If I were to pinpoint the most foolish innovation of evolved human mind, it would be caste system.
Don’t take me wrong. I don’t imply caste system is the worst evil. I consider slavery, racism, kafir to be even more despicable notions. To enslave someone as property because he or she is of a darker color is sign of savagery. It doesn’t qualify to be even termed ‘human’.
Similarly to believe that people who refuse to believe in my book, my concepts, my prophet are kafirs or worst of creatures or will go to hell, again is brutal tribal mindset. It does not represent evolved thinking. Thus what USA was doing before 1865 or what Al Qaeda and Taliban mindset is doing even today, does not even come under purview of “evolved human mind”. These are just animal behavior.
So if I were to restrict myself to more “refined” set of innovations, caste system stands miles above all. A mathematically flawed, unverifiable, prejudiced concept that has no logical basis whatsoever as well as is against Vedas – the source of Hinduism. Yet, this foolish innovation has contributed the most to damage of the otherwise glorious culture of this great land. Instead of being a wolf that brutally attacks, it has been like a vampire that sucks away the blood while we remain asleep.
In this article, we would look at a few inherent flaws in the basic premise of caste system.
1. Caste system necessarily segregates each human into one of the 4 buckets – Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra. This is like a multiple choice question set by a naive.
It does not have an option to choose anything beyond the 4 irrelevant choices. Further there is penalty of becoming outcaste if you dare to do so. Hence, an irrational answer is chosen as per whims of the decision maker.
Reality:
In reality, the 4 castes are actually called Varnas (which means choice) in Vedas. They are part of a model to explain human behavior so that necessary steps for structuring of society in sensible manner can be taken. All scientific innovations begin from certain models which are further analyzed, enhanced and utilized to generate worthwhile outputs. For example, concept of mass, weight, speed, acceleration are basis to model complex mechanics and derive benefits. Vedas also suggest several such modeling elements, and Varna system is one of the many.
As per Vedas, these 4 Varnas – Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra represent 4 basic properties.Various human behaviors can be explained in form of different combinations of these basic properties. These vary at every point in time in same individual as well as vary as per the field of investigation being chosen.
The concept is similar to the CMYK model used in printing to generate different colors. TheCyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black colors defined at each point on the paper generate all kinds of images we see in magazines and photographs. Just imagine how foolish you would consider me if I show you a random photograph of some person, and demand you to answer whether the picture is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black! If I do it with everyone in my colony, perhaps they would together lodge complaint to have me treated in mental hospital in public interest! In case of caste system, this insanity has been tolerated in our colony for ages leading to havoc.
2. Going a step ahead on previous point, the harsh reality is that caste system has never been restricted to these 4 Varnas alone. As explained earlier, because of restrictions in freely looking at sensible options beyond the 4 castes model and combinations of these castes, people were forced to create a complex web of castes, sub-castes, sub-sub-castes and so on. So even among Brahmins, there are high caste Brahmins and low caste Brahmins. If you go to Varanasi to learn Vedas, the high caste Brahmins will refuse unless you belong to a high caste Brahmin family.
Even among so-called low caste Dalits and Shudras, there are high caste Dalits and low caste Dalits. A Yadav will claim to be higher than Bishnoi and Bishnoi will claim to be higher than Yadav. Yet each will fight to be included in OBC or SC/ST list. There is a Dassa Agarwal and Bissa Agarwal and each claim to be superior. There is a Prajapati which will sometimes call itself Vaishya and sometimes a Shudra.Even Muslims and Christians have hundreds of castes, sub-castes, high castes and low castes. So currently we have thousands of such frivolous classifications and we all take pride in belonging to our own classification by birth. We fight for special rights for our own sub-sub-sub-….sub-castes.
One foolish concept has led to such a complex ecosystem of even more foolish caste-network that keeps building up. That is why I call it a foolish innovation.
If we go back to the scriptures that are blamed for starting this mess, there is not even a remote reference to such complex classifications. And hence there is total chaos in matters of social rights and status of these thousand innovatively foolish sub-sub-sub…sub-castes.
In case we are humble enough to go back to original source – the Vedas – they clearly assert – There is only ONE caste – Humanity. All humans have same rights irrespective of their birth. What status a human achieves must solely be based on his or her merit and NOTHING else.
3. Some wisest fools give reference from scriptures that Brahmins came from mouth of God, Kshatriya from hands, Vaishya from tummy and Shudra from legs. And hence caste system is birth-based.
But let us now evaluate how flawed this entire hallucination is.
- Did God also give a certificate while throwing a Brahmin out of the mouth and Shudra out of the feet? Or did he put a tag for verification to prevent piracy? The most basic documents have this feature. Why was God unintelligent enough to miss this?
If he was not, what method do we have in place to verify whether a person who is claiming to be a Brahmin is indeed a Brahmin? Does he have a DNA test certificate that he or she is biological progeny of the first Brahmin who were spitted out of the mouth of God at inception of civilization millions of years ago?
If not, why do we believe so? Being a Brahmin gives you superior rights. So obviously there is a natural incentive for a dishonest person to claim being a Brahmin. Don’t we see the number of fake certificates and fake currency being printed from corrupt places in country?
The hard fact is that there is no way to verify whether a Brahmin of today is indeed a progeny of someone who was Brahmin even 200 years ago, forget about millions of years. The very concept of ID proofs has come today, and even that is being faked. The probability of a Brahmin of today being actually a progeny of Brahmin at inception of civilization is extremely minimal. In same vein, probability of a ‘Dalit’ being progeny of a ‘Dalit’ at inception of civilization is even more minimal.
The same argument goes for every caste.
Hence the caste system has nothing divine in it. If it were divine, there would have been obvious ways to conclusively verify the same. For example, it is easy to verify whether someone is human or an animal (I am excluding those cases where humans conduct beastly deeds). It is easy to verify whether someone is dog or pigeon.
That being not the case, caste system is at best a human innovation. Very primitive minds divide everything in binary – good, bad; black, white etc. More evolved minds add more choices. However a fertile mind would embrace the fact that there is a continuum and any classification is merely an approximation. As mind power increases, you start using more complex models to explain the world.
So as babies we learn addition and subtraction by drawing lines and counting them, then we learn arithmetic, then algebra. And really smart ones understand calculus. To find area of square and rectangle, algebra would do. But to find volume of sphere, you need to learn calculus. To try to use formula of cube to find volume of sphere, because as per your book formula of cube is divine, will at best be called foolish dogmatism.
Let us be more honest. Caste System is a baseless, unverifiable, whimsical innovation. All we can say about a person is that he or she is a person. Any claim on his caste will only be a blind assertion.
4. No one knows in which caste to put 6 billion non-Hindu population of the world. When someone embraces Hinduism, fools debate on whether the person should be considered a Brahmin or Shudra. People like Stephen Knapp – who have contributed more to Hinduism than bigoted casteist pundits was denied entry in Puri temple because he was not born as a Hindu.
Some call such people Mleccha.
The reality however is that these Mlecchas have demonstrated more intelligence and vision than all the caste-loving pundits of Kashi put together. They have brought more researches, innovations, inventions and discoveries and even the books of casteists need to use printing technology or internet invented by these outcastes!
So either these Mlecchas are the real Brahmins or God better make entire world Mleccha or outcaste.
India became enslaved because of this foolish birth-based casteism that ensured that a person can become outcaste for most frivolous reason, but there is no mechanism for such person to become a respectable Hindu again. Hence we see Kashmir, Pakistan and Bangladesh becoming our headache.
5. Some modern thinkers claim that caste is based on actions and nature but not on birth. Others say that in special situations, one can change the caste. Both these arguments are flawed. Because both of them demand existence of a third-party certification agency that allocates caste. But since spiritualism is directly between me and my God, who are these third-party agents to certify how I should follow my God’s voice? And who will decide caste of these certifying agents?
Further, in primitive society, may be it was easy to bucket each individual into one of the 4 castes. Because professions were simple. However it is impossible to do so today due to complexities. A 4 part classification is too crude and elementary. For example, what is caste of software engineer? What is caste of computer technician? What is caste of anti-virus maker who fights against cyber attacks? What is caste of ecommerce platform developer? What is caste of a paid project manager?
Only a person who did not study mathematics seriously would try to fit in an approximate classification just because it is written in some obscure book, as narrated by some apologetics. An honest person would simply say, they are all humans. And each moment, they take one or more roles of being a brahmin (knowledge-oriented), kshatriya (defence oriented), vaishya (economy oriented) or shudra (task oriented).
6. Some defend it by saying this is foundation of Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma. They refer to history and Purush Sukta. As for history, that does not hold water. There are many things we do that we never did in history. And there are many things we did in history that we ourselves gladly rejected as evil. For example, polygamy and dynastic rule.
As for Purush Sukta, we have already analyzed its real meaning. Also, we forget that Vedas provide hundreds of models, and if we are not able to understand one model properly, we better adopt some other model.
If you don’t know how to fly a supersonic, you would reach faster on a horse. And if you know how you fly a supersonic, you don’t insist on donkey for historical or “scriptural” reasons. You need not even learn to ride a horse to fly a supersonic.
So let us get rid of this foolish dogmatism. Let us eradicate this caste system from very root. Let us stop trying to defend a primitive model of caste-classification in any way. Let us be honest to Vedas – the root of Hinduism. Let us realize that there is nothing Hindu or Vedic about caste system. In fact, caste system is the most anti-Vedic or anti-Hindu concept.
The West was worse than animals till 1865 when slavery was banned. They then decided to look afresh. They did not try to glorify their ignominious past. In fact they repented for it. And hence today, they are the world-leaders.
If we want to be world-leaders as well, let us also humbly accept this blunder of ours. Let destruction of caste system be the number 1 priority.
Let we become One India, One Society, One Caste and let merit alone decide who achieves what.
If we do not do so, we would continue to remain the most queer society of world – that is so intelligent and yet so tormented. And if we are able to destroy this foolish innovation from roots, we would be unstoppable.
Say No to Caste System............................................!
Strictly........................
Lets United As Tamilan.................................!
