Suprakash Majumdar: With religious tensions worsening in India, understanding caste is more urgent than ever
, there are 3,000 main castes and as many as 25,000 sub-castes, with Brahmins at the top and Shudras at the bottom.
Lying outside this system are the Dalits and the Adivasi , together totaling 350 million people, or just over a quarter of India’s population. They are the mostgroups in the country, but they are also contested over by Hindu nationalists, who see them as useful foot soldiers in the struggle against Islam.
“Hindu nationalism is led by the upper castes and their incitement of all Hindus against the Muslim minority is a ploy that enables them to keep their grip on Hindu society,” says the welfare economist. “It makes it all the more difficult for Dalits and other exploited groups to question their own oppression by the upper castes and revolt against it.”
Some 200 members of Dalit and other castes attend a religious program to convert to Buddhism in Ahmedabad, India, on Sept. 30, 2017.At the same time, there is a fear that other religions will prove more attractive to the disadvantaged communities who, being outside the caste system, need not have any particular loyalty to Hinduism. Dalits are
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