Caste system in India

The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic instance of social classification based on castes. It has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. It is today the basis of affirmative action programmes in India as enforced through its constitution. The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system. The caste system as it exists today is thought to be the result of developments during the collapse of the Mughal era and the rise of the British colonial government in India. The British Raj furthered this development, making rigid caste organisation a central mechanism of administration. Between 1860 and 1920, the British incorporated the Indian caste system into their system of governance, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to Christians and people belonging to certain castes. Social unrest during the 1920s led to a change in this policy. Caste was no longer used by the colonial authority to functionally organize civil society. This reflected changes in administrative practices, understandings of expertise, and the rise of new European scholarly institutions. After the 1920s, the colonial administration began a policy of positive discrimination by reserving a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes. In 1948, negative discrimination on the basis of caste was banned by law and further enshrined in the Indian constitution in 1950; however, the system continues to be practiced in parts of India. There are 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes in India, each related to a specific occupation. Caste-based differences have also been practised in other regions and religions in the Indian subcontinent, like Nepalese Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. It has been challenged by many reformist Hindu movements, Sikhism, Christianity, and present-day Indian Buddhism.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (3)

Related concepts (34)

Related lectures (4)

Dalit

Dalit (from dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Dalits predominantly follow Hinduism, with significant populations of the adherents of Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam. Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits, who get reservation under Positive discrimination, as per the constitution of India.

Other Backward Class

The Other Backward Class (O.B.C.) is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are educationally or socially backward. It is one of several official classifications of the population of India, along with General castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs and STs). The OBCs were found to comprise 52% of the country's population by the Mandal Commission report of 1980, and were determined to be 41% in 2006 when the National Sample Survey Organisation took place.

Paravar

Paravar (also known as Bharathar or Bharathakula and sometimes colloquially as 'Fernando') is a Tamil and Malayali maritime community, mainly living in the state of Tamil Nadu ,Kerala, and in Sri Lanka.Early Pandyas were believed to be Parathavars, due to several similarities of profile. Historically, they were inhabitants of the Neithal (coastal) lands of Tamil Nadu, and find mention in various ancient Tamil literary works. In modern India, Paravars are concentrated along the coastal belt extending along the Gulf of Mannar, from Kilakarai to Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin).

Slim: Explicit Slot-Intent Mapping With Bert For Joint Multi-Intent Detection And Slot Filling

Boi Faltings, Fei Mi, Fengyu Cai, Wanhao Zhou

Utterance-level intent detection and token-level slot filling are two key tasks for spoken language understanding (SLU) in task-oriented systems. Most existing approaches assume that only a single intent exists in an utterance. However, there are often mul ...

IEEE2022

Natural and artificial societies often divide the workload between specialized members. For example, an ant worker may preferentially perform one of many tasks such as brood rearing, foraging and nest maintenance. A robot from a rescue team may specialize ...

EPFL2013

Differential gene expression between adult queens and workers in the ant Lasius niger

Johannes Gräff, Laurent Keller

Ants and other social insects forming large societies are generally characterized by marked reproductive division of labour. Queens largely monopolize reproduction whereas workers have little reproductive potential. In addition, some social insect species ...

Wiley-Blackwell2007

Curvature and Inflection Points MATH-213: Differential geometry

Explores curvature, inflection points, and angular functions in plane curves, highlighting the importance of inflection points.

Eigenvalues of Angular Momentum PHYS-313: Quantum physics I

Explores the eigenvalues of angular momentum operators and their commutation relations.

Gender, Sex & Intersectionality: Chapter 2

Explores the significance of intersectional gender analysis in implementation research for diseases of poverty, emphasizing transformative goals and inclusivity.