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The solution to the caste system in India is actually very simple. Religious conversion. Ambedkar was a visionary who himself converted out of Hindu religion an

The solution to the caste system in India is actually very simple. Religious conversion. Ambedkar was a visionary who himself converted out of Hindu religion and gave up his 'caste'. Caste is essentially the same as feudalism, but unlike other regions of the world where feudalism was a societal concept, it became a religious one in India. Buddhism for example is an Indian religion but Buddha was explicitly against the concept of caste-by-birth. Abrahamic religions are also devoid of the concept of caste. So whenever there are any caste issues, it's always two Hindus involved. Upper caste hindus don't probe the caste of a person if they hear a Christian/Muslim/Buddhist name because they know that it won't exist. Because of how easy it is to give up caste, lower castes have been doing religious conversions in India in large numbers. The so called upper caste , only make up 30% of Hindu population and if all lower castes were to convert then Hinduism would become a minority in India. To prevent this mass exodus, various states of India have been coming up with anti-conversion laws which make it really hard for people to convert. Though I really don't understand why lower caste dalits in the US continue to stay Hindu, when they could just change their religion and avoid the whole caste discussion altogether.

kelnos 6y ago
> Though I really don't understand why lower caste dalits in the US continue to stay Hindu, when they could just change their religion and avoid the whole caste discussion altogether. Perhaps it's just they have strong religious belief in Hinduism? I don't have more than a surface understanding of the religion or how devoted people tend to be, but if I think about the various sects of Christianity, many people of certain sects wouldn't even consider switching to a different sect because they are so invested in their particular flavor of Christianity. And I'd think being Hindu and considering converting to Christianity or Islam would be an even larger jump in belief systems. It's not like switching brands of car. I guess in my experience (in US culture at least), "just change your religion" is actually a super big deal and is a huge decision that takes an extraordinary reason. Even discrimination doesn't pass that bar for many people.
- awakeasleep 6y ago
  Hinduism isn't a religion, it's just a word the British made up to refer to all the (non muslim) beliefs in India in convenient shorthand
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Even if that's true (it's not), my point still stands. Religion isn't something you change like a jacket.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    This is correct. “Hinduism” is convenient colonialist/reductionist way of framing a culture the British colonists wanted to control and depict in certain tones. Calling “Hinduism” a religion is like inventing a term like “Americanism” and using it to refer to everything that America entails (its history, its inventions, its culture, its people) a religion.
  - crossroadsguy 6y ago
    While I agree with you factually that the term hasn't been officially around since before 16th century but it definitely was used before the British arrived and colonised India for good https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism#ref261605 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism#ref261605. Besides, let's just be honest - today Hinduism/Hindu is a religion - there is no two way about it - practically and technically! This reasoning, that "oh, it's just a way of life", is often provided by people who try to deflect the argument away from Hindu nationalism, extremism, and fanaticism - especially of today. (This might not be your intention though).
- ma2rten 6y ago
  In Eastern religions don't really work the same way as Christianity. If you believe in multiple gods, there is much more room for adopting different believes and practices.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> So whenever there are any caste issues, it's always two Hindus involved. So caste discrimination, while it's not a simple as, say, preferring Christians or opposing Muslims, is inherently religious discrimination?
- lowercasteguy 6y ago
  Exactly. There are still many temples(Hindu religious places of worship) in India where lower caste dalits are not allowed to enter.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Your comments remind me of the French Cagot's. Link to first random thing I could find https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-untouchable-in-europe-878705.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-unt...
  - fellellor 6y ago
    Name one, and I’ll report it to the cops.
    - ashayh 6y ago
      https://lmgtfy.app/?q=dalit+beaten+for+entering+temple https://lmgtfy.app/?q=dalit+beaten+for+entering+temple
      - fellellor 6y ago
        Clearly, this is illegal ntm horrific. Parent seems to say these temple policies have legal sanction, when they do not.
skissane 6y ago
> Abrahamic religions are also devoid of the concept of caste. While the Indian concept of "caste" (varna/jati/etc) isn't a native part of Christianity, Christians have varied in their attitude to it – some Christians have insisted that the caste system is incompatible with Christianity and that in becoming a Christian you have to give up your caste identity; other Christians have been accepting of the caste system, leading to the establishment of Christian castes such as the "Roman Catholic Brahmins" or "Bammons" – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Brahmin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Brahmin Likewise, regarding Islam, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian_Muslims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian...
- fellellor 6y ago
  This isn’t limited to some Christians and Muslims of India. They have wholesale adopted the caste system. To see evidence of this, just pick up any English paper (for Christians) or any Urdu paper (for Muslim) and see the marriage, real estate listings. Sometimes the caste criteria may be kept down low, but is exposed by activists from those communities. The reason this system persists, may be that it’s acceptance facilitates proselytisation. You might argue that at least there is reduced toxicity in daily interactions at least, but it’s easy to find instances of abusive interactions as well. As such, this whole topic is becoming a flaming pile of shit with bigoted descriptions of all Brahmins and “upper castes”. Also, I wonder if any here realise that there is no similarity between left-right divisions that you see in the west and whatever it is that exists in India. The left-liberals in India seek to emphasise caste differences among Hindus in order to uphold, what they call “secular” values. An Indian leftist will never let caste differences, and consequently the discrimination, die. Only by dividing Hindus by caste can the theological leaders of the significant religious minorities of India remain politically relevant. The non-left-nationalists on the other hand are spending huge amounts of resources to court middle and lower castes, while seeking to isolate and “otherise” and demonise the Muslims and Christians (to some extent). Then there are the “gurus” who also seek to exploit caste, namely the fact that a significant subset of the population - both lower and upper castes - are fed up of this system, in order to set up cults. The Dalits, over time, have adopted different approaches to fight discrimination. Initially they tried to give up their Hindu identity completely and move into other religions like Islam and Christianity. Seeing that this approach has largely failed, because caste is too strong in India and the bigotry just follows them. Proponents of this approach are failing in India and are now emigrating to advanced countries. So Where is the discussion of this complexity in this topic here? All I see are braid-dead, uneducated direct substitution of the western anti-racist struggle/movement onto the Indian context. Frankly, this is just immigrants from India, who feel left out by BLM, saying “this looks great, and we want in”. In conclusion Americans and westerners will always be ill equipped about caste in India and can only worsen the conditions here. You should realise that this issue is coming up as a reaction to the existing social movements in the US, and only ignore the possibility that cases are being slapped by people trying to hide their own incompetence and inability to do the job, at your own cost. While there is a necessity to stamp out toxicity, the way forward is to investigate all claims and not just be pressurised to virtue signal.
tdeck 6y ago
From what I've read people will still try to figure out your native cast even if you convert, but by converting you lose the official status and lose access to India's government programs intended to help members of disadvantaged castes. I'm not Indian and have never been to India, but this exact concept has come up in multiple unrelated things I've read so I'm inclined to believe that "convert and your caste association disappears" is not so simple.

kelnos 6y ago

> Though I really don't understand why lower caste dalits in the US continue to stay Hindu, when they could just change their religion and avoid the whole caste discussion altogether. Perhaps it's just they have strong religious belief in Hinduism? I don't have more than a surface understanding of the religion or how devoted people tend to be, but if I think about the various sects of Christianity, many people of certain sects wouldn't even consider switching to a different sect because they are so invested in their particular flavor of Christianity. And I'd think being Hindu and considering converting to Christianity or Islam would be an even larger jump in belief systems. It's not like switching brands of car. I guess in my experience (in US culture at least), "just change your religion" is actually a super big deal and is a huge decision that takes an extraordinary reason. Even discrimination doesn't pass that bar for many people.

awakeasleep 6y ago
Hinduism isn't a religion, it's just a word the British made up to refer to all the (non muslim) beliefs in India in convenient shorthand
- kelnos 6y ago
  Even if that's true (it's not), my point still stands. Religion isn't something you change like a jacket.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  This is correct. “Hinduism” is convenient colonialist/reductionist way of framing a culture the British colonists wanted to control and depict in certain tones. Calling “Hinduism” a religion is like inventing a term like “Americanism” and using it to refer to everything that America entails (its history, its inventions, its culture, its people) a religion.
- crossroadsguy 6y ago
  While I agree with you factually that the term hasn't been officially around since before 16th century but it definitely was used before the British arrived and colonised India for good https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism#ref261605 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism#ref261605. Besides, let's just be honest - today Hinduism/Hindu is a religion - there is no two way about it - practically and technically! This reasoning, that "oh, it's just a way of life", is often provided by people who try to deflect the argument away from Hindu nationalism, extremism, and fanaticism - especially of today. (This might not be your intention though).
ma2rten 6y ago
In Eastern religions don't really work the same way as Christianity. If you believe in multiple gods, there is much more room for adopting different believes and practices.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> So whenever there are any caste issues, it's always two Hindus involved. So caste discrimination, while it's not a simple as, say, preferring Christians or opposing Muslims, is inherently religious discrimination?

lowercasteguy 6y ago
Exactly. There are still many temples(Hindu religious places of worship) in India where lower caste dalits are not allowed to enter.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Your comments remind me of the French Cagot's. Link to first random thing I could find https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-untouchable-in-europe-878705.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-unt...
- fellellor 6y ago
  Name one, and I’ll report it to the cops.
  - ashayh 6y ago
    https://lmgtfy.app/?q=dalit+beaten+for+entering+temple https://lmgtfy.app/?q=dalit+beaten+for+entering+temple
    - fellellor 6y ago
      Clearly, this is illegal ntm horrific. Parent seems to say these temple policies have legal sanction, when they do not.

skissane 6y ago

> Abrahamic religions are also devoid of the concept of caste. While the Indian concept of "caste" (varna/jati/etc) isn't a native part of Christianity, Christians have varied in their attitude to it – some Christians have insisted that the caste system is incompatible with Christianity and that in becoming a Christian you have to give up your caste identity; other Christians have been accepting of the caste system, leading to the establishment of Christian castes such as the "Roman Catholic Brahmins" or "Bammons" – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Brahmin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Brahmin Likewise, regarding Islam, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian_Muslims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian...

fellellor 6y ago
This isn’t limited to some Christians and Muslims of India. They have wholesale adopted the caste system. To see evidence of this, just pick up any English paper (for Christians) or any Urdu paper (for Muslim) and see the marriage, real estate listings. Sometimes the caste criteria may be kept down low, but is exposed by activists from those communities. The reason this system persists, may be that it’s acceptance facilitates proselytisation. You might argue that at least there is reduced toxicity in daily interactions at least, but it’s easy to find instances of abusive interactions as well. As such, this whole topic is becoming a flaming pile of shit with bigoted descriptions of all Brahmins and “upper castes”. Also, I wonder if any here realise that there is no similarity between left-right divisions that you see in the west and whatever it is that exists in India. The left-liberals in India seek to emphasise caste differences among Hindus in order to uphold, what they call “secular” values. An Indian leftist will never let caste differences, and consequently the discrimination, die. Only by dividing Hindus by caste can the theological leaders of the significant religious minorities of India remain politically relevant. The non-left-nationalists on the other hand are spending huge amounts of resources to court middle and lower castes, while seeking to isolate and “otherise” and demonise the Muslims and Christians (to some extent). Then there are the “gurus” who also seek to exploit caste, namely the fact that a significant subset of the population - both lower and upper castes - are fed up of this system, in order to set up cults. The Dalits, over time, have adopted different approaches to fight discrimination. Initially they tried to give up their Hindu identity completely and move into other religions like Islam and Christianity. Seeing that this approach has largely failed, because caste is too strong in India and the bigotry just follows them. Proponents of this approach are failing in India and are now emigrating to advanced countries. So Where is the discussion of this complexity in this topic here? All I see are braid-dead, uneducated direct substitution of the western anti-racist struggle/movement onto the Indian context. Frankly, this is just immigrants from India, who feel left out by BLM, saying “this looks great, and we want in”. In conclusion Americans and westerners will always be ill equipped about caste in India and can only worsen the conditions here. You should realise that this issue is coming up as a reaction to the existing social movements in the US, and only ignore the possibility that cases are being slapped by people trying to hide their own incompetence and inability to do the job, at your own cost. While there is a necessity to stamp out toxicity, the way forward is to investigate all claims and not just be pressurised to virtue signal.

tdeck 6y ago

From what I've read people will still try to figure out your native cast even if you convert, but by converting you lose the official status and lose access to India's government programs intended to help members of disadvantaged castes. I'm not Indian and have never been to India, but this exact concept has come up in multiple unrelated things I've read so I'm inclined to believe that "convert and your caste association disappears" is not so simple.