To the very very Indian perspective before finalizing a business deal or meeting with someone, what is the other most important thing you would like to know about that individual? The caste he/she belongs to? That’s adequate to decide what to do next.

photo by STCM via flickr

Castes sometimes even work better than other identities like a ration card or voter IDs to judge the real “type” of a person. Some people were not keen to know who started UdaipurTimes but more interested in knowing which caste I and my teammates belong to, that’s such a feeble way to judge someone’s character. Nobody knows from where exactly this caste system in India came from but it’s deeply rooted in every hook and corner of our country, though it exists mostly in rural or undeveloped Indian cities where more than 70% of Indian population lives. Apparently, Udaipurites come under that 70% Indian population. Once while discussing on our UdaipurTimes’ Facebook page, I came across a comment made by someone saying that he hated the cheap mentality and backwardness of people of Udaipur, it definitely hurts when someone criticize the city you love and love to live but I cannot even blindfold myself from the ugly truth. To illustrate every bit of the reason behind why someone labeled us a community of backward mentality, I need hundreds of pages and few years to complete writing a thick paged book. Though the subject is worth discussing but just to crunch it a bit I pluck out a major issue that is directly responsible for affecting our mentality and thoughts. Casteism I would like to clear out that castes in India are different than religions. India is a country of various religions but (not so fascinatingly) all religions are divided into different castes and sub castes. How does a caste come up originally?  Your profession is your caste, that’s the simple one line answer to a much complicated question. A cobbler in India can be either a Hindu or a Muslim that doesn’t matter, what matters is the caste, and that’s cobbler. So all Indians are labeled by their family profession, although none of the work if not illegal is bad, but our caste system has their own way of giving “reputation stars” by high end social extremists, that position individual by their most respected caste according to its profession. Each of the world religions are respectable because of their one common social goal that is civilizing human race to live happily and peacefully. But unfortunately the ugly caste system gave us an unwanted identity which has nothing to do with our religious belief. We are less known by our religions but more recognized by the work we do. No matter you are a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Sikh but what caste you belong to? Baniya, Nai, Mochi, Kasai, Teli, Brahmin, Harijan or Kshatriya? This division led to dozens of other social problems which we are facing every day (like reservation quota). We prefer being into our own compact society than getting an exposure to other groups. We feel comfortable between people of same caste than mixing up with various others. This whole framework of our society is tightly covered with a tag of our caste. Thus in result we get a backward brain, narrow thoughts, nervousness and fear of something unknown. Udaipur is same like any other small cities of India but the amount of development we are observing is much appreciated, youth of Udaipur are getting exposure when they move outside Udaipur for studies, living in metro cities, working in MNCs and when they come back to Udaipur they see it with a broader perspective, endless and constructive thoughts and big dreams of making Udaipur a lovely casteless place. The day when we all will think beyond our caste will be the day when no politician can play with our caste(ed) sentiments, a discrimination on the basis of our work. It will be the day when we can achieve our real Independence from every egoistic social division.