The Influences Of Caste System On India's Modernization Process

The caste system in Indian society has a history of more than 3000 years, despite the impact of modern civilization, its influences on Indian society are deep-rooted. This paper mainly studies a series of effects arising from the caste system impacting on the process of India's modernization. It has great significance for us in deeply studying the relations between the caste system and India's modernization, enriching our research about the social system in India, besides, there is a certain revelation for China to achieve modernization.This paper introduces the caste system to the research of India's modernization process, discusses the influences of caste system on achieving economic modernization for India,explores the relationships between the caste system and the political democratization process of India, analyzes the harms to social stability and people's lives resulted from the caste system by the means of historical research, case analysis and induction and deduction.Chapter 1 mainly introduces the origin and development of caste system from ancient time of India, despite facing a lot of challenges, the caste system remains stubbornly existed, it is still playing a great role on India's society at present.Chapter 2 chiefly discusses the influences of caste system on achieving economic modernization, discusses the affect of caste system on the functioning of market economy and the obstruction to the development of science and technology, as well as the impact on rich-poor differentiation by analyzing the restraint of professional division on common people and the discrimination of caste isolation on lower classes.Chapter 3 mainly explores the relationships between the caste system and the political democratization process of India, the caste system is not only an important reason for India's secession in history, but also the cause of the phenomenon of the politicization of caste and the caste-based politics,besides, it is one of the factors triggering India's national identity crisis.Chapter 4 chiefly discusses the harms to Indian society resulted from caste system, for example, the caste conflict and caste riots caused by caste inequality, the impact of caste reservation policy on Indian society, the influences of caste system on other religions and the Marriage and Family in India.Although the caste system has a negative impact on Indian society, its long-term existence indicates that it has some positive sense. India's modernization process will be inevitably affected by the caste system in the future.