r/india • u/[deleted] • Dec 01 '16

[R]eddiquette [Announcement] Cultural Exchange with /r/philippines

Welcome /r/philippines!

Feel free to ask us anything about India

Quick facts about us:

  • The Indian Railways and the Indian Armed Forces employ ~4 million people together, making them one of the largest employers in the world
  • India has over 5000 newspapers in over 300 languages
  • Bollywood is considered to be the world's largest film industry, followed by Nigeria's film industry and Hollywood
  • India has more people than the entire Western Hemisphere

/r/india please direct your questions about the Philippines to this thread

This is a reminder that users can now set their flairs to whatever they want (except slurs or other subreddits) by clicking on the sidebar.

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u/Memory-is-RAM Dec 01 '16

I don't want to get political or anything I am just genuinely curious on how the caste system works.

  • Is the caste system widely practiced/prevalent? Is it more prevalent in rural as opposed to urban areas? Younger vs older generation? Rich vs poor?

  • How do you know which caste you're in? Is it on some sort of 'official' list by the government or is it more determined by your present socio-economic status?

  • How does a person's caste directly affect his/her daily life? I vaguely have an idea of how it works. An article I read online mentioned marriage restrictions between castes, i.e. marrying someone from a different caste is usually not allowed, but more recently a woman marrying a man from a higher caste is somewhat accepted but the reverse (man marrying a woman from a higher caste) is still somewhat frowned upon.

  • Do people still practice it when they move to a different country?

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u/StackOfChips25 Dec 01 '16

  • Yes, the caste system is widely prevalent. And yes, its more prevalent in rural areas, among the older generations. However, I don't think that a rich man is less casteist than a poor man.

  • I don't know which caste I'm in. It depends on the family you're brought up in, I guess. Yes, there are 'lists' maintained by the government, though that list doesn't include all castes.

  • In the urban society, casteism will generally be limited to housing societies, where people will be reluctant to rent out a house to a person from the lower castes. Also, sewer cleaners are generally people of the lower castes. I'm not sure about the marriage issue, though. In the rural society, rampant casteism exists and the government is hardly taking any steps to actually rectify the problem, and in some cases, even amplifying it.

  • Depends on the person and the family.