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> You are mistaking caste for class. They are not the same. While foreigners may confuse between caste and class, everyone in India knows that there is a high
by webmobdev 5y ago
> You are mistaking caste for class. They are not the same.
While foreigners may confuse between caste and class, everyone in India knows that there is a high co-relation between caste and class (mobility), and that invariably higher castes are higher on the class hierarchy, among Hindus (the majority population in India). The rigidness of the caste hierarchy that prevented mobility in it (rising up in the caste), has had a modern spillover effect on India's class system too. Many caste supremacist believe that class equality is an attack on the caste system, and thus use this reasoning as a basis to attack the economic and consumerist aspirations of the lower caste.
E.g. Incidents of attack by upper castes on lower caste Hindus when they try to imitate Bollywood types wedding to highlight their better social status:
> “They told us that we had to take birth as upper caste people if we wanted to ride a horse. I pleaded with them that Aakash is an orphan and they allow the marriage procession to pass off peacefully, but they did not budge from their stand,” Khema told Gadh police in the complaint.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/dalit-groom-dragged-down-from-horse-in-wedding-procession-thrashed/articleshow/74165779.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/dalit-groom-...
There are many other such examples, where a lower caste is prevented from enjoying the benefits his economic class can afford him, by his castiest upper caste brethren.
- dartharva 5y agoYou're divulging into a different area altogether. It's apparent the person I replied to genuinely wanted to refer to the overall less privileged demographic in his post in the context of Reels and its creators, not specifically to caste. And they are not the same, however close and correlated you may feel they are.
- webmobdev 5y agoI was pointing out why it is so easy to confuse caste and class. You are thinking of the theory of caste system as per the religious texts, while I am talking about how it practically exists in India - it is an undeniable fact that the large majority of the poor in India are from the lower caste among Hindus, while those of the middle and upper class are majorly from the Hindu upper caste. While they are not the same, the actual incidents of class discrimination show how caste and class are unfortunately tied together in India, simply because caste supremacist (wrongly) believe class mobility upsets the legitimacy of the caste system in modern India. For them, the social aspiration of a lower caste to accumulate wealth and increase their social status, somehow de-legitimizes their own caste status in the rigidly enforced system where caste mobility is no longer practiced by today's Hindus.