Saturday, January 12, 2008

India: 60 Years: 60 Words: [6] Caste Balance

India: 60 Years: 60 Words: [6] Caste Balance

[India has competed 60 years of independence and to mark this, I am presenting this series of Articles, about the words, that are meaning a lot for the progress of the country. If you feel I missed some thing [For listing of words see the first article “India: 60 Years: 60 Words”] do inform me at
premputar@gmail.com I will try to include that at the end of series]


We might not be wrong if we say that human civilization is the story of division, clash and tendency of showing one’s supremacy over the others by the human societies over the issue of caste. A few might would like to bundle the religion with this also. In Hindi “Jat” is the word for the caste and “Jat” means the one which is being held by human beings since the day of their birth [Janam] on the earth. Often people intended to mix the caste with religion and use these two different words in the capacity of reflecting the same meaning though the ground reality is not the same. Look at the Hinduism, the oldest life style of human beings on the earth, Hindu is taken as one the various religions of human beings, but when it comes to caste, Hindus shows numerous and higher number of castes, than any other religion of the world. India being a country with huge Hindu population has to keep this caste balance to its integrity and at the levels of justification for all for keeping the boosted growth and development of the country.

India was the first country to introduce constitution of human society on the bases of work, in the ancient India this was known as the “varana Aadharit Samaj”. The division was made on the format of earning the livelihood by the society members. Sector of the society related with the expansion and development of educational abilities was known as “Brahamans”, soldiers of the society were the “Chhatriya”, care of economy, commerce and industry was taken by the sector named “Vaishiya” where as the serving sector of the society was classified as the “Shudara”.

In the post Mahabharat era, the war which resulted in death reason for over 18 carors males, Indian societies went under the change in the formation of society and a new system “Varan Sankar” caste free society started to emerge. Scarcity of male members and abundance of female members was hurdling the development of rules and regulations of new society and the progress of creating a new social atmosphere was at the slowest growth rate.

Unfortunately, country went under the rule by Mugal Dynasties and British Kingdom for few centuries and this has affected the growth and development of newly formed caste free society, rather we can say that seeds of dividing the Indian society on the bases of caste were sown in this era. For the safer side of kingdom, rulers of that time preferred to be watering factor for the widening the though difference valley of Indians. The seeds sown at that time are presently, after the 60 years of independence are appearing in the form of giant trees and threatening the progress of the country.

After the independence in 1947, many social reforms have been adopted and introduced towards the formation of uniform Indian community but unfortunately as the Indian political wisdom fail to choose the right direction and proper roads for the purpose, hence not only the valley of casteism went to become deeper and wider but also a new problem of regionalism, get chance of taking head out. Might be due to this even after the 60 years of independence the land is with abundance of Punjabi, Gujarati, Assamees, Bengali, Rajathathanis, Marathas, Sindhis etc. and it is a hard equation to find an Indian in India.

In the modern India the issue of caste and region are become such sensitive that most of the people even the intellectuals didn’t dare to talk or write about the topic just because who knows which word might be going to be the burning point. The itching of wound is that the political wisdom of the country instead of working for the elopement of caste valley prefers to utilize the caste based reservations as a tool of strengthening their vote banks. All this is resulting as the reason for more and more caste based clashes among the Indian society. The recent one is from the state of Rajasthan among the Gujars and Meenas communities.

60 years of post independence era are the clear indication that still we have to learn; in a uniform society mutual understanding and respect for each other are the foundation stones of co-existence and growth of the community and subsequently of the nation. There is no space for difference either on the caste or on the bases of region in such uniform society. I would like to quote few Hindi Words here “Dariya Jab Sagar se Milta Hai, Dariya Nahi hai Rahata, Boond Boond Se Milkar Hi Sagar Itna Takatwar Hai Banata.” [When a river gets merged with ocean it doesn’t remain a river, it is power of water droplets which makes oceans such powerful.]. Thus if we wish to see our nation at the status of super power of the world we have to forget about our caste or region. We have to raise our mental levels and be part of the Indian main stream; this is the only way of regaining our prestigious and historic holding of being the world leaders.

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