India s Indian Caste System - 2031 Words

India has pioneered many different civilizations and empires each presenting new social, religious, and cultural dynamics. Through the development of India in the past 100+ years, they were colonized by Great Britain and societies began to form caste systems. However, different hierarchal statuses were instituted long before the establishment of caste systems officially. Sociologists agree that the British didn’t create the caste system, however the British used their dominance to further endorse a stricter system that could easily define and categorize the people of India. The Portuguese used the term caste system first to, â€Å"denote the social classification of India, as they thought the system was meant to be o preserve the purity of†¦show more content†¦There are many arguments that the caste system is fundamentally for religious reasons, however other historians and sociologists argue that once the Europeans started colonizing India, the meaning of took a tur n. Through biological theories, all existing things (animated or inanimate) will inherit one of three qualities, sattva, rajas, and tamas (Daniel). Sattvas qualities include goodness, honesty, wisdom, intelligence, and many other good-natured qualities; rajas qualities are passionate qualities such as, passion and pride; and tamas qualities are not very positive qualities, and entail lack of intelligence and creativity, dullness, and other negative qualities (Daniel). Depending on the qualities that one inherited and gained, would determine what occupation one would be in, essentially deciding what class they would be in. Through the social historical theory, we understand that the caste system began with the Aryans in 1500 B.C. (Swanpil 71). The Aryans were fairer in their skin, and came from northern Asia and southern Europe. Through Lieberson’s and Noel’s Model (1968), both consider the importance of initial group contact however the Aryans used Liebersonâ€℠¢s migrant subordination as well as being ethnocentric to the indigenous culture by creating a stratification system. When they first entered India, they met the Dravidians who they contrasted with both in their