Ok, without looking up a source, can you explain what the term "landed gentry" means?
Bonus question: What does the term "gentleman" actually mean, in its historical context. Again don't look it up before answering.
So landed gentry are "landowners" who could live solely of the rental/labor of the commoners.
British society was strictly hierarchical, and largely based on birth—"blue blood" aristocracy. "Landed gentry" was below the peerage but above commoners.
familysearch.org/wiki/en/Englan…
"Gentleman" was a title, lower than the "nobility" or sometimes the lowest rank of the aristocracy. So non blue-blood, but above yeoman.
"Gentlemen" did not work with their hands.
Birth-based privilege is the British social context in which they construct "caste" in India.
Ha ha, now you are free to look it up. The restrictions were to help us realize how little we understand the words we use.
Racism and "blood" hierarchy was a feature of European society. "Blue blood" is those "who claimed never to have intermarried with Moors, Jews, or other races." "Blood purity" is a European racist idea of social hierarchy.
Varna has *no* such concept.
phrases.org.uk/meanings/blue-….
So the Europeans mapped their racist idea of "blood" purity to India and interpreted "jati" and "varna" in this way. However, as even DNA evidence shows, Indians are completely intermixed. There is simply no idea "blood purity" in the manner of European racism.
The people who claimed to teach us "egalitarianism" and "civilize" us were racist slave owners obsessed with hierarchical blood purity.
Forget a long time ago. Even now the "Royal Family" marrying a "commoner" i.e. outside the "blue blood" of the aristocracy is a "scandal."
You marry with your "peers." Remember "peerage" means member of the titled aristocracy.
history.com/news/british-r….
"Distinguished citizens." May as well have called them "gentlemen", no? Member of the aristocracy, part of the peerage.
And definitely from the English class only. Can't mix with the commoners. Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
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