Talk:Caste system in India/Archive 1

message: Please discuss all edits, and DO NOT erase comments from the talk pages. I have reinstated my comments to the talk page. I have edited some entries to provide context to POV assertions. We can also remove the POV assertions if you wish. Or we can, as I have done, leave them in and present opinions as being opinions, rather than facts. We mst clearly distinguish between opinions and facts. Muggle1982 21:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do not revert edits and do not erase Talk Page comments, please 

message: I suggest that Varna (caste) be a separate entry, since it refers to only one aspect of caste, that of vedic caste. The vedic system itself is highly formalised. The actually existing caste system is far more complex, and this complexity may have existed long before the form described in the texts, which may merely be a convention. To draw a parallel, the languages existing in vedic India were formalised into Sanskrit, but this language may not actually have been spoken, unlike the many Prakrits which evolved into the modern languages of the Indian subcontinent.Vinodm 13:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging into Varnas 

message: There is a lot of selective quoting and similar that makes the article feel very POVish. It may be a good idea to try to fix that. --Improv 00:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV issues 

message: Hey -- I've just finished editing the article to straighten out the garbled bits and make things a little less confusing to readers who aren't used to Indian English. I wonder whether anyone could give it the once-over and remove the cleanup tag? I've tried my best to help it sound neutral, and I'd remove the tag myself, but just a little confirmation here, please? Thanks. ----219.91.152.10 18:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edited, would someone check? 

message: I have made several edits. They consist of the following:
1. Removing weakly arguable material and conjecture
2. Pruning external links to remove those that are definitely biased sources (of which there were many!)
3. Re-arranging sections to make it more organised
I have left in the tags because I think this article still needs a lot of improvement from the standpoint of neutrality and unbiased scholarship.
Many egregious social evils have not even been touched up, for instance financial corruption of brahmins, atrocities committed by landowning castes, and the lynching of couples who dare to break the endogamy rule. 
Right now, except for the section on untouchables, most of the article seems to consist of interpretations of Hindu scripture with very little treatment of the ground realities of casteism in India. This needs some serious attention.
Splitpeasoup 08:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The last section of the article, which is entitled "Varna in Hindu texts". I am not saying it is irrelevant, just that there needs to be more treatment of the practical ramifications of the caste system. Splitpeasoup 02:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality and arrangement edits 

message: The article has been mangled by someone.
The term "caste" should be first clearly defined and then some real examples of castes should be given. 
The article on "caste system" should describe the complete system, not just one part of it.
The dalit castes are about 16% of the population. The castes to which other 84% of the Indians belong, also deserve to discussed. Should an article on USA economy focus exclusively on discrimination encountered by the Blacks and Hispanics (25% of the population)? Should a discussion of the Catholic church history focus on the inquisitions?
The article should discuss facts and minimize political perspectives. 
There is a large body of literature on individual castes as well as on the caste system, most of it by western scholars. Some of the most valauable books were written by british administrators.
I think this article should focus on facts and should not be used for presenting political or activist points of views. There are several articles that already do that at Wikipedia.
--ISKapoor 23:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Systematic presentation and Neutrality 

message: The article as it stands has a severe lack of balance in its treatment of the topic.
The most relevant aspects of casteism have been glossed over or omitted. Major effects of casteism have been: atrocities against dalits, implicit and explicit suppression of intercaste marriages, appropriation of unwarranted influence by brahmins and landowning castes, caste wars, and perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy, and low standard of living among low castes. 
The article as it stands today plays down or does not even mention these crucial issues.
Before this article can be considered neutral and balanced, it will have to address the above issues with the seriousness they deserve. 
As of now, most of the article looks like it was written by a proponent or apologist of the caste system. 
Splitpeasoup 02:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of balance 

message: i have added the introduction. I have approached the whole idea in an academic way both highlighting the postives and the negatives. There is a need to cleapup this article by deleting a lot of unwanted pieces.  SV 01:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  adding intro 

message: I found this page extremely confusing to read as well. It took a while to touch up just the intro and first two sections. However, this is not a topic I am greatly knowledgable in and was fixing it up from a copyediting standpoint only. So, it would be great if someone more knowledgable on this topic could skim through and fact check my updates. Drcwright 22:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double check? 

message: If no one objects, I am in favor of changing the tag from copyedit to NPOV and fact check. From a grammar POV, the article is now fine and I don't think that the style can be improved w/o the aid of someone knowledgable on this subject (or willing to check research), as the meaning in many areas is confusing. Any comments or objections?
A. Kohler 18:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. I found myself doing a bunch of external fact-checking while copyediting, as where it needs work requires some knowledge of the subject. It wasn't like fixing up the lip gloss page! Drcwright 16:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is my opinion, also. I went ahead and removed the copyedit template and replaced it with the expert template, as there seems to be a disagreement about accuracy and consistency, as well as a possible NPOV issue. I think someone who is an expert needs to sort this out. --A. Kohler 21:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change clean-up tag 

message: Wouldn't "Hindu caste system" title the article more aptly? I don't think people of other religions living in India were influenced by the Hindu caste divisions. Therefore terming the article as Indian caste system would be incorrect. Also, other religions have their own castes and sub castes, which are not detailed in the article. I'd like to hear other wikipedians' opinions. --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu_Joseph |TALK 06:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. So the article needs a rewrite of the certain sections, especially the lead in. --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu_Joseph |TALK 06:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Indian'' or ''Hindu'' caste system 

message: This article is for scientific thinking and present President is from science stream. He supports caste based religion which is violation of Constitution of India from the Head of the Constitution.
vkvora 05:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Er...okay, so your point in raising this personal opinion here on an encyclopedia? --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu_Joseph |TALK 06:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  From vkvora to Deepujoseph.  I have added it on discussion. The population of India is more than 1000 millions. For last 10-15 days we hear for reservation.  Founding Fathers of Constitution were in hope that India will be Democratic and Republic within ten years and there will not be any caste system and religion in day to day to life of Individual whereas after 60 years we discuss in Parliament about Temple Construction and help for Kumbh Mela and Haj Piligrims. vkvora 14:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Constitution of India and Article 51A 

message: Karma underpins the caste system, and the caste system traditionally determines the position and role of every member of Hindu society. Caste determines an individual's place in society, the work he or she may carry out, and who he or she may marry and meet. Hindus believe that the karma of a previous life determines which caste an individual is (re)born into. In Hinduism all men are born unequal: caste is pre-determined and unchangeable.
Ref: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/cherry_16_4.html
:Please read the ref http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/cherry_16_4.html, I have quoted Mr Cherry and I suggest we let it be part of the main article as  nids has done with Mat Cherry claimed 'In Hinduism all men are born unequal: caste is pre-determined and unchangeable.' IMHO this is not false and derogatory but what has been claimed by Mr Cherry. Please suggest. Ajaypal2k 19:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I am saying is that his rants should be summarized and quoted, not to let him be made into an "expert" on Hinduism.Bakaman Bakatalk 19:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope it does not mean summarised and **censored**! Lets quote him as he said. Ajaypal2k 20:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

text: What are his credentials? If he is just some some schmoe out to get attention, I dont think he merits a paragraph on a wiki article. Someone like Ambedkar or something is more qualified than some random John Doe, who matt cherry seems to be.Bakaman Bakatalk 20:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Remeber, we do not quote Ali Sina or Salman Rushdie on Islamic articles.nids(♂) 20:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Also keep in mind that we cannot quote something that is factually wrong. Most of our sages were born in lower castes. starting from valmiki, vyasa to Ramdev. He can be factually right and still a critic. only those statements deserve a place in the current article.nids(♂) 20:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Here there is a direct quote from Hindu scriptures. all men are born shudras, only karma decides there varna. He is right for other statements, so they are included.nids(♂) 20:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  http://humaniststudies.org/bios/mcbio.html, besides he has been presedeint of United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Credentials definitly better than me or you. Ajaypal2k 20:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think i pointed out to his objectionable statements above, where he is completely wrong. Will you accept GWBs comment on Zorostrianism, for which he wouldnt even be knowing the basics. It depends on the knowledge of the person too.nids(♂) 20:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Matt Cherry, "Humanism In India", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol 16 Num 4

message: Varnas are summarized in 3 different places in this article. These bits should be merged. Ben Finn 12:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Varnas

message: The census figures state they are from 1891.  Is this supposed to be 1981?  If not, are more recent data available? (65.26.217.188 05:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Census date

message: :Independent India officially documented castes and subcastes, primarily to determine those deserving reservation, an affirmative action process (vaguely similar to, and predating, the US system) through the census. The difference between the Indian reservation system and American affirmative action is that India relies entirely on quotas where the US does not.
Is there any particular reason to compare the Indian reservation to the US affirmatice action particularly? Affirmative action is not unique to the US or India and I suspect most non-Americans don't know much, if anything about the US system. It seems to me that for balance and neutrality, we should rework the sentence to something like this:
:Independent India officially documented castes and subcastes, primarily to determine those deserving reservation, an affirmative action process, through the census.
We could probably include the comparison to the US, but we need to work it in such a way that it flows as just one of a number comparisons that can be made. I couldn't think of a way to do it so I didn't bother (also why I didn't change it myself). Ideally, we should also include comparisons with other affirmative action systems but if you don't know enough about the others, that's fine. Nil Einne 07:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  US 

message: I know the article discounts the Aryan invasion theory. However, I thought it was widely acknowledged that different casts had different genetic origins - ie that there was an Aryan invasion. 
A study of the Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations published   seems to support this:
:"Our analysis of 40 autosomal markers indicates clearly that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians. The high affinity of caste Y chromosomes with those of Europeans suggests that the majority of immigrating West Eurasians may have been males. As might be expected if West Eurasian males appropriated the highest positions in the caste system, the upper caste group exhibits a lower genetic distance to Europeans than the middle or lower castes. This is underscored by the observation that the Kshatriya (an upper caste), whose members served as warriors, are closer to Europeans than any other caste (data not shown). Furthermore, the 32-bp deletion polymorphism in CC chemokine receptor 5, whose frequency peaks in populations of Eastern Europe, is found only in two Brahmin males (M. Bamshad and S.K. Ahuja, unpubl.). The stratification of Y-chromosome distances with Europeans could also be caused by malespecific gene flow among caste populations of different rank. However, we and others have demonstrated that there is little sharing of Y-chromosome haplotypes among castes of different rank (Bamshad et al. 1998; Bhattacharyya et al. 1999)."
Should the Aryan invasion theory be reintroduced (or at least not so heavily discounted)? Should the genetic origin part be introduced or at least mentioned in the article?Osli73 07:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where has this been acknowledged? The genetic origins are different within Kshatriya castes and Vaishya castes perhaps (Kshatriyas settle and fight wars, Vaishyas trade bring foreign wives) but Brahmins and lower castes stay the same. And the University of Massachusetts study found "the original people and culture within the Indian Subcontinent may even be a likely pool for the genetic, linguistic, and cultural origin of the most rest of the world, particularly Europe and Asia." 
Bakaman%% 23:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetic Origin of Caste Populations 

message: Someone added a massive amount of extremely poorly written/edited information about the Nepalese caste system to this article.  I moved this section to the article on the Nepalese caste system.  Both the article on Nepalese castes and this one are confusing, redundant, poorly organized, and poorly written.  They need to be edited by someone who knows the material better than I do.  These articles need a lot of help. dsingsen 21:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major edit 

message: Someone had inserted a long text:
:There was no caste system in early community. It came into existence only later. It has been mentioned in Balmiki Ramayan:
:"Treta Yug (era) followed Satya Yug and strong Kshetriyas started performing penance there like Brahmins. Then Manu and other sages, seeing no difference between Brahmins and Kshetriyas, set up a community made of four classes."
(Uttarkand 74/11-15)
 
etc. 
There are two problems:
# The Varna system already has a detailed article.
# The text was lifted from http://www.hri.ca/partners/insec/Yb1993/Append_1.shtml
--ISKapoor 23:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text taken from a web-site

message: Why are my constructive npov edits being reverted? --Krsont 22:49, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: AIT is not fact, but the AMT is as close to fact as we can tell. Certainly more so than the crackpot theories of nationalists. No one is saying the Ramayan wasn't written in India, that'd be ridiculous. It clearly is Indian in origin and was composed sometime after the Aryan migration. The Sanskrit used is classical, not early or vedic. And there's nothing strange about a theory changing forms - it's called science. As we learn more about how it happened, and our previous prejudices are left behind, our ideas are modified and adapted - but the central truth of the notion has always been true, that Indo-European language clearly originated outside of India and spread onto the subcontinent some time after the collapse of the Indus Vally Civilization. You know this debate has always reminded me a lot of the evolution/creationist controversy in the US: a small group of radicals, driven by politics, dogma and misplaced belief, that continually deny the truth. --Krsont 23:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Except that even the Mahabharat (written at least 1000 years after Ramayan) was written before the fall of the Indus valley civ. At the UMass Center of Indic studies "clearly showed with astronomical analysis that the Mahabharata war in 3,067 BC" . The Mahabharat is ONLY a conflict between Sanskrit speaking Kshatriyas and it happened before 1500BC (the end of Ivalley civ). You're right about the debate though. Witzel is driven by anti-Hindu dogma, Communists, Muslims, Imperialists, and Missionaries drive the politics and Max Mueller founded the misplaed belief. They all wish to deny the truth that Indian civilization (including Sanskrit) is indigenous just like the Assyrians to Iraq or the Chinese to China.Bakaman%% 23:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  aha, the infamous astronomical analysis! is this the same sort of analysis that proved that the Rig Veda was written at the North Pole? And I don't really see how you could mistake linguists and scientists for a radical religious political group. We are talking about modern theories here, not the 19th century; attacking Müller is like attacking Lamark on evolution. We've moved on. I think you'll find Hindutva fits the bill for radical religious politics much better. --Krsont 23:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The languages (IE) are similar because most humans took  the same path from Africa thousands and hundreds of thousands of years ago and because of diffusion between Greek, Buddhist, and Hindu philosophers.Bakaman%% 23:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language contains a word for "wheel", something that was not invented until the 5th millenium BCE. Not to mention all the agricultural terms that also did not exist millions of years ago when humans left Africa. If the Indo-European languages had seperated at that time, then these words in the daughter languages would obviously all be different. However they are not; they clearly show that they descend from a common ancestor, one that obviously could not have existed millions of years ago. --Krsont 23:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I never said millions, I said thousands of years. The wheel also is believed by archaeologists (the experts) to have been invented 8000 BC[http://library.thinkquest.org/C004203/science/science02.htm}. The Ramayan (7000BC by estimates) does not mention chariots while the Mahabharat (3076BCE) does. Even with your conservative 5000BC estimate the equation works out.Bakaman%% 23:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:   so what about signs of human habitation in India before 8000 years ago? if the original settlers of India were Indo-European as you claim, then how did they have a word for a thing which did not yet exist?--Krsont 23:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: i meant animal husbandry. the word for cattle specifically is also frequently associated with wealth; they weren't just names for wild animals. --Krsont 23:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh ok gotcha, but I think the cattle subject is one where since the maternal childbirth death rate ( I dont know exact term) was so high, that cow's milk was valued. This is why the Cow is revered in Hinduism and it is used as currency in many other places. It took the place of the mother in many instances.Bakaman Bakatalk 21:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  origins section