Decoding India’s caste system
The ancient system of social divisions, the Varna System, is introduced to most Indians in one of those lazy history classes but almost everyone witnesses its implications a lot earlier in life. Our life is surrounded by castes, from the early casteist conditioning of children to our everyday vernacular, where we verbally exploit the identities of ‘lower’ caste communities. It was the seventy-second Republic Day of India yesterday where we celebrated the commemoration of our Constitution. While that is a proud moment in history, I cannot imagine B.R. Ambedkar, the ‘father’ of our constitution being actually proud of the current social state of India where one of the core values in our preamble, Equality, is still a far-away goal. Origin 𑁋 Where do castes come from? A verse in Purusha Sukta, a hymn that was written in Rigveda, talks about the sacrifice of Purusha, a primeval androgynous human from whom all elements of the universe supposedly originated, including the four social categ
