Daily Hypocrisy among Followers of the Caste System

Last week I mentioned that even though many of the rules in religious scriptures are crazy and cruel, there are people who still believe in them and follow them. The caste system is an example for such a crazy idea that has managed to find its way into society and survive there until now. There are people who claim that the caste system is not relevant anymore in today’s India but the reality looks very different. Many people still believe in it and follow it. In some areas it is difficult though and then I wonder about their hypocrisy.

People are often separated very extremely according to their caste. In villages there are still different wells for people of different castes. Higher caste people get their water from one well while lower caste people get their water from another one – mostly further away or in any other way less appealing than the well of the higher caste. There are often fights because of this separation. If a lower caste person takes water from the well of higher caste people, they get very angry and think their water has been contaminated.

I know many Brahmans who take the caste system very seriously in their home and their living place. They make a big drama, take much care where they buy their food, only eat together with Brahmans and should they by mistake touch one of the ‘untouchable’ people, they go home and take a shower!

But what do they do when they are not at home? When they are out, on holidays or on a business trip? Like everyone else, they go and eat in restaurants. How would they know which caste the cook or the waiter belong to? They don’t ask, they don’t care, they simply eat there without thinking more about it. It may well be that the cook who cuts their vegetables with his own hand, is an ‘untouchable’ person! But there is no way to know, so they are just happy without knowing and pretend he was a Brahman.

The biggest controversy happens however when they are at work and happen to be working under a boss who is from a lower caste! Then their whole idea of castes and who is higher and who is lower is suddenly gone.

You have to know that India took over the ‘boss culture’ of the British. In Britain is does not exist anymore in the way it was in the past but in India, the boss is still superior. In the west, you will see a boss treating those who work for him or below him with respect, as equal. In India, you can very clearly see in most offices that a boss is a boss and everyone else is humble in front of him.

Now imagine someone from the untouchable caste who has been working hard and got promoted until he reaches a higher post where he has several people working below him. He has faced discrimination in school because of his caste. He was teased by Brahmans, made jokes off by higher caste people and treated just bad. Now it is his chance to take revenge. It is just understandable.

I don’t say all of them do, but even if they don’t, the Brahmans who have him as a superior, will be humble like never before. They know he is the one who gives promotions. So they say ‘Sir, Sir’, they bring him water, they stand while he is sitting and have to bring things from here to there even if it is full nonsense.

So when they are in office, they can work well under a lower caste person – but they will not change their mentality! The moment when they walk out of their door, they are Brahmans again.

When they look for a spouse, they don’t care that they spend every working day surrounded by lower caste people with the same interests, in the same profession. They are looking for someone of their caste.

For me, this is hypocrisy. But it is everyday hypocrisy, normal here in every office and every company.

Below you can see a documentary about how present caste discrimination is still today in India.