India is a magical country, where the rich and poor live side by side, bounded by Delhi's Gate in the capital, and neon lights on one side, and rich people in sophisticated and fashionable clothes shuttling between various drinking parties. On one side are dark, squalid neighborhoods of the poor, huddled in the corners of the city, worried about tomorrow's food and clothing.
India has always had a serious class system, and it is all circulating. The caste system in India originated from a social system formed after the Aryans invaded India in the 15th century BC. It first appeared in the Hindu holy book Veda, which recorded this myth: The gods divided the body of the primordial giant Prusha, creating four different castes from different parts of his body. The mouth becomes a Brahman, the arms become a Kshatriya, the legs become a Vaishya, and the feet become Sudras, and this racial difference in India has continued for thousands of years, and has been strengthened, deified, and institutionalized.
Although India has now abolished its racial system, the long-standing idea has planted deep seeds in people's hearts and will not be abandoned because of the system. Brahmins are the aristocratic race of India, because their hierarchy is strict, and Brahmins with high social status exist like gods in the eyes of many Indians. Also because there are fewer Brahmins, they are also gilded in the eyes of the majority of the people.
Since the teaching of knowledge from the Vedas, the ritual of sacrifice to others, and the receiving of alms were all performed only by Brahmins, the official interpretation of knowledge and all the power related to religion were in fact firmly held by the Brahmin caste. Even Kshatriya, the administrative ruler, could only humbly accept the guidance of the Brahmins. Not to mention the lower level Vaishya and Sudra.
Brahmins' initial privilege was to be exempted from all their worldly obligations. Caste groups at the Brahmin level do not have to pay various taxes or respond to any conscription, because they have paid these secular obligations by serving the gods, performing sacrifices, spreading teachings, and so on.
Later, the law could not punish these so-called messengers of God who walked on the earth. Because law is only human law after all, the scope of jurisdiction is only secular affairs. No corporal punishment or even the death penalty will be imposed on Brahmins, who are sacred and inviolable.
India's founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a Brahmin. Nehru was born in 1889 in the city of Allabad, a famous Gandhi family in India who was a close player to India's post-independence politics.
At the age of sixteen, Nehru went to study at Harrow College in England, and for the Brahmins, educational resources were at their fingertips, they did not have to compete for places like lower castes such as Sudras, Brahmins had their own special schools, or their own tutors, or even did not attend school in India at all, because they could not bear to attend classes in the same classroom as the untouchables.
Nehru, who had received higher education abroad, seemed to be a man of equality, but the caste system had long been in his blood. Striving for India's independence does not mean fighting for equality among the Indian people.
After Nehru's death, his daughter Indira succeeded him as India's new prime minister, and it is difficult to imagine that after breaking away from feudal society, there will be a hereditary system of supreme leadership in addition to the country that still maintains the monarchy.
The privileges of the Brahmins were boundless, in addition to their monopoly on the highest echelons of India, elite occupations were all included, and the class division of the entire society was so solid that it could not be dissolved from the outside, nor could it be broken from the inside.
"Before the laws of nature, all men are equal." This folk proverb in India is changed to: "In the caste system, all men are equal." Maybe it's more appropriate".
Nobility is always nobility and always enjoys privileges; Untouchables are always untouchables, always living at the bottom. Everyone is a free and equal individual, and hopefully India's caste system will one day fall apart.