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== European section ==

I know that much has been discussed above but much has also got lost in the noise. I have just removed the England and Sweden/Finland sections completely as being clear ]. Those and other sections are referred to above and my gut feeling is that the entire Europe section should be binned pending a rewrite that summarises the use of "caste" as an analogy for other social stratification systems. I see no benefit in retaining these leaps into OR and synthesis that of very few sources. Regarding the deletions, I acted as an Englishman who has read the cited sources for those sections + Weber and similar. The long paragraph concerning the role of the House of Lords in recent times as an example of the caste system in England was simply ludicrous and I would challenge anyone to do a survey in Britain that achieves even 1% recognition of this. That something has or had a hereditary principle does not necessarily make it an example of caste, and passing mentions are flimsy support for the notion.<p>Someone had fun creating those sections but they are tangential to an extreme even though the RfC has not completed. The RfC is going to go this way in any event, given the recent handing-out of topic bans etc that effectively negate much of the opposition to it: we do not usually rely on the comments of socks and nor do I think we rely on the comments of people who have been deemed disruptive of the process to such an extreme that they are banned. While the article (and this talk page) are as lengthy and meandering as they are, it is extremely time-consuming to edit. Slash and burn has its place, I guess, safe in the knowledge that the forest can be cultivated and managed thereafter. - ] (]) 20:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
:I have demoted the Europe and other sections to subsections in light of the article structure proposed by Piotrus. So, the Europe bit is not looming as large. For now, I'd say leave it in. What I would like to propose is that we go through the tertiary sources, some of which do have something to say about caste outside South Asia. Figure out which ones they consider notable. Then rewrite the section in light of the tertiary source evidence. We could then remove the European subsections that are not notable and summarize the ones that are. It shouldn't take us long. I'd be happy to email you the fuller tertiary texts. ]] 21:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
::Ok, I'd appreciate any info that you could send over. This is going to be a tedious, messy process because of the extent to which the article has been spun out. I'm off out again now but feel free to revert me or I will do so on my return. - ] (]) 21:26, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
:::On second thoughts, I'll list what the tertiaries have to say about Caste outside South Asia in a section below. That way the info will be more organized and also available for anyone to inspect. ]] 10:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
::::Sitush, I've now listed the general tertiary sources that mention caste-like divisions in other societies. In addition, there is the more specific ''Historical Encyclopedia of Slavery'', which is featured in the longer list above, and which Tijfo98 refers to. I think you may for now remove the sub-sections of the Europe, Asia, Africa sections that don't gain mention in the tertiary sources below. If evidence mounts later that their contents are notable, we can always put them back in, but for now, this likely OR and Synthesis should not be allowed to stand. ]] 21:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
:::::Ok, thanks. I'll try to work my way through what you have offered and also see what I can dig up. A good dose of common sense probably will not go amiss. It might take me a while, so feel free to ping me. - ] (]) 23:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


== Issues with this article == == Issues with this article ==

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Issues with this article

I came to this article from the social class article. This article is incomplete. I disclose I am a sociologist with publications on caste over the last 30 years.

1. The section on various definitions of caste, caste as a concept and its history is incomplete. Consider summaries from Weber, Dumont, Merton, Berreman and Srinivas.

2. The article is missing a section that compares caste, social class and ethnic groups. A discussion of differences and similarities between the three concepts should be considered.

3. India section is incomplete. It should be expanded.

4. Parts of Europe section are repetitive. These parts should be merged and reduced.

5. Sections on South Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, USA, Japan, Korea, China and Polynesia need some revision.

6. The article is missing a section on modern status and controversies about caste.

7. The lede is in bad shape. It should be a summary structured similar to the social class article.

I would limit item 1 to 3000 words, item 2 to 1000 words, item 3 to 2000 words, item 4 and item 5 to 200-500 words each for each region, item 6 to 500 words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Couriel76 (talk • contribs) 03:48, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Pretty much everything you've said has been said by others above. The article is in a stage of very early reconstruction. Please drop by again in a few months. Thanks again. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Coat-racking by Indians on this page

It is tiresome, that Hindu activists are distorting this article. Caste is a huge embarrassment to them. So, they are playing around with immature censorship and obfuscation on this page. As if somehow the world doesn't already know about the Indian caste situation, and that they can magically reverse people's awareness. Honestly, why bother? ThievingBeagles (talk) 08:06, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Allegations of allegations of apartheid apartheid. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Coatracking by Indians? Hindu activists? Looking at the article history I see that no Indian/Hindu activist have edited this page in recent past, except one revert of mine. It is amazing to see your conclusions. You have no proof of whatever you are saying so I politely ask you to just SHUT UP !! --sarvajna (talk) 18:23, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012

  1. Do we really need the pic of Kurmi cultivators? If not mentioned it could be anyone a Holiya or even a poor Brahmin tilling their land. I don't think it serves any purpose.
  2. The whole section of Europe was completly removed, it was discussed on this talk page about the caste system among jews in Poland, how about Romani people? --sarvajna (talk) 18:34, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Basically, this article had taken on the appearance of being hijacked by Hindutva sympathisers etc and it will take some time to figure things out in a neutral manner. You are well aware that the Europe section was hopeless in its then form. Far better that the article says nothing for a while than that it says something contrary to our policies etc. If you want to draft something then feel free to do so, but it will likely not get a tremendous amount of space for the reasons that have been discussed here previously and were also discussed in the ANI thread that you were a part of. - Sitush (talk) 19:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Sure, your response makes a lot of sense. I am not saying that we need to have a big section dedicated to Europe but because we have good sources we can have a section.Thanks --sarvajna (talk) 06:45, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Ratnakar.kulkarni, You are talking through your hat here. What are the chances that Brahmin women would be working on the field with their menfolk? Zero. The kurmi had become famed as cultivators from Mughal times. They were not only used by Mughal grandees throughout the middle Ganges plain to cultivate recently cleared land, but also charged higher rent because of their productivity. The British revenue specialists could tell merely by looking at a field whether it belonged to a kurmi or a Brahmin. The latter's fields were shabby. Please read the Kurmi article and Susan Bayly's book on Caste. There is good reason that both the Mughals and the British were so impressed by the kurmi. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Fowler, you really did not get my point at all. Also I said it could be people belonging to Holiya (caste) or anyone. This article is about caste not how good were Kurmi's at cultivation. My point is, that pic of Kurmi's cultivating the land is not adding any value to the article at all. If you disagree can you please tell how it adds any value. Also coming to your point What are the chances that Brahmin women would be working on the field with their menfolk? well let me tell you the chances are pretty high. I don't see any reason why the chance should be zero --sarvajna (talk) 12:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

This looks like a good source

Chapter one of Anders Hansson (1996). Chinese Outcasts: Discrimination and Emancipation in Late Imperial China. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-10596-6. has a good overview (pp. 9-18) of caste and caste-like (which he just calls outcast/pariah) groups, and makes an important distinction (p. 11): "Some societies have dual systems: the majority of the population is not subdivided into a caste hierarchy one or more minority groups are segregated from the majority who hold the inferior status groups in contempt. Although such discriminated groups differ from the Indian untouchables in not being part of a real caste system, they are often loosely termed outcasts and pariahs." Tijfo098 (talk) 18:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Sources for Pictures ?

There seem to be three schools of use , employed for content from books from British Raj or older on various India related articles . (1) Such books are valid sources (2) Such books are not valid sources (3)Such Books are valid sources on some articles and not valid sources on others .(4)Such books are valid and not valid for the same article as citations . The rationale of consistancy is undermined when different articles on wikipedia apply one of the 4 different index above on articles for British colonial era(or earlier) books . Which also raises the question if photographs are valid sources from these books then so should content and also Vice versa . So are the following "period" pictures valid or invalid for usage from books published in 1916 on this article and contributed by Fowler and Fowler and MathewVanitas . Lets take a look at the pictures added here .

Description Source Book Published Date Contributed by Picture appears also on article
Basors making baskets of bamboo added by Tobby72 The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume II Author: R. V. Russell 1916 MatthewVanitas Basor
Kurmi sowing added by Fowler and Fowler The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India: volume IV. Descriptive articles on the principal castes and tribes of the Central Provinces 1916 Fowler and Fowler Kurmi

The Kurmi article has common engaged editors as this article Fowler and Fowler , Mathewavanits and a third editor .Some Citations used on that article raise the same question of consistency , are those sources valid or invalid across different articles .The other important question is the rational for selection for usage of these 2 "ethnographic" pictures of 2 purported clans from a 1916 book on mother article for caste .Intothefire (talk) 18:55, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

ITF, do you really think that any of the regular, knowledgeable editors seriously take your opinions in good faith any more? I rather suspect that boat has long sailed. Sorry, but until you manage to get that chip off your shoulder (and it is a chip that quite obviously moves from one to the other, depending on how you can design things to make others look bad), well, I suggest that you back off a bit. You have been told umpteen times of the various avenues that you could take, including WP:ANI and WP:DR. That you choose not to do so and persist in engaging in this snide rabble-rousing across a multitude of talk pages (article and user) merely serves to bolster the suspicions of others. - Sitush (talk) 02:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Attempt at close of old RfC

That is, the RfC listed on Archive 4 of this talk page, "RfC: Does the article minimize the centrality of India to the notion of caste?" That the discussion wasn't closed earlier is of little surprise: it is long, it is technical, and the older it gets the less appetizing it gets: such discussions are very much not like Parmigiano-Reggiano. In fact, the discussion is so long that you'll have to accept the general conclusions I think I was able to draw without my being able to point at each and every individual comment supporting it. What I, as a non-Hindi-Indian currently middle-class college professor, conclude, are the following points:

  1. Scholarly consensus appears to be that the caste system is still of the greatest importance to Hindu India; vice versa, discussions of the caste system in secondary and tertiary scholarly sources note the centrality of Hindu India to the very concept of "caste".
  2. Scholarly and especially less scholarly discussions on the concept of caste in other societies, esp. those outside SE Asia, mostly seem to use the term in the "broader" sense signaled in various places in the RfC--as a convenient shorthand for "social stratification" and such. I note also that the application of the term "caste" to some other cultures, popular until the 1970s and perhaps after, has now come under (academic) scrutiny and criticism.
  3. Considering those two points, I conclude that it is
  4. The 1 September 2012 version of the article does suffer from OR and some coatracking; the current version is much better in that respect, though far from perfect. Note, for example, the very loose use of the word "caste" in this newspaper article to warrant the inclusion of Cagot. As it turns out, there are sources "comparing" their segregation to that of the Indian caste system: such a comparison is perhaps valid, but does not itself warrant calling them a caste.

Allow me a few observations and suggestions.

  1. "Caste" should (and this is supported in the RfC) include extensive discussion of the situation in India.
  2. Examples from other cultures (some of which well established and verified in the current version of the article and associated main articles) must of course be thoroughly verified; an article from The Independent cannot suffice for what is, after all, an encyclopedic article.
  3. I believe it is imperative (and comments in the RfC and elsewhere in the talk page archives support this) to come to a clarification of terms. The current lead does some of that already, but a separate section is warranted. Etymology should be the least important part of such a section; more important is a history of the usage of the term--not to be able to list every example of its usage, but rather to sketch the attractiveness of the paradigm to scholars of various periods, an attractiveness that has by now lost some of its currency. Parts of the lead of the 1 September 2012 version point to that as well; what's important is to delineate the term and its currency. Fowler&Fowler cites Balkin in the RfC ("social stratification in the United States does not really match the technical definition of caste ... caste is at best an effective hyperbole") and it's precisely that kind of research and criticism that need to be used here.
  4. Sourcing should continue to be scrutinized--in Caste system in India, I read "Caste is neither unique to Hindu religion nor to India; caste systems have been observed in other parts of the world, for example, in the Muslim community of Yemen, Christian colonies of Spain, and Japan", with one reference possibly very outdated (1972) and another a newspaper article from the New York Times. This is an article in which Misplaced Pages's crowdsourcing "hey it's in the paper let's add it" needs to be held in check.

In all, I believe this was an interesting discussion in which the participants are perhaps closer to consensus than they thought. It is clear that there is no consensus that the article is redundant to Caste system in India etc.; it's clear also that there is consensus that the article should be much more focused than the 1 September 2012 version was, and that India must occupy a position of great(er) importance. In various places various quantified suggestions were made; I cannot comment on those numbers. I sensed some hesitance at perhaps "borrowing" material from Caste system in India--well, if that's where good content on the concept of caste, its history, and its usage can be found, that's where you go. Good luck. Drmies (talk) 03:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

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