Varnashramam

A social evil, that need to be eliminated. A villain for social equality. Fanaticism Dictionary
 which is still deep rooted in Indian culture. This is the impression on Varnashramam. What is the need for such a cruel and evil practice? Who formulated this? and for why? Let's try to understand viciousness and conspiracy behind this.

The word Varnashramam is a combination of two Sanskrit words Varna + Ashram, in which Ashram means stages and Varna predominantly means color, and also means order, class or type. Given that, varnashramam probably refers to Stages of a Class, which further means, classification of a person (or society) based on their occupation or profession. What is the necessity of such classification? Is there really a necessity?

As long as, man decides to live alone, there seems to be no necessity for such differentiation, as it is, his life and he chooses how to live. However, the moment when two (at least) people decide to come closure to live as a society, arises the need for governing rules. As an individual one can smoke/drink publicly, this liberty is not challenged until an another person enters that space. As an individual one can enjoy the liberty to the fullest, but as an socialite one is forced to compromise in exercising their liberty to the fullest.

Society also requires sections for maintain its scalability, reliability and maintainability, and below they are as per modern social science:

1) Producers : Society requires a team of producers for its Food and Shelter needs, Just like working ants in ants colony, this section gives energy to the society. They comprise of Farmers, Weavers, Artisans, Carpenters and all kinds of producers and service enablers. They form the base for any society. They are the working group.

2) Distributors : The products and services produced by the producers, need to be distributed across the society, so that the society expands evenly on all sides, rather, bulging on few sides making the rest weaker and feeble. Moreover, this section plays a vital role in supply chain management and maintaining demand and supply cycle. Which is crucial for any society to be stable.

3) Protectors : It is natural, to have both good and bad in a society. After all, society is a group of people, who pledged to live together for some common benefits. Under such contract, the stronger might take advantage of the weaker, stronger not only means physical strength or power, but also positions in society. Say, producers, let's take two types of producers, one who produces Rice and other who produces Salt. One who produces Rice has more physical strain than the one who produce Salt, as the former needs to plough, sow, irrigate, weeding, pesticiding, safeguarding yield from animals and birds, harvest, process, store and sell, where as latter, has to irrigate sea water and leave the rest to sun, collect and sell. However the demand for salt is higher than the demand for rice, as people have other alternatives for rice, like millets, wheat and all, but for salt no alternative. Given that, the salt producer can demand high value.

Hence comes the need of an administrator, who controls the price index, and regulates the demand and supply cycle from distributors as well. They are also protect the society from other rival societies by training personnel for any sort of attacks. Hence the above two sections will fund this class and it is called taxes, as they cannot take care of themselves, when they are already engaged in taking care of others.   

4) Scholars : They research and provide necessary skills for the other sections as improvement process. They help in intellectual evolution, move mankind (society) to the next level. Hence the above 3 sections will fund this class and it is known as grants or donations.


These sections are based on physical and mental health, and also at times, out of wish and interest. Prodigies with good mental power, become scholars, with good physical power, become protectors, with good analytical skills, maketh them Distributors and some are really hardworking and they fall in producers category.

Family Business:

A doctor expects his son to be a doctor,  an Administrator expects his son to be an IAS officer as well, a politician wants his son to take this throne, and all these are considered absolutely perfect. They try every means to remove the obstacles or competitions from other sects or groups to maketh their son their heir for their empire.

Discrimination:
A non-Dharmic doctor, plays nook and cranny to get rid of his sons competitor, if his son is not competent enough. Similarly a politician, and it is very obvious in Indian politics, for more than 5-6 decades, Congress/DMK is headed only by founder family members as others are either incompetent or ineligible. 

Also, it becomes difficult for the other group to compete with those whose family is already in that stream/profession/business, as they are few steps ahead and also at times it adds up to the improvement. Teacher teaches his son better than other students, It is quite natural for any human to expect his offspring to perform best.  Any smart and intelligent person will expect and train his offsprings to be better in this field and this crookness is unavoidable, as long as father believes no dharma (not religion/faith, its about righteousness). Over period of time the profession/business becomes the identity of the family. This leads to discrimination from family to society.

What is has to do with Varnashramam?
All the four sections mentioned above, are respectively called as below by in Varnashramam
1) Producers - Sudras
2) Distributors - Vaishias
3) Protectors - Kshatriyas
4) Scholars - Brahmanas.

Only terminology changes. Varna was never based on birth as it was based on profession, Parasuram become Kshatriya even though he born in Brahmin family. Kaushika a Kshatriya become a Brahmin and known as Viswamitra, Valmiki a sudra become a Brahmana, Veda Vyasa a sudra become a Brahmana and so on. During the medieval period, varna was classified based on birth, when profession become family business,  farmer son  as farmer, a potter son as potter, king son as king, scholar son as scholar and so on. This continued for some time, till the point where, started getting imposed, that farmer son should only become a farmer, potter son should be only a potter and so on.

Modern day discrimination is not based on varna, it is more based on social and economical status, the equality of liberal dreams is mirage, and it cannot happen, as one cannot treat an Honorable judge and heinous culprit as same, as it halts the evolution. As it was in early days, discrimination should be based on deeds and neither be based on profession or socio-economic status.