Digital Assignment 2 - Social Ethics

_ Due date - 31-03-2017

A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable.

Social problems directly or indirectly affect a person or many members of a society and are considered to be
problems, controversies related to moral values or both. It is an issue that relates to societys perception of a
persons personal life. Different cultures have different perceptions and what may be normal behavior in one
society may be a significant social issue in another society.

_ This assignment-2 is about 3-5 pages report on a social issue in your society. All you have to do is,

pick up a social issue happening in your society, analyze it and conclude it as if you are a social leader.

Casteism as a Major Social Problem

Caste which is also known as Varna or Jati can be understood as an identification on the basis of
birth. It’s like a designation given to you without your asking for it. It is a hereditary system;
thus, a child gets the caste of his father on its birth. According to Hindu shastras, there are
mainly four hereditary castes or Varnas into which the Hindu society is divided viz. Brahmin,
Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra.

Castes were first classified according to their occupation. But due to access to wealth, power,
and privilege, two of the upper castes viz Brahmins and Kshatriyas started to use religious
sanctions to monopolize their position. History tells us the same that the dominant position in
society was monopolized by two main upper castes.

Meaning:

Casteism is one of the social problems, which is very peculiar to the Indian society. Indian
society is a country of various religions. Each religion is sub-divided into different castes and
these castes again into sub-castes. The culture of each caste varies though they all belong to
one religion. Among these castes, certain are given a high status and others a low status,
depending upon their caste occupation.
In such a society, there is every possibility for caste conflicts to occur. These conflicts have their
origin in casteism, which refers to the hatred of one caste by the other, or the attempts made
by the members of one caste to gain personal advantages to the detriment of interests of the
other caste members. In brief, casteism refers to one-sided loyalty in favour of a particular
caste.

Casteism leads the members of one caste to exploit the members of other caste for their own
vested interest in the name of superiority or inferiority. ‘Casteism is a blind group loyalty
towards one’s own caste or sub-caste, which does not care for the interests of other castes, and
seeks to realize the social, eco­nomic, political and other interests of its own group’.

Casteism is loyalty to caste translated into politics. It is an overriding blind and supreme group
loyalty that ignores the healthy social standards of justice, their play, equality and universal
brotherhood’.

Casteism is considered as a social problem as it disturbs the sound governmental politics and
democracy and paves the way for mutual group conflicts. Casteism is manifested in the form of
clashes between various castes for higher share in the socio-economic privileges and power.

Causes of Casteism:

There are many causes of casteism. Some of them are as follows:

 Casteism increases, when a particular group tends to improve the status of its own
caste. In order to achieve such status, the members even adopt the most improper
methods to enhance the prestige of their caste.

 Marital rules such as endogamy, i.e., marriage within the group is another factor. Under
the caste system, which allows casteism to perpetuate, such restrictions placed on
marriage forces an individual to marry within his own caste group, which brings about
cohesion within the group, thereby increasing casteism.

 Communication between rural and urban areas became easy through urbani-zation. The
feelings of caste were easily carried through the members from rural areas to urban
areas through migration. The members of the caste have to face various problems and
as a result, a need to provide security on com-munal basis was felt. This factor of need
for security also encourages casteism.

 Easy access to the means of transport and communication is another factor, which
contributes to the growth of casteism. Members of the same caste, who were
previously not much in touch with each other, are now able to establish intimate
 relationships. The spread of the feeling of casteism became easy through mass media,
such as newspapers, magazines, etc.

The impact of casteism on society is severe. Right from the individual to the whole nation, it
affects the society as a whole.

Some of the ill-effects of casteism are as follows:

 Casteism perpetuates the practice of untouchability and becomes an obstacle in

providing social equality and justice.

 Casteism proves to be a threat to social order, stability, peace and harmony, in the
society.

 Prevalence of casteism shows that the people are tradition-bound, conserv-ative and
orthodox in thinking. It may cause a hurdle to the upliftment of women because of lack
of encouragement from caste-conscious groups.

 Casteism divides society into different segments and results in conflicts and tensions in
and between these segments. These continuous conflicts and ten-sions between various
segments hinder the development of the nation and growth of nationalism.

 Casteism results in political disunity and affects the smooth and successful functioning
of multi-party democracy like India.

 Casteism, indirectly, can be the cause of corruption. Members of a caste try to give all
facilities to the persons, who are from their own caste and in doing so, they do not
hesitate to involve in the most corrupt activities.

 Casteism has become an instrument in the hands of political leaders. Many political
leaders, during elections, try to procure votes on communal and caste basis, rather than
their own capacities and capabilities. This results in election of under-serving
candidates, who do not hesitate to promote their own caste interest at the cost of
common good. Thus, casteism proves to be a hindrance to democracy.

 Merit and efficiency may not be given importance, if appointments to various positions
both in the public and private sectors are based on caste considerations. This results in
hindering the technology and industrial efficiency.

 It also becomes an obstacle in achieving social mobility.

  Casteism sometimes leads to religious conversions, especially among the low caste
groups, who are not financially sound. Another cause for such conver-sions is that
certain unbearable exploited conditions arise out of dominance of certain caste groups
over other caste groups.

Acts to Prohibit Caste Discrimination:

To fulfill the Constitutional mandate several other Acts were also passed the Parliament to end
the exploitative and discriminatory practices against so-called lower castes. A few of those
legislations are as follows:

 The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, renamed as Protection of Civil Rights Act, in
1976.

 To check and deter atrocities against SCs, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 has also been enacted.

 Recently the Government has introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha in the name of the
Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, 2013
which aims to prohibit the employment of manual scavengers, the manual cleaning of
sewers and septic tanks without protective equipment, and the construction of
insanitary latrines. The Bill seeks to rehabilitate manual scavengers and provide for their
alternative employment.

It is another social welfare legislation whose objective is to bring manual scavengers in social
mainstream and to protect them from various socio-cultural and economic discrimination.

Solution to the Problem of Casteism:

Till now, we have discussed about the ill-effects of casteism. Then what could be done in order
to eliminate or minimize the problems of casteisms?

Some of the solutions for the problems arising out of casteism are as follows:

 Providing value-based education to children from childhood can solve the problem of
casteism to some extent.

 Various social agencies like family, school, and Mass media must be given the
responsibility to develop a proper, broad outlook among children, which will negate the
 feelings of casteism, for example, creating awareness about the ill-effects of
perpetuating the traditional caste system.

 Literary programmes must be taken up in rural areas as the caste feelings, which further
perpetuate casteism, are more in rural areas. These feelings of casteism can be
minimized by the provision of social education among rural population.

 By encouraging inter-caste marriages, the feelings arising out of casteism can be

minimized as these marriages bring two families of different castes closer to each other.

 Provision of cultural and economic equality among different sections of the society
reduces the chances of jealousy and competition. Thus, economic and cultural equality
is important in eliminating casteism.

Suggestions:

 The conflict originating in casteism can be removed by encouraging inter-caste

marriages. Co-education should be introduced at the primary level and boys and girls
should be given the opportunity to come together. This will lead to improvement of
behaviour between different sexes simultaneously, with which casteism will be actively
refuted.

 Creation of some optional groups is neces-ary through which the communal tendencies
of the individuals can be manifested and organized. As these increase, casteism
decreases because the individuals will have the chance to express their instincts and
motives outside the caste.

 It is necessary to create economic and cultural equality between the castes.

 The conflicts created by casteism can be ended only when the internal aspects of
conduct are influenced. For this, it is necessary to try and develop new attitudes in the
people.

Conclusion:

Caste system in India is so rigidly deep-rooted in its socio-cultural and religious life that it now
almost has God-given approval behind it. And anything against or in opposition of this system is
considered to be a sin or disrespectful to God.
But in reality it is no God-send virtue to be followed by the people. It has had several
exploitative and discriminatory effects on our social order throughout the ages. As a by-
product, caste system has given several other social ills to the society such as Untouchability.

The system is still continuing in India as a well-established and sacred customary rule and is
followed by almost everyone regardless of their economic or social status. Though the younger
generation is discarding such social norms but still the system is well-entrenched in our socio-
religious beliefs. India cannot become a truly modern country in the 21st century, if it fails to
abolish this discriminatory practice based on caste.

The biggest problem in abolishing and removing this menace from the society is the in general
social acceptability of the same. Until and unless this changes no hope is there. Because law can
provide protection from exploitation but it cannot bring attitudinal change in so-called upper
castes. The young and modern generation is perhaps the only hope in bringing about the real
meaning of social justice in our country.