Here we are – Part I of our caste system series. We know that this is a very sensitive and emotional issue – as many of the concerned people lost a love, friendship or family members as a cause. Some of us, who grew up in a western country weren’t confronted with this topic until it came to life changing decisions like a marriage. The caste system is sooner or later a hidden part of our life. Sometimes it has more influence than we wish and yet we mostly don’t know much about this system.

To avoid misunderstandings and to make the intentions of the upcoming articles clear, I want to give you an impression about what this series is about. Moreover, we want to tell you in this part WHY we want to create more awareness around this topic.

1. Defeat the FEAR

„There are still people who are not informed well enough and this causes that this system can exist in silence.“

I recognized fast that it is very hard to get good information about the caste system online. It feels like that the information is scattered. One of the reasons is that this issue is very complex. This causes a lot of insecurities and only few people have the courage to speak up publicly. The reason is that most people (me included) fear that they don’t have the knowledge which legitimatizes them to have a deep conversation about casteism. And this fear gives the caste system power to exist in silence. It’s a vicious circle. We want to give a wide view and bring more clarity.

2. Sharing knowledge

Growing up in a western culture, we sometimes don’t know that much about our roots, traditions and social structures. You will think

“Good that no one talks about this in public. So, we are contributing a big part to forget this system.”

But it is not that easy. I can say for myself, that I was and am always a person who wants to know everything possible around a topic before deciding which opinion I have. It is hard for me to reject something without knowing everything about it. I’m sure that there are a lot of people out there who are thinking alike. This series has the aim to create a wide, objective view from different perspectives.

„Where is lack of knowledge, there is space for prejudices.“

3. Opening the eyes for the sorrow

Most of us who have the caste system in mind, associate something emotional or a sad situation with it. People who are considered to be “low-casted” are still going through a lot of pain. They are often seen as “second-class” human beings even though they didn’t choose themselves to which caste they want to belong.

„So, they are punished for something that was given with their birth.“

Racism and casteism have a few things in common. While racism is the irrational discrimination of ethnic belongings, casteism discriminates irrationally people from lower-castes. We hope to clean up with prejudices and make an important step to consider every human being as valuable.

4. Questioning the relevance

We, who live in western countries, have the chance to achieve anything we want. We can become a doctor, a photographer, a makeup artist etc. regardless of our roots and more important our caste. In a digital world, where we book several services for e.g. a wedding, I experienced that no one asks which caste the caterer, photographer, makeup artist belongs to, but when it comes to weddings, friendships and more the caste suddenly plays a role?!

I know there are also people who are avoiding contact even in their everyday life to people from „another caste“ – but there is no rational reason I can imagine for this bahaviour. When we can e.g. book people regardless of their caste, why it is hard to accept them in the closer circle?

„Where is the relevance for the existence of this system?“

5. Questioning the reasons

Belonging to an upper caste, also means having privileges. Having more rights and letting other people do the unwanted work, lets some people feel powerful. It is scary for them to give upon this privilege because they don’t wanna lose their power. Or the most popular sentence we hear is, that the caste system is accepted because of the parents and the society. We want to give an overview about how to overcome this struggle. Even some of us convinced their parents to reject what they were taught their whole life.

6. You’re concerned – creating awareness

When we ask a few people in our surroundings, what they think about the caste system, the most will say that they are against it. We, who grew up with a lot of benefits and got an education above the average of the world population in most of the cases, have the freedom of choice.

In most of the households this topic isn’t even an issue in daily conversations, but as soon as it comes to human relationships e.g. marriage, the issue is more present than ever. While we are thinking we won’t be concerned, some of us get at the latest, when it comes to important life decisions, at a point when we have to ask ourselves if we really are unaffected as we thought.

7. Initiate discussions and make people think

I am sure that my partners, who will write the following articles, are a big part of a puzzle which we are trying to understand for a lot of years. Furthermore, I am excited to learn, to expand my view and questioning my point of view by getting more information, I hadn’t access to yet. Getting to know new aspects, helps us to question what we thought and initiates new discussions. This helps us to shape our own opinions and to overcome struggles which we fear the most.

We hope that you can learn from this series. If there are any questions or if you want to be a part of this, feel free to message via mail, Instagram or Facebook. And now enjoy the upcoming articles.

Additions

This is PART I of our „caste system“ series. See here the other articles of this series.

• The complexity of the caste system (Larvaniya S. – PART II)
• The caste system – human contempt legitimized (Sinthuja Sathees – PART III)
• From prejudices to broken families and more – the caste system (Nerocy C. – PART IV)
• The caste system – the devil in a relationship (Anonymous Guest Autor – PART V)
• Breaking Barriers – How to Stop Maintaining the Caste System (Larvaniya S. – PART VI)
• From Kingdoms to Colonization – the Manifold Influences on Today’s Caste System (Shabin Shanmugalingam – PART VII)
• The Caste – Illusion of the Past or Mute Companion of the Future? (Sanu Sri – PART VIII)

Picture („Untouchable girl“) under Creative Commons License from Michal Huniewicz