Caste system in India...Is it really un-secular

Good morning ... Here I am again with a fresh new blog... the blog is fresher than the morning though... but is little more serious than you'd like to read in the mornings...

It's abt the castes n their significance or their ubiquitous and inseparable blend with the Indian society and the Indianness by large. The first thing that comes to mind when we hear the word caste, is, it should be aboolished... it is dividing our society and its non-secular. Hmmm... isn't it that we have accepted this view without looking or trying to look to the other side of the coin.

Ok let me first tell how this so significant yet so insignificant (in our daily routine of intellectual life) thought came to my mind so suddenly and so early in the morning... Mind you I am writing this at 08:50 hrs and it's early if you know that it's a Sunday morning and I woke up at 08:15 hrs and am still not naturally "fresh" to call the morning fresh. I read an article in the TOI just 10 mins back that made me see the other side. The article argues that caste system is a glue that binds ours which is a vastly diverse cultural society... See this.. when a new comer reaches a place. this is sth that gives him some support.. something to bank a bit on in the world of strangers.. If you are a Maharashtrian, a Gujrati or a Punjabi... dnt you find yourself relieved when u meet another Marathi Manus or a Gujju bhai or a Punjabi yar.. at a place where you are relatively much newer than him/her [while writing this sentence, i got my topic for next blog... whoppieee am lovin it at least the beginning...] You'd argue that this example is region based and not based on caste as such.. but isn't the idea pretty same.. and isn't it pretty much relevant in this context.. It's parallel the caste system is more prevalentin the rurals and rightly so coz villages are where some culture is still left.. And we uber cool urbanes see only work and pleasure.. the means to live a comfortable life and nothing beyond it... 
But then why has it become a bad thing over the years... I mean it lead to things as horrible as the concept of untouchables and more recently Khap panchayats favouring honour killings... where did it go wrong... i think the basic reason is we more often than not start following things blindly and rather start misusing those as per our own likes... We knw that initially the society was divided in to castes based on the type of work a faction of society was involved in... like brahamans were the ones who used to do puja-path and had knowledge of vedas and puranas. Shudras were the ones who used to do what we call as 3rd grade workers... But then we started following this in a wrong manner... and now the son of a pandit is by default a pandit even if he doesn't have any knowledge... and a son of a barber is still a barber even though he may be a doctor by profession... this is where the problem is... Its good and very obvious to have groups in society, of people having sth common in them.. it could be language, region or religion for that matter... But what we should not forget is that these are subsets of one common superset and that is humanity... that's above everything... I mean Khap panachayats are free to make some rules for marriages in their biradari but at the same time they should be cognizant of the fact that marriage is finally the decision of two individuals and is above any rules... and so they should honour their decision rather kill them for honour...

To be continued...    

Following your footsteps :)... as always

Entering the world of Blogs

Heard about these for quite some time now.. thought abt these for some time.. so here I am.. putting my first steps in the world of blogging... cheers for this journey.. lets c how far it goes.. and how many of us meet on the crossroads..