CASTE IN INDIA

Excerpts from the article : Love Commandos Against Honour Killings http://www.sacw.net/article1608.html

Discrimination on grounds of caste is banned under Indian law, but still persists in arranged marriages.

The highest castes are Brahmins. The lowest, once known as untouchables, are Dalits. Movement between castes is not possible, and the Indian government still defines a number of castes just above Dalits as "other backwards castes".

Though ancient Hindu scripts, the Vedas, make little mention of caste, the codification appears to have developed over thousands of years.

Khap panchayats, the local caste councils, issue rulings on who may or may not marry.

Caste councils also take into consideration the complex gotra system, an ancestral system under which people are allotted to a certain lineage at birth. Unlike the caste system, those in the same gotra are barred from marriage