The Indian Caste System In India

India is a country that has been plagued with many hardships. It is home to over 1.21 billion people, and 21% of all people in India fall below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (Planning Commission). Since the British left India in 1921 the country has struggled to impose a stable democratic government nationally. India is also one of the deprived countries in the world. The extreme poverty in India isn't just economic but rather psychological, emotional, social, and cultural. However, not many foreigners understand how extreme the poverty level is in India. One of the many causes of this poverty is the caste system in India limits the ability for many of these people living below the poverty line, to succeed. The separation of castes establishes one of the most fundamental ideals of India’s social structure. In Hindu society, caste divisions play a part in both actual social interactions and in the ideal scheme of values.

The Indian Caste System is a classification of people into four hierarchically ranked castes. They are categorized according to employment and determine one’s ability to gain power, wealth, and privilege. The Indian Caste System is traditionally one of the key dimensions where Indian’s are socially discriminated through region, religion, and class. This system becomes problematic when one or more of these dimensions overlap each other and become the main foundation of ranking and allows for unequal access to valued resources like wealth, revenue, authority, and respect. The Indian Caste System is considered to be a closed system of stratification (ushistory.org), or simply a person’s social status is a representation of which caste they had been born into. Members of different castes are expe...

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..., doing what he must to survive on the harsh streets of Khaufpur.

Earlier in the novel, Animal scorns a journalist, condemning him of coming to Khaufpur “to suck our stories from us, so strangers in far-off countries can marvel there’s so much pain in the world”(25). Later in the novel an Indian doctor is describing the night of the disaster to his American associate, saying: “On that night the moon was two-thirds full. It was shaped like a tear and as it appeared through the clouds of gas, it was the color of blood”(390). The response from the American is quite shocking, “I sat there drinking his whiskey listening to him reduce the terror of dying people to a moon in a second-rate poem”(391). The pain that is felt by Animal is both mental and physical, and the lack of remorse by the American is a symbol itself representing the struggle between wealth and morals.