I heard of this term “caste system” some twenty years ago when my parents started looking for a good match for my eldest sister. Supposedly the question regarding ‘out-of-caste’ and ‘within-caste’ was one of the important questions that was usually exchanged between the two parties. It was only then when I realized the so-called importance of caste system in our society!

My father was initially of the view that it is extremely important if his kids are married to the same caste we belong to. Hence, my mother would say ‘No’ to many such proposals which were not Rajpoots – yes, that’s what we supposedly were!

A couple of years went by and their search criteria could not be completely fulfilled. It was during those times, when someone referred to this Jutt family. They were perfect in every way possible. By then, my father’s ego had toned down a bit I guess and then two families joint the knots together.

That was the end of the caste system quest that my family ever pursued. We are five siblings and quite amusingly, we are all happily married in different castes. With 18 years down my sister’s wedding and me being the youngest, never once our laughters or sorrows or lifestyle or daily life routine or anything you can imagine are EVER influenced by the fact that we belong to different caste systems.

This is such an over-rated term that I really want this thing to be permanently eradicated from our society. What if the girl and the guy fall for each other during college/university and happen to have belonged to a different caste, will the parents simply say No? And if so, why? What role does the caste play in anyone’s marriage? It is purely a game of luck – none of your spouse traits are ever originated from their caste. Never once my husband or I found any difference in our lifestyle, way of thinking based upon this. This is such a baseless thing :/

This bubble was finally burst when I was taking a course in my business school some eight years ago. There was this whole chapter dedicated to this – I guess even our professors wanted to give us a wake up call.

So the story is that before Islam came into sub-continent, we were all either Hindus or Sikhs. Now there is a very clear caste system in Hinduism, which was divided into four:

  • Brahmins: priests, scholars and teachers.
  • Kshatriyas: rulers, warriors and administrators.
  • Vaishyas: agriculturalists and merchants.
  • Shudras: laborers and service providers.
 With Brahmins being the top caste and Shudras being the lowest one, when Muhammed Bin Qasim invaded Sub-continent and brought Islam through force or inter-marriages or preaching; the first one to embrace Islam were those who were marginalized the most i.e. the Shudras. Upon embracing Islam – people were still identified through their professions. So If I was a warrior at that time, or associated with army then I would be called a Rajpoot. And If I was an ironsmith, I would be named “Lohaars”…so on and so forth.
So basically, this caste system was actually the naming mechanism of the professions of those times. Things got mature with the pace of time and people started taking their castes even more seriously than the religion they had once embraced :/
Now, please tell me if this is the history of our caste system, is this solid enough to decide the fate of your children? And what difference does it make what profession my great great great great grandfather had. I don’t even know the name of my great great grandfather rest aside how his life was like 😐
Sometimes, under arranged marriages, people have their kids married to their siblings’ family and even then they end up getting divorce. Reason being, the secret behind a successful marriage never had the caste or inter-family as its must-have ingredient. For a marriage to be successful, you only need a lot of good luck and two people who somehow crack the code of happiness and loyalty for each other. Rest never matters.
When I started this blog, I said that we were supposedly Rajpoots until 18 years ago. Now, we are all bunch of great human beings, who have learnt to love their relationships beyond this.
PS: The featured Image is from the wedding ceremony of a Rajpoot and Jutt and together they produced a “Jut-poot”… a new caste I suppose (lol) 😀