What were the effects of the ancient caste system of India on the development of

the Country?
"It is against the fundamental principles of humanity, it is against the dictates of
reason that a man should, by reason of birth, be denied or given extra privileges"
-Mahatma Gandhi
Caste system was very prominent in colonial India. Everyone believed that they
were born for a purpose. People were divided into 4 castes. The highest caste
being the Brahmins which included people who believed that they were the
closest to the supernatural entity they termed as Bhagwan in Hindi or God in
English. Next came the Kshatriyas or the warriors, these people believed that
they were born for the purpose of protecting their homeland or territory. Next
were the Vaishyas, they were common people with the purpose of working in
the agricultural sector and growing food for everyone. Last were the Shudras.
During the rule of the British, they were treated inhumanely. They were not
allowed to visit public places like temples etc., they couldnt drink water from the
same well as other people. These people were also termed as Untouchables,
that is, anyone who touched these people would become impure. This left the
poor people, that is, the Shudras in a very bad position in the society.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, himself being a part of the Shudra community fought for
their rights along with Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian freedom fighter. Mahatma
Gandhi believed that India would never achieve true Independence until the
system of Untouchability is abolished. He termed the Shudras as Harijans or
children of God. He sat with those people, did the same work as them to show
that they should have and equal place in the society. After independence, the
Government of India came up with caste based reservations for this minority
community.
Reservation in Indian law is a form of affirmative action whereby a percentage of
seats are reserved in the public sector units, union and state civil services, union
and state government departments and in all public and private educational
institutions, except in the religious/ linguistic minority educational institutions, for
the socially and educationally backward communities and the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes who are inadequately represented in these services and institutions.

The reservation policy is also extended for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes for representation in the Parliament of India.
These were introduced just after Indian Independence, keeping in mind that all
the groups of people in India should have the same benefits. It becomes unfair to
the other groups after some number of years. Yet, the various governments till
now have failed to truly uplift the backward sections of the society and failed to
provide them with equal opportunities even after 60 years of independence.
Freedom and application of a reservation policy, has changed nothing. In reality,
reservation has failed at all fronts. Not only has it failed to achieve the desired
aim of bringing the non-privileged classes into mainstream, it has marginalized
them all the more and deepened the caste system even more. Moreover,
reservations are now used not as an effective means of eliminating
discrimination but as a vile instrument of increasing the vote-bank.
Reservation based on birth has resulted in benefits to already benefitted family
again and again. Once a person of reserved caste gets benefit, his social status,
economic status become high, now again his family members are getting the
benefit thus depriving other needy of his own caste.
For more than half a century, India has maintained reservations for socially
disadvantaged classes in government jobs, political bodies and educational
institutions. Brahmins and other supposedly privileged groups were left to fend
for themselves.
Ironically some groups of people are requesting and pressurizing the
Government to include them in the lower castes so that they can reap the
benefits of the reservation system.
No system is ever perfect. The flaws of this reservation system have not only
affected the minority groups but also other groups of people.
All our social and religious reformers have tried to break caste system down. It is
regrettable that we have not been able to treat all men as equal even today. In
modem world there is no place for caste or racial discrimination. What matters is
the capabilities of a person and his contribution to the society. By giving
reservation to Dalits or Tribes we are inflicting handicaps on those 'more
advantageously placed' due to their birth in a particular caste. Our policy makers
need to be more pragmatic Reservation of all kinds must be abolished at all , if
found essential, it should not be based on caste, creed or birth, but on the basis

of financial and economic status and benefits should reach the grass-root level,
to the real needy one.
The basic idea behind these reservations was to support the minority community
and give them a push start to help them reach the same level as others and in
turn help the country to movie forward economically but all of this has not helped
the country much. The minority groups are in the same position as before and
the country has not moved much forward economically.
Due to this system the poor are getting poorer and other people are facing an
unfair disadvantage. There is no point of a government facility if the people are
not benefiting from it. This means that the reservation system is increasing the
levels of poverty which is obviously the worst thing that can happen to any
developing country.
I feel that the backward classes in Indian society should not be given
reservations but should be given education. They should not be given money but
they should be taught specific skills that can help them for surviving and hence
they will also be able to feed their families and contribute towards economic
growth of India.
Each person must be given basic necessities of life-nutrition, clothing, shelter
and medical facilities. Other facilities must be provided, not for free, but at a very
minimal cost.
The qualities of government facilities like schools, hospitals etc. must be
improved so that the poor people can benefit from them.
Government should set a deadline of about 10 to 15 years, in which it will close
the reservation programme down, doing that will ensure that the backward
societies will work harder to get on their own feet and feed their families.
Once a family belonging to the backward community reaches a certain economic
level, thereon, the coming generations must not be given any advantages of the
backward communities as they have sufficient economic resources to help
themselves.
Everyone, not only children, must be given basic knowledge about the work they
do and all the government schemes that can help them in their field of work.

Development of a country is not only the responsibility of the government but

also the citizens of the country. Government can only provide the medium for the
development, the people have to take advantage of that medium and work
towards development.