Oklahoma and Georgia. In 2001, the Federal Government also returned to the
practice, though there are relatively few federal criminal laws to which it can be
applied.
Caste
Caste, along withclassandstatus, is a system for social stratification, whereby
social respect and wealth are distributed unequally. The most powerful such
stratification is the Hindu caste system which dominates much of Indian life.
There are four basic Hindu castes: Brahmin (priests), Raja or Kshatriya (rulers
and warriors), Vaishya (artisans) and Shudra (servants). However, the system
has greatly expanded to number perhaps over 3,000 castes and subcastes
according to location and occupation. In addition, beneath the caste system
are the so-called untouchables who perform the most menial tasks. Unlike class
and status, however, it is impossible for an individual to alter their caste
position, which is fixed by birth, and intercaste marriages are still extremely
rare. Somewhat as in medieval Europe, once born into a particular social
position, with clearly defined rights and duties, a person is expected to accept
this with no ambition for betterment. Caste systems require a very powerful
ideology, usually of a religious nature, to justify them and keep people, if not
content, at least acquiescent. Though such ideological control is never perfect,
caste systems work most effectively when those in the lower orders actually
believe they deserve to be inferior to others. Thus although there have been
attempts by the untouchables in Hindu society to break from tradition, even
among this group large numbers accept the inevitability of their fate. Similarly,
the widespread belief in racially-segregated societies that blacks were inferior
to whites was not only used by whites to justify the oppression of blacks, but
was at times accepted as truth by the latter, thus preventing rebellion. Caste
systems cannot ultimately sustain themselves once even a moderate degree of
education and exposure to alternative beliefs becomes widespread, but, as in
India, they can nevertheless be very resistant to change.
Castro
Fidel Castro Ruz (1928–) is arguably the only Marxist dictator to have
survivied into the 21st century, although he came to power in Cuba as a
radical nationalist rather than a Marxist. Castro came from a relatively prosper-
ous background, becoming active in student politics in Cuba and elsewhere in
Latin America immediately after the Second World War. He was involved in
normal electoral politics before thecoup d’e ́tat which returned Gen.
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldı ́var to power in 1952; although he immediately
challenged the new regime, he did so simply by filing a complaint in court that
Caste