A thread on jaati and varna: Your jaati decides your varna. Varna is a superset while jaati is a subset. One common mistake people do is that they try to distribute contemporary occupations into varnas which+leads to a flawed analysis. Like they classify being a doctor,engineer+

etc with being a Brahmin, etc. These occupations, however were not present earlier. Hence this classification of modern day occupations into varnas is flawed imo. Another common perception that people have

is that the only purpose of jaati is to achieve a hierarchical distribution of the society. But very few understand that jaati is not about mere "arrangement" but also about specific rituals, deities and customs peculiar to different jaatis. Varna is anyway immaterial today+

except for the fact that it tells u about your gotra and hence your lineage. Jaati is the major concern of people coz it is the reason for contemporary distribution, violence, etc. Professions in today's date are open to all. Anyone from any caste can follow any profession of +

choice in today's date. Hence its always better to look at the concept of jaati from the PoV of rituals/customs/practices/deities specific to jaatis. Hence doing away with jaatis is not the only way to eradicate jaatiwaad as one would end up destroying caste specific rituals, +

deities and traditions along with it. As long as contemporary discrimination is considered, its an existent issue and must be solved without following the annihilationist approach. Any sort of discrimination, violence, abuse based on jaatis must be strictly discouraged and+

all jaatis must coexist and respect each other equally. This approach ensures that jaati based discrimination ends while keeping the practices/rituals/deities associated with them intact. Respect/superiority shud be strictly based on one's deeds. Another common mistake people do+

is that they grade people based on their deeds as Brahmins,....,Shudras. It has to be kept in mind that this is not a corporate company style way of promoting/demoting someone based on their deeds. People these days say that for example, someone is good mannered is "a Brahmin +

by deeds". Which actually translates to only Brahmins do good deeds and is condescending towards others! This system, is hence not a ranking system based on deeds, but merely a system that keeps your practices/rituals/deities intact. The next question that pops up in most peoples

mind is that, "So if Brahmins are Brahmins by birth and Shuidras are shudras by birth, shud the latter be looked down at and the latter be looked above at regardless of their merits?" The answer to this is- of course not! Nobody needs to be looked down/above at based on their +

birth in a specific jaati. Respect/superiority is to be achieved solely through deeds. A shudra can be considered superior to a Brahmin if the former is virtuous but the latter is not. We have to associate respect with deeds but contrarily, people talk about keeping the respect+

attached to a jaati the same while they move individuals up and down it. Respect based on deeds, not based on caste, while avoiding doing it the other way-that is respecting based on caste and classifying the good as Brahmins and the worse as Shudras. The latter is a downright +

stupid approach for several reasons- If a Brahmin's son happens to be engaged in say, agriculture for example, and he starts calling himself a shudra. This give rise to questions like- what wud be his gotra? What about the rituals and practices of his jaati and kul that he is+

Supposed to uphold? Wud he all of a sudden stop performing those? And which Shudra jaati or kula's practices wud he then start performing? Going into another kula as such is impossible. Why wud suddenly Shudras accept such a Brahmin man into their kula when he isn't born into+

their kula? Coz kula is like a family. How can someone be a part of a family that he isn't born into? Just bcoz he's into agriculture? The contemporary treatment of ideas about jaati and varna (NOT occupation ofc as o said) fluidity pose the above important questions and one +

And one wonders if such any such analysis goes into the brains of all those who want annihilation of caste as such. In the next part of this thread, I wud make some comments about the doubts that people have regarding the jaati system being an obstacle in the path of gharwapsi+

A large number of converted Ms and Xs already know their jaati. They wud continue to be from that jaati on doing gharwapsi to Hinduism. Regarding women who embrace Hindu the faith, they can marry a Hindu from the same jaati as theirs and enter his kula and hence his jaati.

most Muzlims keep turkish/persian.arabic names but many of them retain their surnames. I know a large number of converted Marathi Muzlims reatining their surnames like Desai, Deshpande, Sangle, Wangde, etc. I mentioned these surnames bcoz I actually know these prople.

A large number of Kashmiri Muzlims keep their surnames, havent you heard of Kashmiri Muzlim Bhats, Dhars, Pandits, etc? You might have not come across them, but in my state, Ive seen many such personally. Plus if there's an absolutely clueless Muzlim, a new caste can be created+

out of all such clueless Muzlims converting to Hinduism and hence they now have an identity. All these are my personal opinions. Any corrections are welcome