Burakumins: in modern Japan, the caste of the “untouchables” is still preserved

It's hard to believe, but in Japanese society, as well as in Indian society, ancient castes have survived. True, there are not so many of them, but there is also a lower caste of untouchables here. As in India, this creates a number of social problems, but, despite the measures taken by the government, this phenomenon has not yet been eliminated. How did it happen that in an ultramodern country with a high level of development of science and technology, estate remnants of the past are still preserved? In our material, we will talk about Japanese burakumins, who belong to the untouchable caste and whose numbers are very high.

The class system in Japanese society has existed for centuries and was officially abolished in the 70s of the XIX century. The upper class, of course, belonged to the samurai, their closest associates, as well as representatives of wealthy aristocratic Japanese families. The next estate class belonged to the peasant farmers, followed by various craftsmen who earned their living by craft labor. The last class included in the Japanese society were merchants and merchants.

Of course, in addition to representatives of these professions, other people existed in Japanese society, but they already had a completely different status. Further on the hierarchical ladder were the so-called quinines - the Japanese, who were not engaged in the most honorable affairs, such as hunting, carrying a stretcher of noble persons, performing funeral rites, or playing musical instruments. Among them were those who earned their living by begging.

At the very bottom were representatives of a caste called this. These were the Japanese who were engaged in the most dirty and unpopular work. This one did garbage collection, were slaughterhouses and worked as artisans engaged in dressing animal skins. Since all these activities were considered unclean in Japanese society, representatives of this caste were obliged to live in separate isolated settlements, and they did not have the right to live next door to the rest of the Japanese, even people from the quinine caste. It is the descendants of the representatives of this caste who still have not been able to integrate into the main Japanese society, even despite the abolition of the class-caste system. In modern Japan they are called burakumins.

Today in Japan there is a public organization that fights for the equal rights of beetroot animals and respect for their civil rights. The very fact of the existence of such a structure indicates a huge problem existing in modern Japanese society. This is especially characteristic of the western part of Japan, where historically isolated settlements of representatives of this people were located. Until now, about 900 thousand Japanese belong to the descendants of this caste and are oppressed by the rest of the Japanese. According to human rights activists, the figure may be even higher and reaches 3 million people. It's hard to believe, but these Japanese cannot get a good job, they have difficulties getting an education, and the parents of wealthy Japanese families will never allow the marriage of their children and young people who are burakumins. There is nothing surprising in the fact that those who do not have the opportunity to get a good job fall into criminal companies and become part of the criminal world of the country.

Despite the fact that they are trying to solve the problem of burakumins at the highest level, class prejudices sometimes turn out to be higher than common sense. Japan turned out to be surprisingly conservative in this regard, so it’s hard to say when the beetroot will finally be equal in their rights not only on paper but in real life.