The opinions of both Mr Sarangadhara Sinha - "A look into the new Hindu society", and Mr Sankara Subramanian - "Caste structure is splitting Indians", reflect the current thought process going on in our society and I am glad that at least a section of intellectuals are thinking and reflecting about the issues our society is pressurized with these days. We as a society appear to be degenerating fast and people of this kind of thinking will definitely help rebuilding the future society where we may see the corrections to the current ills.

The Caste System evolved in India over a period of time as a result of the first ever attempt to organize the society into a product wings where each wing take one part of the society and it gave the expected results in terms of taking Indian Society to the pinnacle.

The rigid view of caste system became a reality because the knowledge of each area such as running a country or secrets of trade stayed within the closed groups of castes that handled them and were available to the next generations born to the individuals in those groups. This way the clan system of inheriting the areas started in the society.

As the society reached its pinnacle and became rich, the subjects stopped putting efforts in productive pursuits resulting into idleness, lethargy and inefficiency. To handle the challenges, these mediocre groups started evolving group specific rules to protect themselves from invasions of other groups, especially more heterogeneous group of Shudras. This over a period evolved into rigid caste rules.

In the modern age, it was almost appearing as though the caste system have to die its natural death because the industrial revolution redefined the way productive activities in the world take place. The world opted towards more of democratic form of Governments and learning was more formalized. All these changes opened gates to trading and other commercial activities in a new perspective. These started impacting the caste system in India during early twentieth century.

Before the social change towards eradication of Caste System is complete, we saw the advent of a set of insecure leaders who could not gather as much following as they want. This was followed by the Ramsey McDonald's proposal of communal electorate, which started dividing the society into caste groups more visible and socially acceptable.

Early independence saw a flux of castes and communities demanding their due in the independent country and trying to propagate their leaders. But in all good faith the first generation leaders realized the trouble future generations may face if caste based sanctions and support is provided for a longer period of time. As a measure they extended the reservations on caste basis for a limited period of time.

By the time the reservation provisions expired, India witnessed its greatest crisis of leadership. The new generation leaders lacked vision and administrative capabilities and hence started overusing the divisions in the society. The caste based reservations extended and new castes and communities were added.

With the vision of Rajiv Gandhi and later direction given by P V Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh, it appeared as though India is standing on the verge of next revolution both social and economic. But then came the breaking down and the evils practiced by the Janata Dal coalition Government in propagating the mandal and other communal topics started showing their strength and today we are witnessing the evils more visible and socially acceptable. The shocking reality today is, we accept a welfare association or marriage bureau formed exclusively for a caste or community. This became a social reality.

I often come across this not impacting the lower sections of the society. The labourers attending my house construction work simply accept the caste as a reality and talk about specific practices each caste may have in some social institutions such as marriage very openly. These restrictions are also not impacting the higher society such that Roshan's may bring their bahu from Khan's with full acceptability.

The middle class is sandwiched in between and is not evolving out of the fossil thought process. This very attitude is being exploited by mediocre politicians and other leaders trying to garner some support without offering any value to the group they lead, obviously not to the society as well.

The reality of caste in India is not a social issue today. This became a tool for mediocre leaders and hence is outliving its due. Today, we witness groups and gatherings identified by communal groups. These are aimed at marriage exchanges, community support and many motives that are projected into the narrow reality. Unless the politicians and other leaders stop using caste as a scoring point, we as a society discount people if they try to project, as saviours of the caste the caste system cannot die in India.

Venkat Manthripragada

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