Ishfaq Jabbar
Casteism is one of the rural social problems, which is very peculiar to Indian society. Indian society is a country of various religions. Each religion is subdivided into different castes. The culture of each caste varies though they all belong to the religion. Among these castes, certain are given high status, and others a low status depending on their caste occupation. In such a society there is a possibility for caste conflicts to occur.
In brief, casteism refers to one-sided loyalty in favor of a particular caste. Casteism leads the members of one caste to exploit the members of other castes for their vested interest in the name of superiority or inferiority. Casteism is a blind group loyalty towards one’s 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.
It is an over-riding blind and supreme group loyalty that ignores the healthy social standard. Endogamy i.e., marriage within the group is a factor of great concern prevalent among Syed families (Peers). Such restrictions placed on marriage force an individual to marry within his own caste group which brings about cohesion within the group thereby increasing casteism.
The prevalence of casteism shows that people are tradition-bound, conservative, and orthodox in thinking. It may cause hurdles to the upliftment of women because of a lack of encouragement from caste-conscious groups.
The impact of casteism on society is severe right from individual to whole nation. It affects society as a whole.
The solution for the problems arising out of casteism is to provide value-based education to children’s from childhood. Economic and cultural equality is also an important tool to bring reforms to this social evil. In addition to the above-mentioned solutions, casteism can be minimized by encouraging inter-caste marriages, which can minimize the feelings arising out of casteism by bringing two families of different caste closer to each other.
