What are the economic implications of caste system?

 

On the face of it,most of us would like believe that Caste System is a social order only.The reason for this belief could be that,CS has been presented as a' social order' by the media and the official text books.

But a critical look at the Caste System would lead us to doubt such a conclusion.
The Caste System ,in essence ,is ' allocation of the' works/avocations' to each class concerned.Roughly it can be as under:

Now the above allotment of areas of activity for each class is an indirect allotment of the related economic activities of the areas and the income generated thereby.
Accordingly the income allotment to the classes concerned will be as under.

Now let us translate the above economic activities into monetary terms.
Let us take the Indian Budget 2015 as a bench mark for the allotments.

From the foregoing it is clear that the major chunk of the economic income of the country generated is allotted to the upper caste as under.

Apart from the above direct allotment the Caste System manages to misappropriate the income that is legitimately due to the labour class through some tricks like the one below.
For example,suppose the Government allots Rs.100 crores for 'Clean India' program,the normal appropriation of the funds allotted should go somewhat like this:

However the allotment and appropriation cleverly made is interestingly as follows.

If you study the pattern of the allocation to various classes it is interesting to note how the caste system manages to misappropriate whatever little they seem to allot to the lower class.
The allotment class -wise is as under.

Labour expenses for scavengers just 20 crores goes to the labour class C4, after lot of delay and struggles! So,we need to understand that 80% of funds in a scheme that appears to be predominantly allotted for Class 4,in fact, goes to other upper classes !The above one is only for illustration purposes,but if you analyse any Government Scheme for the upliftment of SC's and ST's this holds good.
The Government of Tamil Nadu played a' beautiful ' trick by utilizing the special Central funds by Central Government for the welfare of Dalits of Tamil Nadu.The Central Government allotted Rs 200 crores(app) under the 'special component plan' for the welfare of SC/SC's.This amount is to be used exclusively for SC/STs only.The government of Tamil Nadu introduced the ingenious concept of 'Samathuvapuram' meaning 'Egalitarian Colonies' and utilized this entire funds to build colonies where 'SC,ST can live equally with upper caste people'.Suppose 100 houses are built there, the upper castes were alloted 72 houses and the rest 18 alloted to people belonging to SC/STs .The government ingeniously misappropriated 72 % of the funds allotted for SC/STs for the upper castes category by allotting houses built out of this funds to them !
So,to conclude,let us understand that the Caste System is not a social order as it is believed to be but a clear economic order, disguised as a social order. Athi S Sundar's answer to Is the Caste System, a social order or an economic order?

(Originally published in Quora 4 years ago)