India's Caste System

India's caste system is a rather complicated organization of its people. There are two different castes or organizations that are used: Varna and Jatis. Varna is a simpler, but less recognized system which consists of four main groups based on occupation: Teachers/priests, warriors/administrators, agriculturists/merchants, and artisans/service providers. Jatis on the other hand has many more groups which people fit under and considers more than just occupation. These groups consider things like wealth, where you live, if you are Hindu or not, if you have committed any crimes, or if you are sick.

One of the groups I found most interesting was the Untouchable group. Called "children of God" by Gandhi, but called "depressed" by themselves. These are the people who are seen as thieves, diseased, or have converted from Hinduism to another religion. I read somewhere that it was now illegal to have this as a caste, or for people who would fall into this caste to be treated as they used to be, but there is still a lot of discrimination against these people. They are looked down on and given the more degrading jobs.

One way that the Indian government is trying to improve the caste system (or give greater opportunity to people in lower castes) is through positive discrimination. This means that they are given benefits because of their lack of wealth. For example, schools are required to accept a certain percentage of students from each caste so that they do not allow only the more wealthy students to enter. This is helping the lower castes to improve, get better jobs, and gain more wealth for themselves.

I imagine that the caste system functions slightly different depending on where you are in India and it will be interesting to see it in action in Dharamsala as well as any other places we may go on our mid-semester retreat. Because in the past, people have been penalized or looked down upon for changing religions from Hindu to some other, I wonder if there is any prejudice of Hindus living in Dharamsala towards the Buddhist Tibetans. Of course, Tibetans did not change from Hindu to Buddhist, but I imagine that there still may exist some conflict or social differences because of their different religions. If there is a prejudice, this could greatly effect my project; not necessarily for bad or good, but it would play a large role in how Indians see and treat Tibetans.


1. Srinivas, M. N. "Caste in Modern India". The Journal of Asian Studies, Aug., 1957, Vol. 16(4), p.529 - 548.

2. "Caste System in Modern India". Web. Feb 8, 2011. <http://adaniel.tripod.com/modernindia.htm>

3. Wikipedia: Caste. Web. Feb 9, 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste#India>.