Its Joshi

  Caste/Jaati/Varna   : My Point of View Part 1: You have often heard these three words used as meaning the ‘same’ in different contexts. However ,if you look closely, they do not mean the same....infact, they hold different positions .... check around...look at the daily conversations around you....If you hear about any “intercaste’ marriage, people will ask “ vovu jaathi ge?”....not which ‘caste’....its in thier subconsciuos.....Caste is . Most of you rightly figured it out is divided into 4 categories: Brahmin, Kshatriya.vaishya and Shudra..... .where as, jaathi meant ‘Community”....If someone in Mangalore asks you “Vovu Jaathi?( which Jaathi)”, you usually say- I am a Bunt, a Billava, a Mogaveera, a amchigele( slang for GSB) etc...you would never reply as “ Brahmin, Kshatriya etc”....simply because you dont identify as such.... ‘ Caste’ in India came into existence perhaps in Late 18 th century( through the British), whereas ‘jaathi’ system existed in India more...