Cornel, I dont recall bringing "god" into discussion of caste. Quite possibly, "god" is yet another man made construct like caste.
I stand by my opinion that the issue of caste is very less relevant to people of my generation than perhaps yours. Having lived and studied in India for many years and having continued to have interaction with my peers and family members from India - both in America and in India, the issue of caste has rarely ever come up. Well, there was one instance when a young programmer who added a parameter of caste in a search variable for some work he was doing for me. However that was more the result of him blindly copying ideas from another sources instead of it originating from himself. Other than that, the issue of caste has never been brought up with any of my peers or family members. To us therefore, caste is an almost alien, hypothetical/historical concept that was studied about in school. Looking at the broader scale of Indian society, there is no denying that it still plays an important, but again a diminishing role there. In India's large cities, the close physical proximity, size, density and greater levels of anonymity have forced factors such as caste to become a less significant parameter. However India still remains a largely agrarian society so it will be a while before the issue of caste dies away. The roots of the caste system lies not in power politics or the desire of man to oppress others, as you say. Rather it was the evolution of job stratification (or division of labor) and lack of skills transfer between various groups of workers, that resulted in particular classes and skills of jobs remaining within particular groups or families of people. This lack of job mobility was either intentional (certain groups jealously retaining their "job secrets" as corporations now do) as well as logical; ala transfer of skills from one family member to another. This was all compounded by the lack of formal educational opportunties that would have encouraged the exchange of ideas and techniques and thus enhanced crossing the family job title barrier. It is only over time that these logical divisions of convenience became hard coded into society's fabric and evolved into its illogical and intolerant form we see today. Marlon --- cornel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Marlon, > I am just catching up with some old posts and > couldn't let one of yours pass > without a brief comment. > I disagree with you profoundly that, the debate > about caste is a heated > debate about nothing. You may indeed wish this were > true and take solace in > such a hope. I say this because, I am pretty certain > that I am right, but > without checking into the Archives, that about > two/three years ago, you > opined that God would have put people into upper and > lower castes. I had > replied to you in that instance but it did not > appear on Goanet, perhaps > because I had pressed a wrong key on my then dodgy > computer. However, what I > had said then, is that you were right and that the > God you referred to was > called MAN. This is because caste is entirely a > social construct like so > many other constructs. These are created by man to > oppress others and in > turn, they can be eliminated even if it takes time. >
