Birth is a beginning…not an end, unlike how the Caste System in Nepal treats it.
The "brilliance" of the caste system is what Ambedkhar characterized as its inherent "graded inequality."
In Nepal, the gradation can be found not just between the five castes, but also between the ethnic groups, between communities that make up an ethnic group, within communities and therefore between individuals.
And because social status is valued so much, the gradation has determined who you could marry and form a familial alliance with, which in turn dictates who you socialize with the most. Were inter-caste marriage the norm, the caste system would break down.
A reproduction of an Instagram post about a family in Nepal pressuring their young professional adult medical doctor daughter based in Australia to accept an arranged marriage proposal from a complete stranger. In spite of her "No" the day the post was published, it had been three weeks of constant pressure from the family to accept the proposal, completely ignoring her wishes and thus putting her through a lot of mental and emotional agony!
When form and protocol generally take precedent over and is valued more than substance, a society struggles to make social, economic, and political progress. One such form and protocol is showing respect for and/or deferring to old men. In this blog post I demonstrate how two old men use the guise of lack respect for old men as a pretext for silencing young adult women of similar academic and professional stature as them for no other reason than the fact that they are female.
This is a lesson on how to rule a country as a Khas-arya Nepali. In other words, "How to rule with arrogance, ignorance, incompetence, and insidiousness.”
The sixth one in the series about Nepal needing a revolution…a revolution of the mind.
Here’s more of one of many MANY reasons why from during the lockdown to contain the coronavirus.
In Nepal's brand of groupism, the most important and valuable functional unit is the extended family. That and following the dictates of the caste system means that we live and move within small social bubbles. Who one forms alliances with -- such as marries, works, socializes with etc. -- depends a lot on ones ethnicity and caste. It's as if like we are still tribes living in the hunter-gatherer phase of human evolution!
