Experience Delhi

Ketaki and Anubhav try to understand the caste system. We talk to Akhilesh who tells us how Caste is not the right word to capture the system. The right words in India are Jati and Varna. Caste should be replaced with Jati. Jati was economic and not social. There was a Jati of potters, weavers, goldsmith’s or professions. It pre industrial time each village would have different communities grouped by profession. They shared best practices and lived together. Now lets look at Varnas. There are four Varna’s in India. 1. Brahmin 2. Kshatriya 3. Vaishya 4. Shudra There is a mapping between Jatis and Varnas. This mapping was never fixed. A Jati could move between Varnas. It was not a rigid system. when the Varna system was created, it was not on the basis of birth but it was on the basis of Guna (propensities) and Karma (deeds). Varna were cased on Guna and Karma. Propensity of a human decided his or her Varna. Jati might be best understood as a job family. Today, we look at the caste system in a rigid