5th glorious epoch - part 1 - birth of caste discrimination thus division and weakening of society

As per the writings of Savarkar, caste system was there in India from a long time. But discrimination has not been a part of it in early times. 

For division of work various jobs were divided into various group of people. And as there were no formal institutions, the knowledge and skills of a particular job was always transferred from father to his son. So it became a family job and skills were transferred from generation to generation. Skills like building sculpture, tailor, weaving, pottery, cleaning, cobbler and many others required huge degree of specialization, so was passed generation to generation. Earlier these skilled people were proud of their work and there was not any discrimination. Everyone performed their duties, most learnt from their fathers, few from others, but there was no discrimination. 

It was in Harsha's reign, when he tried to spread Buddhism that these discrimination and division started. Buddhism was imposed in society with its requirements of non-voilence. Feels great today, but non-voilence towards animals was hard to achieve. There were fisherman, hunters, leather jobs, cleaning, corpse handling etc which required exposure to animal killing and dead body handling. These kind of works were against Buddhism, so were started to be regarded bad were out casted. It was asked of them to give up their skills and adopt Buddhism or get out of cities. This was forced in most parts of the country. So people with such skill set were stated to be discriminated against. Skills like doing worship were not effected and the skills not involving animals violence were ok. But this started a chain in Hindu society, whole of society became divided. Some things were started to be considered superior and some inferior. Initially 4 varnas and then to multiple division. The so called better works started to look others as inferior and there were multiple sub classes. Everyone discriminating against other. A lot of Hindus adopted Buddhism. There was huge division. 

Discrimination was done in the forms of:

Lotibandi: prohibition of drinking water

Rotibandi: prohibition of food

Betibandi: prevention of inter-caste marriage

Sparshbandi: Untouchability

Shuddibandi: preventing religious and caste (job) conversion

Sindhubandi: prevention is sea / river voyage

These things became part of society and it has the heights of discrimination. Everyone was inferior to some and superior to some. Lead to heavy discrimination. Even to this day law has other few of these bandis and still few are very relevant. Betibandi is very prevalent today. 

This system broke the Vedic religion. It divided people and earlier thoughts of a Hindu nation / Vedic kingdoms and unified Bharat was totally destroyed internally. 

Then cane the Islamic plundering and forced conversion. Gone was earlier pride in their own religion. A lot of Buddhist got converted. None of Indians by Buddhist, Hindu had any self confidence and unified ability to resist. The spirit of nation on Hundiusm was gone (Buddhism never had that, but Hinduism kept nation intact). 

In addition, when we see, lot of European nation also faced Islamic expansionism and conversion. Even the heart of Islam was conquered by Mongols and had to give up their religion. But as soon as a foreign empire fell and went out, they converted back to what they were before. But in India, the discrimination and division and act of looking down on other religion and castes prevented the converts ro come back to their original religion. To the surprise of Islamic plunderers, they would find the people whom they converted still following Islam even when they were under Hindu king. 

Thus as per Savarkar, one of the biggest reason for India's falling was it's dividedness and it's inability to get back the people of different castes and religions together. Their inability to bring back to Sanatan dharma. It still exists today, we have not been able to recover still. This thing still divides us and is a major cause of discrimination and division in society.