became a Hindu priest, and acted as a good one, you'd be a Brahmin by your acts.

Things obviously changed.


From quick searching it seems their total membership size is under 30 million.

How could they sustain 50+ castes/sub-castes?


From what little I understand of Indian systems the sub-castes are basically just extended family networks and allied families. The entire population of Scotland is less than 6 million, yet according to Wikipedia there are 16 named Scottish clans that begin with the letter A.


> From what little I understand of Indian systems the sub-castes are basically just extended family networks and allied families.

This isn't really true. Castes and sub-castes are endogamous. But the groups are large enough that members wouldn't really have any discernable familial ties with majority of the group.


It's the same with Scottish clans and allied clans. The oldest clans date back over a thousand years and sprouted off-shoots that would be 20 or 30 generations removed when counted back solely from the paternal (named) line (though sometimes the name passes through the maternal line, but this remove still holds). And while less endogamous than Indian castes, historically marriages between antagonist clans would likely be less frequent than between allied clans.

Sometimes clans have expanded themselves by basically recruiting distant relatives who have a different surname. Offering them food or money to change their surname to the clan name.


A more tongue in cheek response: Scotland has less than 6 million people but the Scottish Premiership manages to sustain 12 teams.


> for the lack of better word) sub-religion

The word you're looking for is sect.




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