Caste and marriage

I have been speaking with the guys about the caste system. I remember learning about the caste system in middle school. The past two times to India, however, I was naive enough to think it was not such a prevalent system anymore. I guess it all really depends who you talk to and thinking back I was not so lucky the last few times to be able to have such candid conversations about race and politics and religion as I have this time.

According to the guys probably 95-99% of marriages are still arranged. All of them plan to have love marriages, however, but they are extemely well educated. There are four categories from which apparently other castes emanate from highest to lowest there are the Brahmins, Kshatrias, Vasisyas, and Sudras. Then below them are the Dahlits (formerly the untouchables). Mukesh volunteered that he was from the Sudra caste which mostly does manual labor. In the universities there are reservations of up to 49.9% (that number was recently mandated as the cap by the Supreme Court) for lower castes.

I asked if the system is something that is perpetuated in any kind of information of teaching by parents or religious leaders. Mukesh said that he didn't even know about the system until he got to college. The system is however, perpetuated through the domination of educational institutions and other sources of power. Thus the system endures de facto though one is only cognizant of its pernicious effects if they are privledged enough to question their historical place in society. There is an element of fatalism, Mukesh described it as an upper caste domination of the conscience of the people.

As for intermarriage between castes it is not unheard of but it is very much prefered to stay within the same caste. Many of the personals seeking wives have the assertion that "caste no bar" as in caste has no baring on the mate. At least one newspaper says that it openly discriminates against adds that do ask for a particular caste. While the idea of the newspaper is certainly progressive in practice it seems that the castes will find eachother. Many of the other "matrimonials" are divided by caste. One of the big concerns is dilluting the purity of the caste through children who would not fit easily into a category.

One of the most disturbing things to me is that although their are reservations in the universities for Dalits and even one has become a governor of a state, there are still some among the caste who remain literally untouchable. Those are the ones with the dismal job of cleaning the toliets. Once India is able to finally move to proper sanitation hopefully these people will finally be released from this enduring repression.

The state of women according to these guys is still very bad. Of course there are the female infanticides, perpetrated to avoid a costly dowry, prompting the government to outlaw pre-birth sex testing. But there is also customary law which holds the woman less than a peice of property, more like a serf. In addition, women are constantly sexually harassed which is attributed to the extreme societal repression of sexuality. On the one hand there are these huge cinemas playing only porn and on the other there is to be no premarital sex, no pda of any kind, and women covered to their ankles.

Caste has a website...at least for the Mangliks!