In this article I am going to discuss the caste system in India and my impressions of it along with its effects on Christians and what the Christian response to the system of caste should be. The caste system in India comes out of the Hindu religion where there are four major castes ( Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishayas, and Shudras ) with subcastes and one non-caste known as the Hajeran, Dalits or Untouchables. According to Hindu tradition "the castes came into being from a single source, the living body of a gigantic primordial "Code Man" who was possessed of the most powerful coded substances, the words of the Veda. After producing the male and female genders by dividing himself in half, the Code Man generated four ranked classes or varna, each ascribed with a particular occupation and code of conduct. Brahmins (the priestly caste ) were generated from his mouth, Kshatriyas (the warrior caste) from his arms, Vaishyas from his loins and the Shudras from his feet."* This tradition sees the castes as being interdependent and that this interdependence rest on the occupational exchanges among the castes. In this system the Vaishyas’ codes tells them to produce and accumulate wealth by trade, cultivation, and rearing livestock where as the Shudra code, because of their lowly origin, is to render bodily service to the higher castes. The caste system, in others words, labels people and assigns them occupations according to the accident of their birth and does not allow them to come up in occupations outside their caste.

The caste system in India is supposedly outlawed. However you can see it practiced in everyday society through the arrangement of marriages etc. Most marriages are arranged by caste so the status of the families are kept on the same level. One example of the discriminatory aspect of the caste system is how it is practiced in the housing market. When an inter-caste married couple finds a house they like the Realtor gladly takes their down payment but once the owner or landlord finds out that couple are involved in a inter-caste marriage the property immediately becomes unavailable and the couple are without their down payment and a place to live.

I believe that one of the results of the caste system is the poverty that is so prevalent here. In my opinion much of the poverty here is due to the structure of the caste system which prevents much of the lower castes from receiving an education, professional training etc. In other words the people from the low castes are discriminated and marginalized due to their birth status.

As a Christian when I see this marginlization of people I tend to think of Micah 6:8 "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (NIV) and remember that the Lord calls us to love one another as he loved us and our neighbor as ourselves and that in light of this call to action by the Lord we should fight discrimination anywhere we see it.

This casteism is so widespread here in India that it has even crept into the Christian community and unfortunately one of the first places this type of discrimination needs to be fought is in the Churches that are run by high caste members. One example of caste discrimination inside the Christian Church in India is that in some states there are separate churches of the same denomination in the village or town for each caste.

Another form is having separate seating sections for each caste in the churches sanctuary. I have also read that some churches have a separate communion time and serve from different chalices because the Brahman castes do not want to become polluted by eating and drinking from the same cup as a Dalit. However there is some progress being made against casteism in the church which can be seen in the increasing number of congregations who have stopped such practices.

What can Christians do to combat casteism? The first thing as always is educate people on how harmful it really is. The second is to help educate and train the lower castes for professions. The third and final step is to seek the guidance of the Lord for others ways we can combat this type of discrimination anywhere in the world that it takes place and try to bring a little piece of God’s kingdom here on earth.

In Christ’s Service,

Rich Hahn