What is the difference between Caste and Community

What is the difference between caste and community? 

To be able to fully appreciate the differences, sometimes we have to first make an understanding of the similarities.

The principle applies well in the present case. 

Caste and Community have almost no difference in their lexical meaning. They both refer to the social group of people. The difference between the two is only of the sociological context , which reveals how the types of groups are formed and how they conduct. 

We all must have heard the term community being used in reference to social groups as the Gujarati Community, the Minority Community, the Indian community (in context of some overseas setlled Indians), and so on and so forth. And then you must have wondered as to why we don't use the word Caste, instead, in the above cases. 

And that particular thought must have brought you to contemplate over what is the difference between the two words. Because otherwise your dictionary will tell you almost the same meaning for both these words , as though they are synonyms to each other. 

However, after a deep thought contemplation, a philosopher having insights into the sociology might be able to provide you some difference between the two words. 

Caste is formed by a religious diktat , and forced upon a group of persons by virtue of their brith in a certain group which has a a pre designated name , social status and sometimes even the occupational endeavour. 

In contarast, the community is formed by people by their own willingness, and their social status is not pre defined, nor is their occupation. 

This , communities stand up collectiively against the other community to vie for their share in the economic pie, whereas the caste standup collectively to fight against the other castes and the community to gain a good/ respectable social status , so that they don't further lose out in their share in the economic pie. 

You may well understand how a caste group's struggle is sometimes more harsh than that of a community.

Community is decided, often times, based on their language, their regional settlement, or sometimes even by their religious cult practises. They marry within their community, they build their  dwellings together and manytimes practsie their business also, together. This helps them to survive , sustain and sometimes even progress throuvh a common venture if that venture starts to find success. The communities contest with each other ,and make endeavour to send their members in all fields of occupation so they bring exposure and insights from all the directions to the benefit of the entire community. In all this, all the groups of communities stand at the same level of social status.

But the above does not apply in case of the Castes.All the groups of Castes are at different social status, and they all are mysteriously tied to a certain bandwidth of occupation within which only they find their work. They may not adhere well with each other, they often times fragment out from each other , compete with the other members most times, very rarely they take up a common venture and least of all, they find success wherein they may all make economic progress together. 

Often, the common disgruntlement that binds the members of a caste together is their fight for a increased social status . Thus , their common efforts are in the field of Party Politics, where the agenda is to acquire the legislative and the administrative powers of the state, which they may then use to inmprove their social status , as well as put their people in employment within the government services. That is their set path for an economic upliftment.

 In a summary we can say that the fights and struggles of the caste groups is with themselves, and these fights are sourced from how the arguments have formulated from the religious sculptures and settled within the native society. The caste groups are not fighting to conserve and preserve their heritage; but are constantly looking to overthrow the old customs, traditions, practsies, and the occupation, and adopt modern ways, so to prove their superiority and the higher social status to each other.