Hinduism has a long and complicated history on the Indian subcontinent.  It is both a popular religion and a way of life to its people.  Hinduism is complicated in that there is an astounding amount of ways in which people practice this religion and thousands of gods to which they worship.  In many of these ways to practice Hinduism there is a constant which has worked its way into Indian society as a whole, regardless of the people’s religious beliefs.  The caste system is a strict social classification system in which people are born into certain castes affecting their social status and spiritual purity.  As time has passed many people have attempted to break down this system as it denies some of the lower castes basic human rights.  Empathy has caused social activists such as Gandhi and Ambedkar to work towards social equality on the subcontinent and shows how great things can be accomplished through empathy, however their viewpoints are so different it actually began to cause friction showing the flip side of empathy and how it can potentially be a bad thing.

The caste system has been around for thousands of years.  It is a Hindu belief that people are born into social classes based off of Karma accumulated in past their past lives.  In Hindu society Karma is accumulated by how well you complete your caste duties.  There are four main castes in which people are born the brahmins being the uppermost caste are the teachers and priests, those who are responsible for carrying on religious knowledge.  Next are the Kshatriyas, the nobility and warrior class, these people are the rulers of the land they are followed by the Vaisyas, merchants and trade workers.  The fourth caste are Sudras who are unskilled laborers who complete menial tasks.  Finally, below the caste system are a people known as untouchables, or Dalits (Manian p.1).  These people are so spiritually unclean that for a member of the caste system to even come into contact with them is to accumulate bad karma.  They are forced to perform menial tasks regardless of their education or other capabilities, “even now, if ordered to move a carcass – and that means any dead animal ranging from cows to goats to dogs or cats – they are compelled by societal norms to do so, regardless of whether they’ve earned a doctorate in economics or history” (Marcel p.1).  This system is oppressive because there is no social mobility to speak of. Intermarriage between caste is strictly forbidden as well, going as far as to forbid intermarriage between “sub-castes” as well “that fracture the communities” in India creating an even bigger divide between castes (Vithal, p.3).  A person is born into a certain social caste and they are stuck there for life.  In India today this system is still in place and it affects more than just social status.  A person’s caste affects their political and economic standing as well.  All Indians, regardless of whether or not they are Hindu, are subjected to this system and because of this many people are subjugated and thought of as inhuman.  Dalits because of their spiritual impurity are “often low on the socio-economic class scale” and discriminated against on this platform as well (Viswanath, p.267).  “The postcolonial government has, to a great extent, managed to put in place laws and institutional means to ensure that the state does not treat people differently on the basis of religion” (Viswanath, p.267).  However, the caste system has moved beyond just Hindus in Indian society and encompass all peoples in India regardless of faith, so religious rights do not apply to this system.  Even Christians in India follow this system as there are “walls built to segregate corpses according to caste in Catholic cemeteries in South India, in order to prevent Dalits from ‘polluting’ their fellow Christians even after death” (Viswanath, p.268).  Spiritual purity and discrimination by caste is seen spread throughout all faiths and beliefs in India the caste system has made these Hindu beliefs a part of Indian society as a whole. 

Those who are responsible for leading the Hindu faith are the brahmins, they are teachers, scholars, and priests, responsible for telling all other people the teachings of the Hindu faith, which includes the teachings associated with the caste system. Due to this it should therefore come as no surprise that the Brahmins are seen as the purest of all classes.  They who are responsible for informing people of their place in the universe have placed themselves above all others.  This type of thinking is still seen in postcolonial India as “makers of public opinion” such as the fact that Dalits are impure and pollute others spiritual wellness are “overwhelmingly come from… elite groups” such as the brahmins” (Viswanath, p. 268).  A major figure who was a brahmin was Mohandas K. Gandhi who “adamantly refused to allow Dalits their own independent political voice” believing that by simply asking the other castes to treat them with respect would alleviate their oppression (Viswanath, p.263).  As they are still struggling under the oppressive thumb of the upper classes this was not exactly a proactive movement.  India’s social system is still rigidly oppressive and many Dalits are struggling for a voice.  All of this has stemmed from the Hindu concepts of the caste system and their systems of spiritual purity.  A man named B.R Ambedkar adamantly opposed Gandhi's views and desired radical social change in India.  This is because he is a Dalit and is able to identify with those who are being oppressed by the system, wanting social change for his struggling people.  This is the “identifiable victim effect” (Bloom p.1).  This effect is seen when people are able to identify with a person who has fallen victim to a certain system or person, and they become enraged with them because of it regardless of the benefit to society this person or system may have.  

Paul Bloom uses the “identifiable victim effect” in discussions about empathy (Bloom p.1).  Paul Bloom believes that empathy makes us human and allows us to make decisions that move society forwards, however he believes if empathy is misused in certain situations it can put society back a few steps.  This argument is best seen in Bloom’s scenario in which a pharmaceutical company creates a vaccine to cure a disease, however, this vaccine causes a young girl to die and people wish to force a hefty fine upon the company regardless of the fact the company will stop making the vaccine and the disease will continue to cause more deaths (Bloom p.1).  The people empathize with the little girl and began to use inductive reasoning. This will cause them to believe that this will happen again and again and wish to stop more deaths.  People tend to see negative things happen and wish to stop them from happening again at all costs, and with inductive reasoning in this example they believe that because this cure caused someone to die, regardless of its many successes, they will wish to put a stop to it in any way they can.  This example can tie itself back to Gandhi and Ambedkar in that Ambedkar uses the identifiable victim effect to motivate his views.  Gandhi on the other hand does not identify with the victims of this caste system due to the fact that he is an upper caste member who never had to experience the oppression this system brings with it.  I would say however that in this case empathy is being used properly.  Gandhi, who is unable to identify with the victims of the caste system wanted to deny Dalits a political voice and instead of wanting radical change wanted India to change gradually over time by merely suggesting to others that this system was wrong and needed to be abolished.  Ambedkar on the other hand knew first-hand the atrocities this system commits and wanted radical change right off the bat.  He knew from life experience how terrible of a system this was and knew that Gandhi's methods would never get real results for the oppressed people and moved to have India radically change.  This is not to say it is impossible for upper caste members to detest the caste system as they see the horrors it inflicts upon the lower caste members.  At a Ted Talk in 2015 an upper caste member Kailash Satyarthi spoke out against this system, speaking about the anger he felt for these people and how they were mistreated alluding to several personal stories involving his interactions with Dalits (Satyarthi).  However, this is not empathy, it is sympathy.  Sympathy is “a feeling of discomfort at the distress of” others and while sympathy can elicit people’s need for change it is not as effective as empathy (Burton p.1). This is because people are naturally selfish having a “natural default setting” of only caring how the world around them affects their individual lives (Wallace p.1).

This same situation with two people fighting for the beliefs on different sides of a spectrum today in America.  In the U.S there are many hot topic issues with many people being on very different sides of these issues.  One such issue is abortion which has very defensible positions both for and against the procedure.  Many people who are against the procedure see it as murder, identifying with the true victim the unborn child and desire to have the procedure considered murdered.  On the flipside of the argument many people who consider themselves to be pro-choice see this procedure as saving the mother of the unborn child either emotional, physical, or financial pain.  I see the Ambedkar and Gandhi debate paralleled here in that Ambedkar is the one identifying with the unborn child and Gandhi with the mothers.  Gandhi does not want to cause his people, the higher castes, any hardships so he speaks out for change without ever really making any solid changes.  Ambedkar on the other hand identifies with the true victim of the atrocity and desires to abolish this system and rightly so.  He is able to see the true problem with the current system and desiring true social change by giving Dalits and lower caste members a political and social voice so that they may improve upon their life situation.  This is how Ambedkar uses the “identifiable victim effect” whereas Gandhi was unable to do so (Bloom p.1).  Gandhi, because he is not a person who has suffered from the system his entire life is unable to truly identify with Dalits and fails to do something that Paul Bloom sees as necessary which is to “see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us” (Bloom p.1).  His point is essentially that people face problems which we are unable to always comprehend, therefore we have to try to view the world from other perspectives because actions or events that may seem beneficiary to one person may harm another very much.  As is in the abortion debate a mother may desire an abortion for various reasons such as she is too young or not financially able to support the child and ending the pregnancy may benefit her life very much, however on the flipside she is ending that unborn child’s chance to live before it has even been born.  Human beings can be naturally selfish as is our natural default setting, however to make society better as a whole people must realize that things are not necessarily centered upon their own interests, and what may be the best for individual people is not always best for society as a whole.

Since people’s natural default setting is to be inherently selfish it is no wonder that this system has not been abolished for thousands of years.  Those at the top of the caste system live lives that seem luxurious compared to those below them, merely for being born into the right family.  This has been justified by Hinduism, as people believe that karma accumulated in past lives have placed people directly into the caste in which they belong.  This karma is accumulated through how well one performs their dharma in their past lives.  Dharma is one’s social duties thrust upon them by the caste they are born into.  This is another constraint that Hinduism has placed upon the caste system and holds the system in place today, because if those lower caste members ever desire to ascend higher within the system they must perform their dharmic duties well within their lifetimes.  For the upper caste members, their motivation to perform Dharmic duties well is to achieve moksha which is an escape from samsara, the cycle of life, death, and rebirth so that they may become one with the universe.  These strict beliefs are what has hindered Indian society from radical social reform for thousands of years.  However, due to the fact that it is so deeply embedded into Indian society that people of other religions are still affected by this.  This simple fact also leads to a need for social reform as it is one thing if one’s religion is dictating your social status and it is something central to their beliefs, it is an entirely different scenario if one’s beliefs do not agree with the system.  At that point people are being oppressed for no sound reason and should be released from the horrid system.

Hinduism’s impact on the Indian sub-continent’s way of life is tremendous.  With the implementation of the caste system upon essentially all of Indian society, regardless of religion or race it has caused a great deal of turmoil within the system.  Lower castes as well as people known as Dalits, or untouchables, suffer greatly at the hands of the upper castes causing many people to speak out against the system.  Both Gandhi and Ambedkar speak out against the system, however in very different ways.  Gandhi, a Brahmin, asked for gradual social change which would not achieve results in the short term or potentially at all.  Meanwhile Ambedkar spoke out for immediate reform wanting swift social justice for all, as he himself was a Dalit.  This is because Ambedkar experienced the “identifiable victim effect” and wished for his people to be freed from the subjugation of which they’ve been forced to endure, while Gandhi was only able to experience sympathy due to his high-ranking Caste not allowing him to feel the need to dramatically change Indian society overnight (Bloom p.1).  This society also holds itself back from social reform due to the fact that the people in power want to hold onto said power.  This is a vicious cycle as the only people being oppressed are those who can do nothing about, which is typical when thinking about oppression, however when it is such a big problem in one of the world’s most populated countries there should be more of a movement for social reform.  What these Dalits need is someone who is willing to stand up for them and change their country for the better in a quick and dramatic fashion not a slow and useless change.

Ultimately in order to create real social, and radical change it is up to the Indian people themselves to take a stand.  It will take collaboration from both the government and the people to create real change.  For those outside of the system in order to help with radical change one should raise awareness of the issue and support non-governmental organizations, which specialize in creating social change in foreign nations.  All in all this is a global issue with global impacts, and to fix this issue will require help from across the globe.
