Caste system in India
Criticism
Criticism
---------

There has been criticism of the caste system from both within and outside of India.[India's caste system discriminates](http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/georgesept62001.html) . Since the 1980s, caste has become a major controversy in the [politics of India](/wiki/Politics_of_India "Politics of India").

### Indian social reformers

[thumb\|A 1922 stereograph of Hindu children of high caste, Bombay. This was part of Underwood \& Underwood stereoscope journey of colonial world. This and related collections became controversial for staging extreme effects and constructing identities of various colonised nations. Christopher Pinney remarks such imaging was a part of surveillance and imposed identities upon Indians that were resented.](/wiki/File:Hindu_children_of_high_caste%2C_Bombay%2C_India.jpg "Hindu children of high caste, Bombay, India.jpg")
The caste system has been criticised by many Indian social reformers.

#### Basava

[Basava](/wiki/Basava "Basava") (1105–1167\) championed devotional worship that rejected temple worship and rituals, and replaced it with personalised direct worship of Shiva through practices such as individually worn icons and symbols like a small linga. This approach brought Shiva's presence to everyone and at all times, without gender, class or caste discrimination. His teachings and verses such as Káyakavé Kailása (Work is the path to Kailash (bliss, heaven), or Work is Worship) became popular.

#### Jyotirao Phule

[Jyotirao Phule](/wiki/Jyotirao_Phule "Jyotirao Phule") (1827–1890\) vehemently criticised any explanations that the caste system was natural and ordained by the *Creator* in Hindu texts. If *Brahma* wanted castes, argued Phule, he would have ordained the same for other creatures. There are no castes in species of animals or birds, so why should there be one among human animals. In his criticism Phule added, "Brahmins cannot claim superior status because of caste, because they hardly bothered with these when wining and dining with Europeans." Professions did not make castes, and castes did not decide one's profession. If someone does a job that is dirty, it does not make them inferior; in the same way that no mother is inferior because she cleans the excreta of her baby. Ritual occupation or tasks, argued Phule, do not make any human being superior or inferior.

#### Vivekananda

[Vivekananda](/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda "Swami Vivekananda") similarly criticised caste as one of the many human institutions that bars the power of free thought and action of an individual. Caste or no caste, creed or no creed, any man, or class, or caste, or nation, or institution that bars the power of free thought and bars action of an individual is devilish, and must go down. Liberty of thought and action, asserted Vivekananda, is the only condition of life, of growth and of well\-being.

#### Gandhi

In his younger years, [Gandhi](/wiki/Gandhi "Gandhi") disagreed with some of Ambedkar's observations, rationale and interpretations about the caste system in India. "Caste," he claimed, has "saved Hinduism from disintegration. But like every other institution it has suffered from excrescences." He considered the four divisions of Varnas to be fundamental, natural and essential. The innumerable subcastes or Jatis he considered to be a hindrance. He advocated to fuse all the Jatis into a more global division of Varnas. In the 1930s, Gandhi began to advocate for the idea of heredity in caste to be rejected, arguing that "Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far as it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil."

He claimed that [Varnashrama](/wiki/Varna_%28Hinduism%29 "Varna (Hinduism)") of the [shastras](/wiki/Shastra "Shastra") is today nonexistent in practice. The present caste system is theory antithesis of [varnashrama](/wiki/Varna_%28Hinduism%29 "Varna (Hinduism)"). Caste in its current form, claimed Gandhi, had nothing to do with religion. The discrimination and trauma of castes, argued Gandhi, was the result of custom, the origin of which is unknown. Gandhi said that the customs' origin was a moot point, because one could spiritually sense that these customs were wrong, and that any caste system is harmful to the spiritual well\-being of man and economic well\-being of a nation. The reality of colonial India was, Gandhi noted, that there was no significant disparity between the economic condition and earnings of members of different castes, whether it was a Brahmin or an artisan or a farmer of low caste. India was poor, and Indians of all castes were poor. Thus, he argued that the cause of trauma was not in the caste system, but elsewhere. Judged by the standards being applied to India, Gandhi claimed, every human society would fail. He acknowledged that the caste system in India spiritually blinded some Indians, then added that this did not mean that every Indian or even most Indians blindly followed the caste system, or everything from ancient Indian scriptures of doubtful authenticity and value. India, like any other society, cannot be judged by a caricature of its worst specimens. Gandhi stated that one must consider the best it produced as well, along with the vast majority in impoverished Indian villages struggling to make ends meet, with woes of which there was little knowledge.

#### B. R. Ambedkar

[B. R. Ambedkar](/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar "B. R. Ambedkar") was born in a caste that was classified as untouchable, became a leader of human rights campaigns in India, a prolific writer, and a key person in drafting modern India's constitution in the 1940s. He wrote extensively on discrimination, trauma and what he saw as the tragic effects of the caste system in India. He believed that the caste system originated in the practice of endogamy and that it spread through imitation by other groups. He wrote that initially, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras existed as classes whose choice of occupation was not restricted by birth and in which exogamy was prevalent. Brahmins then began to practise endogamy and enclosed themselves, hence Ambedkar defines caste as "enclosed class". He believed that traditions such as [sati](/wiki/Sati_%28practice%29 "Sati (practice)"), enforced widowhood and child marriage developed from the need to reinforce endogamy and Shastras were used to glorify these practices so that they are observed without being questioned. Later, other caste groups imitated these customs. However, although Ambedkar uses the approach of psychologist Gabriel Tarde to indicate how the caste system spread, he also explains that Brahmins or Manu cannot be blamed for the origin of the caste system and he discredits theories which trace the origin of caste system in races.

#### KK Sarachandra Bose

[thumb\|upright\|Activist KK Sarachandra Bose](/wiki/File:KK-Sarachandra-Bose.jpg "KK-Sarachandra-Bose.jpg")
In 2014 KK Sarachandra Bose went on a 40\-day *Bharat Yatra* (Indian journey) of almost  from [Thiruvananthapuram](/wiki/Thiruvananthapuram "Thiruvananthapuram") to [Delhi](/wiki/Delhi "Delhi") along with over 30 volunteers to campaign for the end of the caste system. Bose also believes that using the term 'caste' conflicts with the 1948 UN [Universal Declaration of Human Rights](/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"). He urged the [government of India](/wiki/Government_of_India "Government of India") for [constitutional reform](/wiki/Constitutional_amendment "Constitutional amendment") to remove all references to the caste system by December 2014\.


Why does KK Sarachandra Bose believe that using the term 'caste' conflicts with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights?