Describe main features of caste system in India.

The main features of caste system in India are as mentioned below :
(i) Caste division is special to India. It is different from other societies because here hereditary occupational division was sanctioned by rituals.
(ii) Members of same caste group used to form a social community that practiced the same or similar occupation.
(iii) The members of a community used to marry within the caste group and did not eat with members from other caste groups.
(iv) People of lower caste were subjected to inhuman and discriminatory treatment.
Sometime a caste of a person, becomes a curse for life for none of his fault. Thus caste system was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the ‘outcaste groups,. They were called untouchables’ That is why political leaders and social reformers like Jotiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R’ Ambedkar and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker advocated and worked to establish a society in which caste inequalities are absent