My take on India's caste system

I have decided to make this bold attempt of putting forth my views on the Indian caste system.

For many years now I have wondered about the caste system. I know many people who told me that yes certain castes are superior and some aren't and it was decided merely on the basis of your birth. This always seemed incomplete to me....how could this be? In modern India it is a sin to say this but many people still believe in it deep down their hearts. I pondered over this question as a teenager and then left it for other important things that time. But since a past few years this thought has again popped up in my mind. A few months back, one of my friends happened to give his opinion over it and he thinks that caste system has been the worst thing that Hinduism brought to the masses. He said it was in the Vedas and I somehow could not digest that theory. But I could not say anything that time since my knowledge of my own religion was much more limited that time. This argument was one of the many reasons why I started reading about Hinduism and the Vedas. Few months down the line and I still haven't read the Vedas(the holy scriptures of India) but I have read a few things on Vedanta (the philosophy derived from the Vedas). My views expressed here are the result of that knowledge which I gained on Hinduism. By no means do I claim it to be the truth since I myself am in the search of truth and this is just one of those layers that I have tried to peel to get to the truth(analogy is the layers of an onion).

The Vedas have definitely talked about the four castes: Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaishyas and Shudras. It has also been described that the Brahmins came out of the mouth of God (The Abolute Reality or Brahman), the Kshatriyas came out of his arms, the Vaishyas from his thighs and the Shudras from his feet. The motive behind this was "division of labor". It was meant to distribute the duties and responsibilities of a society amongst its own members so that it is well managed and it functions correctly. The Brahmins study the Vedas, understand them and explain the philosophies behind them to their brethren in the society. They do not have to spend any time trying to make a livelihood but are fed by the Kshatriya. The Kshatriya protect their borders from foreign attack and thus protect the lives of their brethren in the society. The Vaishyas help thrive the economy by trading goods and coming up with new business ideas. They provide their brethren in the society with their day to day necessities. And finally the Shudras who do all the hard work and maintain the physical structure of the society. This was the original intent of the caste system as I understand it.....and I think its a beautiful structure.

But there is one more catch to it. I donno when this was introduced exactly but your caste was decided based upon your birth. If you are born to a Kshatriya then you remain a Kshatriya all your life. As I understand it, in those days there must not be big educational institutes and schools like the way we have today. We can acquire any kind of bread winning education by going to an appropriate school. But in those days there was a lack of such institutes and hence the best way for a child to learn about any form of art or science that would help him survive was from his own family. Hence the easiest way of life for a Vaishya must have been to learn the business tactics from his own family. It is my hypothesis that this was how the caste got associated with your birth. So far so good, right?

But where did everything go wrong then? It went wrong when this system became rigid and when privileges got associated with certain castes. It just killed the whole purpose and the society began to disfunction. Associating privileges is where the Hindus went wrong and my point here is that it was not Hinduism that introduced these inequalities in the minds of the masses. It was humans who did it and the same mistake was repeated everywhere else in the world....the same discrimination, privileges, higher and lower classes, etc.

Its good to know the history...how it all started, why things happened the way they did and what do we learn from it. We can then make a confirmed decision as to what is right and what is wrong. Down with discrimination it is !