Casteism is Classism

Throughout human history, and in the present day, various social conflicts between opposing religious, racial, and ethnic groups were actually about economics rather than religion, race, or ethnicity. The European colonists did not wage war against the Native Americans because the Europeans hated the Native Americans' race or religion. The Europeans waged war against the Native Americans because they wanted their land. The rich Europeans won that war, and now the European colonists control the land that belonged to the Native Americans.

Photo: Casteism is Classism

The conflicts between the European colonists and the Native Americans, the British colonists and the Australian Aborigines, and the Israeli colonists and the Palestinians have all pitted the rich against the poor. The struggle between the rich and the poor is the root cause of most societal and international conflicts.

The real goal of the US-led 'War on Terrorism' is for the USA and its allies to gain control of the oil-rich Middle East and to establish world dominance by the USA. The wars of resistance against the US occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of a global class-war between the rich and the poor.

The true enemies of the poor are the rich, exactly as the enemy of the bird is the cat. However, the rich often fool the poor into thinking that someone else is their enemy. That's how the rich persuade the poor to fight for them in their wars of aggression and conquest.

Today there is a huge gap between the incomes of the rich and the poor in India, the USA, and many other countries, a gap so huge that it is unprecedented in human history. That huge gap between the rich and the poor proves that the upper classes are abusively exploiting the lower classes.

India's caste system is nothing more than a formalization of economic classes, designed to make those classes hereditary and binding. India's caste system is not unique; caste systems exist in most countries as barriers to class mobility. In essence, caste is identical with class, and casteism is the same as classism.

The upper classes everywhere have a vested interest in perpetuating a caste or class system, because perpetuating the caste or class system is what keeps the upper classes established in their positions of power and privilege.

To eliminate caste or class, the government must end its preferential support for, and its submission to, the upper classes. Inadequate programs and tokenism for the poor only serve to perpetuate the caste/class system, because inadequate programs and tokenism provide the illusion that progress is being made to eliminate caste. To eliminate caste, you must eliminate class, because caste is the same thing as class.

Gregory Fegel