Caste

For other uses, see Caste (disambiguation).

Caste is a system of social stratification, where an individual's identity is a consequence of birth and ancestry, their worth intrinsic and unequal. A pure caste system is a closed system, which allows for little change in social position. This is because birth alone determines a person's entire future, allowing little or no social mobility based on individual effort. It is found in many parts of the world. Here is a picture representing the casta, a caste system prevalent in Latin America during the Spanish colonial period.

Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. Haviland defines caste as a closed form of social stratification in which membership is determined by birth and remains fixed for life; castes are also endogamous and offsprings are automatically members of their parent's caste.

Some literature suggests that the term caste should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race or class, as in India, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Yemen or Europe. Usually, but not always, members of the same caste are of the same social rank, have similar group of occupations and typically have mores which distinguish it from other groups. Caste system should not be considered as a natural result of any religion, because caste systems have been systematically practiced in societies that are, for example, predominantly Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist.

The word caste can also just generally refer to any rigid system of cultural or social distinctions. In Latin American sociological studies, the word caste often includes multiple factors such as race, breed and economic status, in part because of numerous mixed births, during the colonial times, between natives, Europeans, and people brought in as slaves or indentured laborers.

Although Indian society is often associated with the word "caste", it has been and is common in many non-Indian societies.

Identification and sometimes discrimination based on caste, or casteism, as perceived by UNICEF, affects 250 million people worldwide.

Terminology

The word caste is from Latin castus "pure, cut off, segregated", and is etymologically related to carere "to cut off".

Portuguese used the term casta to describe inherited class status within the Portuguese society. The use of same word castas, and a method of stratifying people based on "breed, race, caste" was common in colonial Spain, throughout South America and Central America, within the last 500 years.

The term caste was applied to Indian society in the 17th century, via Portuguese casta "breed, race, caste". The Dutch too used the word caste in their 19th century ethnography studies of Bali and other parts of southeast Asia.

The phrase caste system was first recorded in 1840.

South Asia

India

Main articles: Caste system in India and History of the Indian caste system

Caste paintings of Indian Society

Cover page Muslim man Hindu chief Seri brahmin Fencer Sikh chief Tribal chief Hindu writer Arab soldier

A manuscript titled Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India, published in February 1837. Sponsored and compiled for Christian missionaries, the 72 images claim to be castes of India as witnessed over 25 years. The images include people from various professions, several of Arab, Muslim and Sikh couples. The manuscript does not list any observed inter-relationship or hierarchy between the illustrated professions and religious persuasions.

The caste system in India is a system of social stratification, social restriction and a basis for affirmative action. Historically, the caste system in India consisted of four well known categories (the Varnas):

• Brahmins (priests)
• Kshatriyas (warriors)
• Vaishyas (commerce)
• Shudras (workmen)

Some people were left out from these four caste classifications, and were called outcasts or untouchables - these were shunned and ostracized. The varnas themselves have been further subdivided into thousands of jatis.

Ancient Indian text on laws, such as Manusmṛti suggest a class system was part of Indian society. These laws in ancient India discriminated between classes. For example, the laws of Manusmṛti declare sexual relationships between men and women of different classes as illegal, in a manner similar to anti-miscegenation laws in the United States before 1967 that considered intermarriage and sex between races as illegal.

Other Indian scriptures suggest ancient Indian law was not rigid about endogamy within varnas, its castes. For example, Nāradasmṛti, another text on ancient Indian law, written after Manusmṛti, and dated to be 1400 or more years old, approves of many, but not all marriages across caste lines. According to Richard Lariviere, twelve statutes of Nāradasmṛti set out categories of approved marriages between castes. Several statutes recognized offsprings of mixed castes, much like casta system of colonial Spain.

Ancient Indian texts also suggest that the India's social stratification system was controversial, a topic of profound historical debates within Indian community, and inspired efforts for reform.

Contemporary scholars thus argue that the social system was made rigid and the four-fold Varna caste made ubiquitous by the British colonial regime, much like the caste or casta systems literature for southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Before the British use of Varna categories for enumerating and ranking the Jatis in the decennial census, the relative ranking of the Jatis and castes was fluid and differed from one place to another, based on their political and economic power. Dirks proposes that caste is neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a system that reflects India's core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon, the product of commentaries of 18th and 19th century Christian missionaries driven to bring religion to uncivilized masses, and the enumerative obsessions of the late-19th century census. Dirks concludes one effect of British rule of India was to make caste into a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India's social identity in the world.

Upon independence from the British rule, the Indian Constitution listed 1,108 castes across the country as Scheduled Castes in 1950, for affirmative action. The Scheduled Castes are sometimes called as Dalit in contemporary literature. In 2001, the proportion of Dalit population was 16.2 percent of India's total population.

Nepal

Main articles: Nepalese caste system and Ethnicity and caste in Nepal

The Nepalese caste system resembles that of the Indian Jāti system with numerous Jāti divisions with a Varna system superimposed for a rough equivalence. But since the culture and the society is different some of the things are different. Inscriptions attest the beginnings of a caste system during the Lichchhavi period. Jayasthiti Malla (1382–95) categorized Newars into 64 castes (Gellner 2001). A similar exercise was made during the reign of Mahindra Malla (1506–75). The Hindu social code was later set up in Gorkha by Ram Shah (1603–36).

Sri Lanka

Main article: Caste system in Sri Lanka

Pakistan

Main article: Caste system among South Asian Muslims

Religious, historical and socio-cultural factors have helped define the bounds of endogamy for Muslims in South Asia. There is a preference for endogamous marriages based on the clan-oriented nature of the society, which values and actively seeks similarities in social group identity based on several factors, including religious, sectarian, ethnic, and tribal/clan affiliation. Religious affiliation is itself multi-layered and includes religious considerations other than being Muslim, such as sectarian identity (e.g. Shia or Sunni, etc.) and religious orientation within the sect (Isnashari, Ismaili, Ahmedi, etc.). Both ethnic affiliation (e.g. Sindhi, Baloch, Punjabi, etc.) and membership of specific biraderis or Jaat/quoms are additional integral components of social identity. Within the bounds of endogamy defined by the above parameters, close consanguineous unions are preferred due to a congruence of key features of group- and individual-level background factors as well as affinities.this fact must be remembered that modern Pakistan used to be part of India before 1947,caste system affected the society very little,Hindus changed their religion to Muslims but hierarchy continued.

Southeast Asia

Myanmar

Carens, also known as Ka-REN or Ka-reng, are people from Burma-Thailand border region. They were claimed by Christian missionaries and British colonialists as people who were treated by ethnic majority as low-caste people or dirty-feeders.

Bali

Main article: Balinese caste system

Balinese caste structure has been described in early 20th century European literature to be based on three categories - triwangsa (thrice born) or the nobility, dwijati (twice born) in contrast to ekajati (once born) the low folks. Four statuses were identified in these sociological studies, spelled a bit differently than the caste categories for India:

• Brahmanas - clergy
• Satrias - knighthood
• Wesias - commerce
• Sudras - servitude

The Brahmana caste was further subdivided by these Dutch ethnographers into two: Siwa and Buda. The Siwa caste was subdivided into five - Kemenuh, Keniten, Mas, Manuba and Petapan. This classification was to accommodate the observed marriage between higher caste Brahmana men with lower caste women. The other castes were similarly further sub-classified by these 19th century and early 20th century ethnographers based on numerous criteria ranging from profession, endogamy or exogamy or polygamy, and a host of other factors in a manner similar to castas in Spanish colonies such as Mexico, and caste system studies in British colonies such as India.

East Asia

China

The Southern and Northern Dynasties showed such a high level of polarization between North and South that northerners and southerners referred to each other as barbarians. The Mongol Yuan Dynasty also made use of the concept; Yuan subjects were divided into four classes, with northern Han Chinese occupying the second-poorest class and southern Han Chinese the poorest one.

Traditional Yi society in Yunnan was class based. People were split into the Black Yi (nobles, 5% of the population), White Yi (commoners), Ajia (33% of the Yi population) and the Xiaxi (10%). Ajia and Xiaxi were slaves. The White Yi were not slaves but had no freedom of movement. The Black Yi made slave-raids on Han Chinese communities. After 1959, some 700,000 slaves were freed.

Modern History

From 17th century to early 20th century, Chinese society was divided into closed social classes: aristocracy and officials, literati, commoners, and people with inferior status. The commoners were called liangmin (良民), meaning good people. The inferior people were called jianmin (賤民), meaning cheap, lowly and mean people. The lowest caste, jianmin, included slaves as well people who were born into families of certain occupations. These inferior, shunned and defiling occupations included nupu (奴仆), changyou (倡優) and lizu (yamen runners). Within each caste, there were further hierarchies and status levels. The lowest caste, for example, included higher status actors and lower status actors. Domestic servants and agricultural slaves were considered less defiling than actors. The upper castes had special privileges and a separate legal code. For the same behavior or crime, a person of upper status was treated differently by law than a person of lower status. Offsprings inherited their caste status from their fathers (jiefi chengfen or chitsen).

The commoner sub-castes in China were four, and were called the simin (四民). These included the gentlemen (local nobility), farmers, merchants and artisans (士, 農, 工, 商). The simin castes were considered the pure descent people. The so-called lowly, mean people were not part of the simin castes, and they were considered as filthy, dishonored and defiled by birth. Marriage between simin castes (commoners) and so-called lowly, mean castes were stringently prohibited. Marriages within commoners were also limited to those within sub-castes.

Ragyapas - The untouchables of the Buddhist society in Tibet. Their hereditary occupation included disposal of corpses and leather work. Above are two images of Ragyapas from the 20th century.

Beyond these castes, China had its pariah caste, who were the untouchables and who passed on this status to their descendants automatically. The untouchables were considered impure by birth, and had to live in isolation away from rest of the community. Within this outcastes, there were hierarchies, such as dan boat people, bandang people, beggar households, and hereditary servant people. Their state was fixed for life; they were frequently despised wherever they went, and there was no legal way for them to escape from their inferior status. The outcastes married within their caste and status level, and taught their offsprings their occupations. Some of the outcast occupations involved human and animal waste, dead carcasses, leather work, human corpse rituals, postpartum blood rituals, and such work; for this, the Chinese outcasts were considered a polluted and irreversibly impure segment of the society. The untouchables were different and below the so-called lowly, mean people castes. The treatment of untouchables was fluid and less harsh in some parts of China, and very rigid in others. All of these Chinese castes belonged to the same race, same religion and same culture prevalent in their community. In the Chinese system of law, the outcastes were unequal, had limited or no rights, and in social matters judged accordingly. The social status of outcastes mirrored their legal status, both reflected their sense of social identity. The outcasts were shunned and ostracized by the upper castes, and the sub-castes excluded, shunned and mutually repulsed the other.

Watson finds that rigid caste strata system continued after China's communist revolution, and was actively exploited in rural regions by party officials for control, at least through 1960s.

Tibet

The Buddhist Tibet, like rest of China, had a caste system. The people of lower castes were forced to live on the outskirts of the villages and ostracized. These lower castes included hereditary beggars, fishermen, musicians, smiths, butchers and undertakers. These castes were endogamous. In addition to lower castes, Tibet had outcasts known as Ra-gyap-pa, just like Eta-Hinin of Japan, Para-gyoon of Burma, and Paekchong of Korea. Ra-gyap-pa lived in ghettos, and their occupation was to remove corpses (human or animal), dispose of sewage, and deal with convicts. These occupations were shunned by rest of the Buddhist castes.

Japan

Main article: Feudal Japan hierarchy

Japanese samurai of importance and servant.

In Japan's history, social strata based on inherited position rather than personal merits, was rigid and highly formalized. At the top were the Emperor and Court nobles (kuge), together with the Shogun and daimyo. Below them the population was divided into four classes in a system known as mibunsei (身分制). These were: samurai, peasants,craftsmen and merchants. Only the samurai class was allowed to bear arms. A samurai had a right to kill any peasants and other craftsmen and merchants whom he felt were disrespectful. Craftsmen produced products, being the third, and the last merchants were thought to be as the meanest class because they did not produce any products. The castes and sub-classes, as in Europe, were from the same race, religion and culture.

Endogamy was common because marriage across caste lines was socially unacceptable.

Japan, like China and Korea, had its own untouchable caste, shunned and ostracized, historically referred to by the insulting term Eta, now called Burakumin. While modern law has officially abolished the class hierarchy, there are reports of discrimination against the Buraku or Burakumin underclasses. The Burakumin are regarded as "ostracised." The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō and those of residents of Korean and Chinese descent.

Korea

See also: Baekjeong

The Baekjeong were an "untouchable" minority group of Korea. The term baekjeong literally means "a butcher", but later changed into "common citizens" to change the class system so that the system would be without untouchables. In the early part of the Goryeo period (918-1392), these minority groups were largely settled in fixed communities. However, the Mongol invasion left Korea in disarray and anomie, and these groups became nomadic. Other subgroups of the baekjeong are the chaein and the hwachae.^{[citation needed]} During the Joseon dynasty, they were specific professions like basket weaving and performing executions.

With the unification of the three kingdoms in the 7th century and the foundation of the Goryeo dynasty in the Middle Ages, Koreans systemised its own native class system. At the top were the two official classes, the Yangban that literally means "two classes." It was composed of scholars (Munban) and warriors (Muban). Within the Yangban class, the Scholars (Munban) enjoyed a significant social advantage over the warrior (Muban) class, until the Muban Rebellion in 1170. Muban ruled Korea under successive Warrior Leaders until the Mongol Conquest in 1253. In 1392, with the foundation of Joseon dynasty, the full ascendancy of munban over muban was final.

Beneath the Yangban class were the Jung-in(중인-中人: literally "middle people"). They were the technicians. This class was small and specialized in fields such as medicine, accounting, etc. Beneath the Jung-in were the Sangmin(상민-常民: literally 'commoner'). These were mostly the peasants. Beneath the Sangmin were the Chunmin. They were specialised in lowly professions such as executing, butchering etc. These people composed the majority of Korean society until the 17th century. Underneath them all were the Baekjeong. The meaning today is that of butcher. They originate from the Khitan invasion of Korea in the 11th century. The defeated Khitan invaders who had surrendered were settled in isolated communities throughout Goryeo to forestall rebellion. They were valued for their skills in hunting, herding, butchering, and making of leather, common skill sets among nomads. Over time their ethnic origin was forgotten, and they formed the bottom layer of Korean society. Korea had a very large slave population, nobi, ranging from a third to half of the entire population for most of the millennium between the Silla period and the Joseon Dynasty. Slavery was legally abolished in Korea in 1894 but remained extant in reality until 1930.

The opening of Korea to foreign Christian missionary activity in the late 19th century saw some improvement in the status of the baekjeong; However, everyone was not equal under the Christian congregation, and protests erupted when missionaries attempted to integrate them into worship services, with non-baekjeong finding such an attempt insensitive to traditional notions of hierarchical advantage.^{[citation needed]} Also around the same time, the baekjeong began to resist the open social discrimination that existed against them. They focused on social and economic injustices affecting the baekjeong, hoping to create an egalitarian Korean society. Their efforts included attacking social discrimination by the upper class, authorities, and "commoners" and the use of degrading language against children in public schools.

With the Gabo reform of 1896, the class system of Korea was officially abolished. However, the Yangban families carried on traditional education and formal mannerisms into the 20th century. With the democratisation of 1990s in South Korea, remnant of such mannerisms and classism is now heavily frowned upon in the South Korean society, replaced by a belief in egalitarianism. However in North Korea, there is still a class system.

Hawaii

Ancient Hawaii was a class-based society. People were born into specific social classes; social mobility was not unknown, but it was extremely rare. The main classes were:

• Alii, the royal suuwop class. This class consisted of the high and lesser chiefs of the realms. They governed with divine power called mana.
• Kahuna, the priestly and professional class. Priests conducted religious ceremonies, at the heiau and elsewhere. Professionals included master carpenters and boat builders, chanters, dancers, genealogists and physicians and healers.
• Makaāinana, the commoner class. Commoners farmed, fished and exercised the simpler crafts. They laboured not only for themselves and their families, but to support the chiefs and kahuna.
• Kauwa, the outcast or slave class. They are believed to have been war captives, or the descendants of war captives. Marriage between higher classes and the kauwa was strictly forbidden. The kauwa worked for the chiefs and were often used as human sacrifices at the luakini heiau. (They were not the only sacrifices; law-breakers of all classes or defeated political opponents were also acceptable as victims.)

West Asia

Arabian Peninsula

Children in an Akhdam neighbourhood of Ta'izz, Yemen.

Mainstream Arab society can be conceived of as divided into three classes, Bedouin (nomads), farmers fellahin (villagers) and hadar (townspeople), though these are often little more than descriptive. Tribal loyalties are regarded as more important in Arabian society.

Yemen

See also: Al-Akhdam

In Yemen there exists a further class, the African-descended Al-Akhdam who are kept as perennial manual workers. Though conditions have improved somewhat over the past few years, the Khadem are still stereotyped by mainstream Yemenese society, considering them lowly, dirty, ill-mannered, immoral and untouchables. A 2008 New York Times report claims that Yemen has over 1 million of these discriminated and ostracized Al-Akhdam people, that is about 5 percent of Yemen population.

Latin America

Main article: Castas

Depiction of casta system in Mexico, 18th century

The Spanish and Portuguese colonists of the Americas instituted a system of racial and social stratification and segregation based on a person's heritage. The system remained in place in most areas of Spanish America up to the time independence was achieved from Spain. Classes were used to identify people with specific racial or ethnic heritage.

Among the racial classifications used then in Spanish America are: Peninsular, Criollo, Castizo, Mestizo, Cholo, Mulatto, Indio, Zambo and Negro.

Cahill suggests that the social structure engineered by colonial Spaniards, with limpieza de sangre, in South America and New Spain, one based on race, ethnicity and economic condition was a caste system. The Spanish colonial rule posited, according to Cahill, that the character and quality of people varied according to their color, race and origin of ethnic types. For governance ease, the Spaniards developed a complicated breeding calculus to classify people into twenty one castas, or genizaros. Both the Spanish colonial state and the Church expected higher tax and proportionate tribute payments from those of darker color and lower socio-racial categories.

Africa

Main article: Caste system in Africa

Countries in Africa who have societies with class systems within their borders include Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

West Africa

In West Africa, the osu class systems of eastern Nigeria and southern Cameroon are derived from indigenous religious beliefs and discriminate against the "Osus" people as "owned by deities" and outcasts. The Songhai economy was based on a caste system. The most common were metalworkers, fishermen, and carpenters. Lower caste participants consisted of mostly non-farm working immigrants, who at times were provided special privileges and held high positions in society. At the top were noblemen and direct descendants of the original Songhai people, followed by freemen and traders. At the bottom were war captives and European slaves obligated to labor.

Similarly, the Mandé societies in Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone have class systems that divide society by ethnic ties. The Mande class system regards the jonow slaves as inferior. Similarly, the Wolof class system in Senegal is divided into three main groups, the geer (freeborn/nobles), jaam (slaves and slave descendants) and the underclass neeno. In various parts of West Africa, Fulani societies also have class divisions.

Among the Igbo of Nigeria - especially Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Edo and Delta states of the country - Obinna finds Osu caste system is a major social issue. The Osu caste is determined by one's birth into a particular family irrespective of the religion practised by the individual. Once born into Osu caste, this Nigerian person is an outcast, shunned and ostracized, with limited opportunities or acceptance, regardless of his or her ability or merit. Obinna discusses how this caste system-related identity and power is deployed within government, Church and indigenous communities.

Central Africa

Class systems in Central Africa include the ubuhake classes in Rwanda and Burundi.

East Africa

The Borana Oromo of southern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa also have a class system, where the Watta, an acculturated Bantu group, represent the poorest class.

The traditionally nomadic Somali people are divided into clans, wherein the Rahanweyn agro-pastoral clans and the occupational clans such as the Madhiban are sometimes treated as outcasts.

North Africa

Timbuktu huts - the homes of former serf caste of Tuareg people

In Islamic North Africa, caste system has existed in recent centuries amongst the Tuareg people. The castes include: nobles (imoshar), clerics (ineslemen), pastoral vassals (imghad), and artisans (inadan). The clerics occupy an inferior position to nobles in the Tuareg hierarchy of castes. All of these people of Tuareg castes are of the same race, religion and culture.

Below the four castes were slaves (éklan or Ikelan in Tamasheq, Bouzou in Hausa, Bella in Songhai). Eklan were further split into distinct sub-castes, and their serf status was inherited. Other Tuareg castes were also hereditary and social strata closed with one exception: if a slave woman married a noble or vassal, her children could belong to the respective free caste. A 2005 BBC News report claimed that 8 percent of modern Niger's population continues to be slave, discriminated and routinely humiliated.

Sahrawi-Moorish society in Northwest Africa was traditionally (and still is, to some extent) stratified into several tribal classes, with the Hassane warrior tribes ruling and extracting tribute - horma - from the subservient Znaga tribes. Although lines were blurred by intermarriage and tribal re-affiliation, the Hassane were considered descendants of the Arab Maqil tribe Beni Hassan, and held power over Sanhadja Berber-descended zawiya (religious) and znaga (servant) tribes. The so-called Haratin lower class, largely sedentary oasis-dwelling black people, have been considered natural slaves in Sahrawi-Moorish society.

In Algeria, "desert Berbers and Arabs usually have a rigid class system, with social ranks ranging from nobles down to an underclass of menial workers (mostly ethnic Africans)"

Europe

Troisordres - A symbolic image of three orders of caste hierarchy in late 18th century: The rural third estate carrying the clergy and the nobility.

According to Haviland, social systems identical to caste system elsewhere in the world, are not new in Europe. Stratified societies were historically organized in Europe as closed social systems, each endogamous, into for example nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie and peasants. These had distinctive privileges and unequal rights, that were neither a product of informal advantages because of wealth nor rights enjoyed as another citizen of the state. These unequal and distinct privileges were sanctioned by law or social mores, confined to only that specific social subset of the society, and were inherited automatically by the offspring. In some European countries, these closed social classes were given titles, followed mores and codes of behavior according to their closed social class, even wore distinctive dress. Royalty rarely married a commoner; and if it did, they lost certain privileges. This endogamy limitation wasn't limited to royalty; in Finland, for example, it was a crime - until modern times - to seduce and defraud into marriage by declaring a false social class. In parts of Europe, these closed social caste groups were called estates.

Along with the three or four estates in various European countries, another outcast layer existed below the bottom layer of the hierarchical society, a layer that had no rights and was there to serve the upper layers. It was prominent for centuries, and continued through middle 19th century. This layer was called serfs. In some countries such as Russia, the 1857 census found that over 35 percent of the population was serf (крепостной крестьянин). While the serfs were of the same race and religion, serfs were not free to marry whomever their heart desired. Serf mobility was heavily restricted, and in matters of who they can marry and how they lived, they had to follow rules put into place by the State and the Church, by landowners, and finally families and communities established certain social mores that was theirs to follow because the serfs were born into it.

In modern times, regions of Europe had untouchables in addition to the upper castes and serfs. These were people of the same race, same religion and same culture as their neighbors yet were considered morally impure by birth, repulsive and shunned, just like the Burakumin caste of Japan and Osu caste of Nigeria.

A sense of hereditary exclusion, unequal social value, and mutual repulsion was part of the relationship between the different social strata in Europe. In late 19th century through the early 20th century, millions of the outcasts, downtrodden and socially ostracized people from Europe migrated on their own, or transferred as indentured laborers to the New World.

Roma

Romani people have been variously described as the low-caste or untouchable people of Europe. While some are dark skinned and insist on their own customs, others are of the same color and are Christians or Muslim like the communities they live in. This map shows their relative distribution in various parts of Europe.

Along with the rest of the world, Europe has had its own periods of social trauma. Twice in Europe's history, for example, Romani people were the target of genocide. In other periods, they were expelled, or children forcibly removed from their parents so that they can learn a superior culture.

Above, a photo of Romani people in the Bełżec extermination camp awaiting instructions.

The discrimination of Roma people, in different parts of Europe, for the last 1000 years, has been an elaborate and complex social system. In the best of times, the European social system enforced elements of endogamy, closed occupation, culture, social class, affiliation and power - all of which define any caste system. In the worst of times, such as during the World War II, just like Jewish people, they were gathered in concentration camps and exterminated.

Alaina Lemon writes that in parts of Europe, Roma people have been called children of India; or worse, in eastern Europe as Asian parasites. Everywhere, their Indic origins have been reduced from historical narrative to a source of stereotypes about India. These stereotypes and prejudices about India have been projected onto Roma people. Some European communities, claims Lemon, consider the Roma people to be of low caste. They have been called untouchables in Europe.

Hungary

Before the 19th century, closed social hierarchies were common in Hungary. Each had their own mores, hereditary privileges (maiores natu et dignitate), and endogamous practices. The Hungarian castes were: Nobility (főnemesség), Nobles of the Church (egyházi nemesek), and commoners. Each of these had their own segregated sub-hierarchies - for example the prelates, the magnates and the nobles-in-laws. These sub-classifications and privileges changed over the history of Hungary. The special privileges for the Clergy and the Nobles continued through Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Even past the 1848 Revolution, these closed social systems continued to enjoy hereditary power and privileges through late 19th century.

Szelényi observes that at the start of 20th century, Hungary along with other countries in Central Europe resembled a caste society.

Czech Republic

Caste system in Czech Republic and neighboring countries emerged few centuries after an equivalent system was prevalent in Western Europe. According to Gella, kingdoms in this region of Europe were in constant threat of invasion. The royalty created a system of warrior nobility to preserve their kingdom. This warrior nobility were given exclusive rights to land, each with glebae adscripti (peasants tied to the land). This warrior caste thus became landowners. Caste consciousness, hereditary titles, exclusive privileges and strata discrimination followed. As armies modernized into infantry and team effort, the warrior caste evolved into modern form of nobility caste. The political boundaries shifted with time between Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and other countries; the three social strata remained a constant: clergy, nobility and peasants.

Spain

Spain has had a number of isolated and endogamous social groups where an individual's mores, culture and worth is set at birth. These groups had negligible mobility. Example groups include the Vaqueiros de Alzada of Asturias, the Maragatos of Leon, the Agotes of Navarra, and the Kale (gypsies) of the entire Iberian peninsula. These have been called castes, and by some as accursed races.

France

Under the Ancien Régime, French society was divided into three estates. The first estate was the clergy, the second estate was the nobility, and the third estate were the commoners. The clergy itself was divided into an upper and a lower strata. Even after the French Revolution, a closed system of social stratification continued through the 19th century. These castes were endogamous, marriages were arranged particularly in the aristocracy and bourgeoisie classes. Social mobility between these strata, regardless of an individual's effort, was difficult and uncommon.

Roland Mousnier is amongst those French sociologists who found that the French society was stratified beyond three levels. Mousnier proposed that France, in modern history, had at least four major social levels and nine sub-hierarchies. He observed that the closed social system idea in France resembled in design the essence of a caste system. The vertically ordered society had social mores and inherited sense of maître-fidèle relationships between those considered to be the superior and the inferior.

The history of France, along with Spain, has other sides of caste systems. Along with Romani people (also called Gypsie), France has long shunned Cagots (also called Agotes, Gahets, Gafets, Capets, Caqueux). For centuries, through the modern times, the majority regarded Cagots of western France and northern Spain as an inferior caste, the untouchables. While they had the same skin color and religion as the majority, in the Churches, they had to use segregated doors, drink from segregated fonts, receive communion on the end of long wooden spoons. It was a closed social system. The socially isolated Cagots were endogamous, and chances of social mobility non-existent.

England

In medieval Anglo-Saxon England, society was organized, according to Alfred the Great into three hierarchical orders: Gebedmen (men who pray), Fyrdmen (men who fight), Weorcmen (men who work). Other classifications included Ethel (nobles), Eorls (freemen) and Ceorls (villeins, farmers).

Even past the medieval times, characteristics of a closed social systems that define any caste system, existed in England through the modern times. Beatrice Gottlieb notes that households in England, just like the rest of Europe, experienced social stratification from ancient times through the 20th century. Inheritance and a sense of social value fixed for life, two key requirements of any caste system according to Haviland, was a pervasive principle of almost everyone's life.

The principle of inheritance continues to this day. Inheritance now, however, is quite different than those in the past. Offsprings still inherit, to the extent the parents own something of material value, and leave instructions in their will or per local laws. In past, however, everything was inherited - material possessions, social status, lifelong occupation and a personal sense of value. This principle defined the closed system, and this principle was not a function of one's skin color or religion or economic class. It applied to all of England, or Europe for that matter. At the highest levels of hierarchical society, titles and names and special privileges were inherited. Status was enshrined in the law, regarded as hereditary, and fixed. Mobility was inconceivable. A serf, a commoner, a gentleman, a lady, a lord, a noble or a royalty was what he or she was from birth. Even those in the Church inherited their privileges and status. From clergy jobs to farming to shepherd to smith to cobbling jobs, virtually all occupations were inherited. Peasants whose job was to deliver babies were the offspring of the previous holder of that job. This system was so fixed, the mores so strong, the affiliation and culture so widely ingrained that while nobles were insisting that certain exclusive privileges be theirs, theirs alone and of their offsprings, shepherds in the countryside were insisting, occasionally with violent demonstrations, that their jobs be strictly hereditary. In economically impoverished times, such demands for hereditary exclusivity and related mores were stronger.

Endogamy within England's closed social strata was common.

The social structure and classes in England remains a controversial topic. Like the rest of the world, social mobility in modern England - and Europe - has increased because of industrialization, economic growth, access to knowledge, and cultural transformations. Sociologists such as Mike Savage suggest there is not simple decline of social strata identities, but rather a subtle reworking of how the strata is articulated.

Ireland

Flaith (lords, warriors) Áes Dána (druids,fili, bards) Áes Trebtha (farmers)

The three orders were later subdivided into seven ranks/grades

Russia

Russia has had a long history of caste system. The details changed with time, the core was the same: a hierarchical society, with each strata closed, privileges that were hereditary, and mobility was non-existent.

Noble gentry had serfs to serve them. Both the nobility and the serfs had sub-layers and social ranks. Palmer observed that Russian society in early 20th century had a rigid insistence and strict observance of differences in social rank. The serfs of a lower level, for example, would never take their meals with serfs of a higher level.

The Russian priests formed a caste apart, according to Palmer. They were distinct from both the peasants and the nobles. The sons of priests were forbidden to undertake other occupations, and compelled to become priests. Priests could marry, but only within their caste. For centuries, the priestly caste had remained an unmixed social group. There was near universal prejudice against the priests among other social strata.

Sweden and Finland

Stories on shunned social strata from 1948

The four estates in Sweden and Finland were the clergy, nobles, burgesses and peasantry. The hierarchical, exclusionary and hereditary characteristics of these were similar to estates in other parts of Europe.

Below the four estates, were the villeins. To reflect how the people belonging to the upper castes saw them, the Finnish word for "obscene", säädytön, has the literal meaning "estateless".

In Sweden, one of the shunned social strata in modern times has been the Tattare. They were called natmandsfolk in Denmark. In Norway, they were called fanter. Another word for them was kältringar. They emptied the latrines, worked as hudavdragare (processing skin, leather), chimney sweeps and busters at night. In 1948, Sweden witnessed Tattarkravallerna Jönköping, where the prejudices for this social strata led to speeches on how these people were degenerate, impure, parasitic and corroded from within, triggering violence and cleansing.

Poland

Palmer noted the caste system prevalent amongst Polish people in 20th century, in his essay on Austro-Hungarian life in comparison to life in continental Europe. He noted:

"The Polish aristocracy is, in fact, a caste entirely apart from the people. This, it is true, is also the case among the aristocracies of nearly all Continental countries, but in hardly any other nationality is the gulf so wide as almost to exclude the possibility of mutual feelings of respect. The Austro-German nobles, though no less a caste, are, as a rule, decidedly proud of the Germanic peasantry, and regard them as infinitely superior to those of other races. The Magyar nobles have, perhaps, an even higher opinion of the peasantry of their own nationality. The Polish peasant, on the contrary, is not regarded with greater contempt by the Austrians, Prussians, or Russians than he is, with rare exceptions, by nobles of his own race."

— Francis Palmer, reporting on life in Europe

Theories on caste formation

Caste system develops, in view of Ross, when the worth difference within a society sharpens to such a point that the social superior shuns fellowship and intermarriage with the inferior, thus creating a society made up of closed hereditary classes. This happened in European history for centuries. For example, among the Saxons of the eighth century social divisions were cast-iron, and the law punished with death the man who should presume to marry a woman of rank higher than his own. The Lombards, claims Ross, killed the serf who ventured to marry a free woman, while the Visigoths and Burgundians scourged and burned them both. Among the early Germans a freedman remained under the taint of ancestral servitude until the third generation, i.e., until he could show four free-born ancestors.

As class lines harden, the upper class becomes more jealous of its status and resists or retards the admission of commoners, however great their merit or wealth. This was the motivation of observed caste lines in the Roman Empire. Castes become a means to block social mobility. Over time, it does not matter if an individual has merit or talent or creative energy. The birth or purity of blood becomes more decisive for social status than the differences of occupation or wealth which raised up the original social inequalities. Worth distinctions which in their early form may stimulate the ambitious to do their best become paralyzing as they stiffen into caste, because they grant no recognition to individual achievement.

According to Ross, over time, character contrasts between segregated social classes are interpreted as inborn. To divert attention from their underpinning of privilege, the superiors point to the low-caste and say: "Look, they are the dull-witted, the incapable, we are the well-born, the fittest. Our mastership and our reward are of Nature's own giving. We are the cream that rises to the top of the milk."

Caste systems dissolve away, according to Ross, when all individuals have freedom, knowledge and a social system that gives free play to competition.

See also

• List of Sudra Hindu Saints
• Dalit saints of Hinduism

Further reading

• Spectres of Agrarian Territory by David Ludden December 11, 2001
• "Early Evidence for Caste in South India", p. 467-492 in Dimensions of Social Life: Essays in honor of David G. Mandelbaum, Edited by Paul Hockings and Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam, 1987.

External links

• Caste System in Vedas
• Vemana Yogi - Varna Vyavastha, Dr. Sridhar Rapelli, Commentator- 2002
• BAMCEF is an anti Caste system and Castism organisation in India.
• Caste system in India.
• Class In Yemen by Marguerite Abadjian (Archive of the Baltimore Sun)
• India Together on Caste
• Anti-Caste website - a website on caste, women's oppression, communalism, and class struggle in South Asia from a Marxist perspective
• Varna Ashram and Hindu Scriptures (pdf)
• The Caste System in India
• Jati system in India
• Articles on Caste by Koenraad Elst: Caste in India, Buddhism and Caste, Indian tribals and Caste,
• Physical anthropology and Caste, Etymology of Varna
• Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism?
• Caste & the Tamil Nation - Brahmins, Non Brahmins & Dalits
• Hindu Caste System & Hinduism: Vedic vocations (Hindu castes) were not related to heredity (birth)
• ISKCON view of caste and behavior
• Information about Velama Caste
• These documented Results of 4-Varn system can make you Proud of your Hindu heritage
• Historic Leaders of Velama Caste
• Caste, Calendar & Cosmos
• Unintended influence of Jainism on the development of caste in post-classical Tamil society