Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s5.17

c6.s5.17

It is by reason of similar scruples that the higher castes are obliged meticulously to avoid contact with the lower. The profession of certain castes is so despised that they are not allowed even to dwell within the village; they are relegated to a place outside the community, despite all the services which they render to it either as servants or as craftsmen. Still more are they rigorously excluded from the communal meals at which the village assembles. There are even villages of Brahmans¹ to which all the other castes are strictly refused admittance. It is unnecessary to add that this consideration is not of equal weight in all the castes; it has various manifestations, but it is never absent.