| The objectives of this conference is to allow Academicians, Scholars, Activists, Community Leaders, Field workers and, hopefully, various Gurus and Acharyas from a variety of sampradayas and paramparas (or their representatives) to participate together in a dialog on the subject of Varna, Jati and Kula – the constituents of what is termed as India’s Caste system. We acknowledge the inherent difficulty of any one individual, one group of people or one organization being able to produce a definitive view on the Caste system, which as an institution has survived perhaps more than five millennia in India, and encompasses a vast population of nearly a billion people across the length and breadth of India. Through papers and panel discussions, we anticipate that diverse views on the topic will be granted space for expression, which will represent an opportunity for learning and sharing for all who participate in this dialog. We expect that minimally, a compilation of the papers presented at the conference will be published and will represent resource material for the future. We anticipate that the conference will also lay the foundations for the synthesis of a more definitive policy paper that addresses the perceived and real issues of Caste and Caste based discrimination and its representation both within and outside the sphere of Hindu Society. We hope that such a policy paper will not only provide practical recommendations but will also gain the consensus of a broad variety of Hindu leaders and scholars, thus growing into a historic document for Hindu society itself. |