India and Brazil - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 168

in more detail that the industrial countries would give money to the
developing countries.
The industrialization of India in the 20th century contrasts with the
religious and social values of its people tracing back 4000 years. Hindus,
who make up 80% of the population, believe in a religion concerned with
the proper relation between the self, the gods, and nature. The soul is
reincarnated, often as an animal; hence, a person should respect animals,
and especially not kill them. Hinduism sees the universe as undergoing
an eternally repeated cycle of creation, preservation, and dissolution, rep-
resented by the trinity of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and
Shiva the destroyer as aspects of the Supreme Being. While this might
seem ideally compatible with ecology, it also has elements of fatalism that
discourage working to protect the environment.
Indian society is stratified into a caste system, meaning groupings
based on birth that determine a person's social place, marriage, occupa-
tion (much less today), living arrangements, and so forth. This system
of hereditary assignments dates back to prehistoric times. The four
major groupings are the Brahmins (teachers, scholars, and priests), the
kshatriyas (kings and military), the vaishyas (farmers and traders), and
shudras (artisans and servants). In turn, these groups are subdivided into
many castes. The lowest of the low are the dalits , once called untouch-
ables, because if a higher status person touched one, he would be defiled
and have to undergo ritual purification. Dalits have risen politically and
economically, but many still hold jobs like sweeping streets and cleaning
sewers and can be extremely poor.
Today, the caste system is much reduced and found mostly in rural
areas. The Indian Constitution of 1950 outlawed it. (Yet even now virtually
all marriages are within the same caste.) The leaders of the independence
movement and early period through the 1970s like Mohandas Gandhi
and Nehru were staunchly opposed to the caste system. Members of the
lowest castes are now classified as Scheduled Castes and given preference
for government jobs and for education that are reserved for them. But
since the 1980s some politicians have exploited it. A number of politi-
cal parties have a caste appeal. Recently, many ordinary Indians have
held public demonstrations to protest the reservation of places for the
Scheduled Castes.
There is disagreement over the extent to which the caste system is a prod-
uct of the Hindu religion. While the two have been intertwined for thou-
sands of years, religious leaders point out that there is little theological basis.