The Caste System
The role of a governmental structure in India began with the development of the Caste System. This political system was assembled by a hierarchy of socialites. A hierarchy could have depended on what type of job an individual occupied and where an individual stood in society. This type of government was made to ensure order in each city-state and keep the peace between other societies. In the Caste System the political status of individuals could rarely be changed throughout life. After a citizen was considered a part of a specific political group; the status was permanent. The Portuguese, who came to India in the early sixteenth century, began this long-standing tradition of social class ruling in this culture. When the Aryans established their culture they already had a primitive type of class distinction. In the beginning, there were only a few groups because the Aryan culture was so underdeveloped. They mainly relied on animals for food, wealth, and war. As time progressed and the Aryans started to have more interaction with other groups their class system began to develop even more. Each different group was considered a “varna”, a word which described the color of one’s skin. Therefore, the Aryans based social . . .
Once a person was in a specific varna or jati, then their children would also be considered to that category. Because the system was so large and consisted of numerous amounts of people it seemed to be easier to change the system as a whole rather than try to keep up with each individual changes. The caste system worked well for the Indian society. There were specific rules and obligations that each person followed, but if these rules were abused or broken there would be serious consequences to pay. This type of system seemed to work well for the people of India. The members of a jati stuck together. They started to add subcategories to each class, known as jati. The caste system in India proved that through the work of many people a society can run without a central form of government. Each level of the system maintained the citizens and kept order and peace throughout the society. With the appearance of new people and foreign groups, the system helped keep the society together. There were the priests known as the brahmins, the warriors and aristocrats known as the kshatriyas, the cultivators, merchants, and artists called vaishyas, and the peasants and serfs whom were called shudras. It gave structure and governmental power to those people in society who could maintain order. This system worked well for new people coming into the society. Over time there were many inevitable changes in the Indian culture which brought about some problems for the caste system.
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