☕️ Sip 1 - The Bitter Beginning

Where Caste First Touched Humanity

A Special Note to the Reader

If you feel this reflection sounds unfamiliar or distant,

pause for a moment and ask your father, your grandparents, or an elder in your family.

Ask them how water was drawn, how food was served, how temples were entered, and how silence was maintained.

You may hear stories that were never written in textbooks,

but were lived quietly, accepted normally, and remembered painfully.

Let's have a Sip

In many villages, caste was not taught - it was absorbed.

Before a child learned alphabets,

they learned where to stand,

which well to avoid,

which vessel was “not for us”,

and which space was forbidden.

Water flowed, but dignity didn’t.

Temples echoed prayers, but not equality.

Land decided power.

Birth decided worth.

Silence decided survival.

This was not hatred spoken aloud.

It was discrimination practiced daily -

so normal that questioning it felt abnormal.

Those at the bottom didn’t always protest.

Not because they agreed -

but because fear had learned to speak before courage.

A Historical Echo

Long before personal experiences were written,

Indian thinkers and reformers observed this reality with concern.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, in “Annihilation of Caste”, described caste not as a division of labour,

but as a division of labourers, fixed by birth.

Sociologist M.N. Srinivas spoke of caste as a lived social practice -

normalised, internalised, and rarely questioned.

These writings do not contradict lived experiences;

they confirm them.

What many families practised silently,

history recorded slowly.

This was casteism at its root:

raw, unapologetic, unquestioned.

A poison mixed so early into life

that many mistook it for culture.

Understanding this layer is painful,

but necessary -

because without seeing the root,

we keep trimming branches.

A Quiet Pause

This sip is not meant to disturb,

but to awaken memory.

Not to accuse the past,

but to understand how deeply it shaped the present.

Because before caste became a debate,

it was a daily routine.

And before it became history,

it was childhood.

Let this sip stay with you —

not in anger,

but in awareness.

Readers interested in detailed lived experiences may explore the archived original version of this reflection.

Link: https://mathivationhub.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-poisonous-poison-casteism-boon-or.html

— Rakesh Kushwaha

Educator | Writer | Lifelong Learner