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The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic instance of social classification based on castes. It has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the Mughal Empire and the establishment of the British Raj.
Ambedkar views that definitions of castes given by Émile Senart [5] John Nesfield, H. H. Risley and Dr Ketkar as incomplete or incorrect by itself and all have missed the central point in the mechanism of the caste system. Senart's "idea of pollution" is a characteristic of caste in so far as caste has a religious flavour.
Its roots lie in South Asia's ancient history and it still exists; [1] [5] however, the economic significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanisation and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical ...
Tribal casteism encompasses South Asian practices of social marginalisation within tribes. These practices are often overlooked by scholars and the media because of a colonial legacy that employed orientalist empiricism [1] to construct tribes as egalitarian and structurally opposite to Hindu caste society. [2]
Las castas.Casta painting showing 16 racial groupings. Anonymous, 18th century, oil on canvas, 148×104 cm, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico Casta (Spanish:) is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier.
The caste system has traditionally had significant influence over people's access to power. The privileged upper caste groups benefit more by gaining substantially more economic and political power, while the lower caste groups have limited access to those powers. The caste system distributes to different castes different economic strengths.
As the practice of slavery grew, so did the caste system. Tamari suggests that a corollary of the rising slavery system was the development and growth of the caste system among numerous ethnic groups of Africa by about the 13th century. [5] [4] McIntosh concurs with Tamari's reasoning approach, but disagrees with the dating.
Caste panchayats, based on caste system in India, are caste-specific juries of elders for villages or higher-level communities in India. [1] They are distinct from gram panchayats in that the latter, as statutory bodies, serve all villagers regardless of caste as a part of the Indian government, although they operate on the same principles.