How can you tell what caste someone is from, if everyone looks the same?

If a person simply moved somewhere they weren’t known, would they escape the shackles of Untouchability!

These are, but a few of questions that some of my American friends have asked me when I have tried to introduce to them the subject of untouchability and caste system in India. The reason caste system eludes non-Indians is because of their inability to distinguish the oppressor and the oppressed in terms of skin color, ethnicity, religion, or other such tangible traits, or even wealth, which they have witnessed in racism, colonialism and other religious and territorial oppression. However using a simple analogy (a high school in America) I will try to explain how oppression and discrimination can be achieved within a homogenous group which is what caste system is, where ethnicity, skin color and even religion are the same, while also answering the above two questions.

At a high level, lets make five distinct groups in our High School and have each student belong to one and only one group.



Academic Group Sports Group Arts Group Voluntary Group and finally a non-conforming group – kids who don’t fall into any of the above groups, but because of exclusion are still in a group of their own (though not a cohesive one)!

Further lets divide each group into sub groups



Academic group based on the subject: Math Group, Physics Group, Chemistry Group and so on Sports Group based on the game they play: Football Group, Soccer Group, Basketball Group, La Cross, Track, Cheer Leading Group Arts Group based on their medium: Theater, Singing, Dancing, Painting, Sculpting and so on Voluntary Group based on their field of service: Church, Old People, Children and Young Adults, Poverty and so on. It is not very easy to make sub groups out of Non-conforming group of kids as they are more of disjointed individuals and at most form groups of just two or three.

I hope, I haven’t stretched your imagination too much and that this division of students is very easy to accept and assume. Further equating the Groups to Castes in India, Sub Groups to Sub Castes, High School to a village or town and the school district to India should round up the analogy.

Now using this imaginary school and the school district let me answer the first question.

Question 1: How can you tell what caste someone is from if everyone looks the same?

Lets say, I am a visitor to our imaginary high school described above and have been told about the existence of such groups. At first glance my question would be, but all these teens look alike, Freckles, Braces, weird hair dos and dressing, how would anyone be able to tell what group each kid belongs to? And if it was me 8 years ago (when I first came to the US) it would have been really tough, ’cause not only do these kids have similarities like freckles, braces, hair dos and clothes … but as a brown guy who just stepped into an American high school, I would only see a sea of white kids and wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other.

Similarly, it is quite understandable that as a non-Indian you would not be able to perceive beyond a sea of brown people, dressing and operating in a way that you are not accustomed to. It would be very tough for you to understand how these people are able to distinguish themselves based, not on skin color or wealth, but a social code.

However just ’cause me, as a visitor can’t match kids with the sub groups they belong to, doesn’t mean that these kids can’t! Each of their movements is defined by their sub group that they belong to. Their sub group dictates whom they associate with, where they would group up before the school doors are opened, where they sit in the cafeteria, where they gather after the regular school hours to practice their sport, develop their art, discuss their subject matter, volunteer or hide. So, they are very aware of where each of the other kid fits and thereby interact with them based on those rules and boundaries.

Likewise, Indians have also learned (and they have had a couple of thousand years to hone this system) as to where they stand in the caste hierarchy! All they need to figure out is that, someone is either from from their sub group or not, t and if they are not, then just keep an eye on which sub group they associate wit, thereby finding the caste. Hopefully this answered the first question as to how Indians can figure out the caste of fellow Indians. Now for the second question.

Question2: If a person simply moved somewhere they weren’t known, would they escape the shackles of Untouchability!

At the outset it does seem so, very simple, pack your bags and move to where no one knows you and you would escape the shackles of untouchability, and it would be true too, provided untouchability and caste system was only being practiced in this one village or town. However it is not so.

Let me at this juncture reiterate a key character, homogenous nature/inclusiveness of caste system (that I have mentioned earlier) and also introduce a new character of Caste system, determining of the caste of an individual based on birth. These two traits will further help us answer our second question:

Castes system as mentioned, is different from Racism or Simple Slavery in the sense that Caste system is practiced within a group of homogenous people. In our school analogy we can enforce this homogenous grouping by maintaining that all of the population that is in the school district have come through the school system and that their kids and grand kids are following suit. Hence their common bond is the school system. With respect to caste system the common bond is religion. The second and probably the most important trait of Indian Caste system, is the inability for people to move across castes. An individual is born into a caste. He does not grow to be of a certain caste or move into one which he likes or is capable of, but an individual’s caste is determined at birth, based on the caste of the parents. In our school analogy, we can achieve a similar restriction by curtailing freedom of movement through different groups, and determining a student’s group based on the groups that his parents were in. It might seem weird to force a child into a group/sub group that his/her parents were in but that is exactly how it has to work if we are to use our school analogy.

Just to prove that classification through birth is not such a far fetched idea, let me walk through how this system would come into vogue:

In every school these groups/sub Groups would be in vertical structure where one group or sub group is favored more than the other. If this were to be in fact true then it wouldn’t be far fetched to see that parents and grand parents of the highest group/sub group trying everything in their means to make sure that their wards stay in the most popular groups, and passing on required valuable skills only to them. This would also mean that parents and grandparents of the next highest group are scrambling to secure the future of their wards in that available group and so on until by exclusion the last group just doesn’t have any options.

And when so much is dependent on a group it would also be easy to visualize as to how marriages and alliances would happen within “equals” (same group members). At first it would be a lose system with decent movement between groups. Now add to it some devious methods adopted by those in the highest group to give administrative, religious and legal sanction to such group system and then systemically restricting marriages within the same subgroups, and lo and behold we would see a full blown caste system in all its gory in our American school district. And within a few generations the whole school district will effectively reflect the caste system in Indian society as it stands today after evolving through thousand of years.

To bring this into an Indian context: Initially there was only class (labor) based divisions: Brahmins (Priests), Kshyatriyas (Warriors) and Vaishyas (Commoners) and there was even movement between these three groups. Later, the Brahmins realized the sway they had and started marrying only within their kind, so that they could continue and pass on their supremacy to their progeny. Now everyone else started mimicking them and scrambled to retain whatever position they had in the society and this led to caste system. At this juncture you will realize that I have left out the Sudras (Servants) and Untouchables and have only mentioned the original three Hindu castes, and that would be because Sudras and Untouchables don’t make their appearance until later.

As caste system started to materialize and gain populariy, there were numerous arguments and collisions between Brahmins and some of the stronger Kshatriya clans for supremacy, which Brahmins eventually won. They then relegated these Kshatriyas to become Sudras (slaves) and declared that the only purpose in life for this new group was to serve the other three castes. And to this mix (Sudras) was added everyone else who was ever against caste system and was defeated by the Brahmins, thereby increasing the number of groups and the population of Sudras.

And as for untouchables, they come still later and comprise of defectors from Hindu religion, who embraced Buddhism and other religions to escape from caste atrocity, and were at a later point in time won over by force and deception.

Final nail in the coffin was driven, when religious and legal books were revised by Brahmins to deny all rights (right to education, right to bear arms, right to property or even human dignity) to Sudras and Untouchables so that they could never rise up in rebellion. Given this divine status, caste system became unquestionable and Brahmins got established as Bhudevtas (Gods on Earth) and secured a caste based society where they sit on top and reign supreme. And, that in a nutshell explains the origin and development of caste system.

Now for the question that I’ve been attempting to answer: If a person simply moved somewhere they weren’t known, would they escape the shackles of Untouchability!

Consider the example of a student from the non-conformist group in our school and assume that he has taught himself a sport and would like to move to a different school where he is not known, to start afresh. To begin with, he would face all kinds of difficulties to just transfer from one school to the other, but even if he were to be able to move to a new school … he would only be able to live his new life, utmost, till the first parent teacher meeting at which point his actual group affiliation would be exposed by means of his parents and he would be an out caste even in this new school! Similar is the fortune of an untouchable in India. On arrival at a different place within India, (assuming he is able to tackle practical problems like funds to relocate himself, his family, find new employment, boarding etc) an untouchable would only be able to mask his caste until he encounters an occasion where his caste is demanded (explicitly or implicitly), and believe me, he would encounter plenty of such instances where his caste would be demanded. Once his caste is identified, society would loose no time in relegating him to his untouchable state and in the process also punish him (in all possible ways – physical, emotional, financial and economical) for even attempting to break the caste system!

Hopefully this analogy helped you in understanding the caste system in India and its pertinence. For those of you who are interested in knowing more, please refer to the following:

And as always please feel free to contact me if you are interested in knowing more about Real India!