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Essay on Caste System in India and its Implication on Society
In the early stages of the formation of society, men and women are not regarded and treated as individuals, but as members of a particular group. Groups of men and women related by blood relationship constitute the units of the early society. India's society continues to be organized in groups. Individuals are subjected to collective standards and are expected to live in harmony with the group, subordinating their 'individual' interests. Groups are of many kinds: tribes, village communities, castes, joint family (i.e. owning of property jointly by the group composed of the family and not separately by individual members). This pre-eminence of the group is both a weakness and a strength of the Indian society; weakness because of the caste system that it has engendered and strength because the individual believes in and endeavors to promote the cohesion of the group.
The most peculiar of the social institutions of India is the caste system. It is peculiar in the sense that it is confined to India and is found nowhere else in the world. It is peculiar because of the extreme social segmentation which it produces; it is also peculiar because it is not a purely social system but is so closely interwoven with Hinduism as to have certain religious elements. Each member of the Hindu community belongs to one or other of over 2,000 castes, which divide into groups arranged in a complex system of social differentiation.
As between its members, a caste is a bond of union, but the system splits up society into sections which, owing to the prohibitions not only against inter-marriage, but also against eating, drinking, and even smoking together, prevent social fusion more perhaps than any other institution in the world. The caste system thus at once unites and divides thousands of groups, but its salient feature is mutual exclusiveness, for each caste regards other castes as separate communities.....
