The caste system in South Asia is among the oldest surviving anthropological systems of structural social exploitation. For nearly three thousand continuous years people have been segregated into occupational guilds or castes based on birth, with no possibility of mobility between these. The castes are arranged in a hierarchy with the priestly groups, called Brahmins, placed at the top. Historically, only the Brahmins were allowed to monopolize knowledge of religious texts, leading to the creation of knowledge hegemonies. Similar monopolies were established over military and commercial enterprises by the Kshatriya and Bania castes, who were below the Brahmins in the social order. Taken together, these three upper-caste collectives have controlled the material relations within South Asia. Below them lie the Shudra castes; meant to be forbidden literacy on pain of death, they were relegated to menial tasks and services, petty agriculture, and artisanal labor. Shudras represent the lowest tier of...

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