Poorva Singh
Paul Tchir B02
Assignment #2: Prospectus
2 February 2016
Caste System: Effects of the British Regime In the realm of Hinduism, the caste system originated as a cycle indicating that one’s current actions would be the deciding point of which caste they would be born into in their next life. This karmic distribution was intended to reiterate the importance of a predestined dharma, or duty, that one would be obligated to fulfill according to the caste they were birthed into. The four castes, Brahmin as the priests, Kshatriya as the warriors, Vaisyas as the merchants and Shudras as the laborers became established to regulate each separate yet equally important role. However, scholars have argued that although the castes were not originated to instigate hierarchy but to perpetuate the sense of duties- it inevitably evolved into more of a class system, reconfiguring the meaning of the idea of caste itself. Scholars have also proposed that the context in which the caste system was established seemed to take a tangent from religious volition and became a means of categorization instead. In the face of this apparent hypocrisy begs the question: Did the colonization of India by Britain in the 19th century deter the caste system because of their personal interpretation of it towards a hierarchy rather than a means of accomplishing one’s spiritual duty?
One of the plausible answers to this question is that the reign of the British empire during the 19th century resulted in the alignment of the caste system to the class system to consolidate the massive population and make it more manageable to handle (Hobson 2). The distinguishing feature that separated the caste system under and after British rule was that it was designed to make the “optimum use” of the people in pertaining castes and became a defining factor for their social role and intellect (Hobson