Blog 17

I read the article “Caste and the Desire for Belonging”. It was published in December 2009 by Ursula Rao, and it has shown me further parallels between the caste system in India and the classism on the planet Ardana. This article looks at a particular case study of the Khatik community. The Khatiks are in the Dalit caste, and we can see how they use their community to come together and move forward. Although Dalits are the lowest caste, Rao says that “Dalits express pride in their heritage”. When a community exists that has been labeled by the outside world as less important than other communities, it is inevitable that the community will unite together and prove that they are just as valuable. People are proud to be who they, just as the Troglytes were not ashamed of the way they were looked upon by the people of Stratos.
Even with heavy caste discrimination reform, caste still “circumscribes duty” in a large way in India. The jobs that are available to Dalits are very different from those offered to the Brahmin. The Troglytes are similar. They are born as Troglytes, and the world they are born into leaves them destined to become a miner. Although there are no laws on Ardana that state a Troglyte must become a miner, it is accepted as fact by everyone, even down to the Troglytes.
The study that I looked at however, showed that the Khatiks use their strong unification to achieve “social mobility”. They fight for their rights by standinh together, just like the Troglytes did in The Cloud Minders.

Matthew