CASTE: A TREND REPORT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

by
M. N. SRINIVAS

(Professor of Sociology, University

of

Delhi)

Y. B. DAMLE (Reader in Sociology, University of Poona) MISS S. SHAHANI (Lecturer in Sociology, University of Delhi) ANDRÉ BETEILLE (Lecturer in Sociology, University of Delhi)

I
The phenomenon of caste in India has engaged the attention of observant individuals, both foreigners and Indians, since early times. The first foreigner to record his comments was Megasthenes, a Greek, who, as early as the 4th century B.c., remarked on the way in which caste restricted the choice of a spouse and of an occupation. He was followed, over the centuries, by many others who came to India as traders, travellers, missionaries, and, in the last two hundred years, as administrators. Besides foreign obervers, Indians also wrote about caste. There was a difference, however, in their approach, for they wrote not like alien observers who found caste very different from the society they were used to in their own countries, but as men deeply involved in, and concerned with, the system. They did not aim at giving a description of a unique mode of social stratification to people unfamiliar with it, but with justifying it to themselves and others, all of whom were members of Hindu society. The early writers, most of them Brahmins, conceptualized caste as a fourfold division of society, first mentioned in the I~rg Veda, and called it varna. But at the same time they mentioned occupations and groups which they did not try to place with reference to the four Vanlas. During the post-Vedic period, an attempt was made to reconcile the varna idea with the fact of the existence of several endogamous groups. These several castes, it was stated, originated from alliances and misalliances between the four original varna. (The four varna did not, however, include the Untouchables who constituted a fifth category of outcastes.) The ancient texts which make up a large part of the Hindu sacred literature present an &dquo;ideal&dquo; version of caste, and do not show much correspondence with facts. The theological notions of .ram.rara (rebirth), karma (the idea that a mans present birth is decided by deeds done in a previous incarnation), and dharma (moral or religious duty), were brought in to support the observance of caste practices. Finally, Brahminical thinkers developed and systematized concepts of pollution and purity which so effectively give expression to, and also strengthen, the hierarchical distances prevailing between castes.

II One important effect of British rule, and of the incursion of European missionaries, the stimulation of intellectual interest in the history, art and architecture, languages, especially Sanskrit, and the races and religions of India. A study of the Sanskrit texts and of the religious ideas of the Hindus brought to light the great importance given to caste by early Hindu thinkers. Scholars such as Max hi3Her, Monier-Williams, Wilson, Colebrooke, Zimmer, Muir, Jacobi and Bahler devoted themselves to Indological studies, making use mainly of the old Indian texts. Their work sparked an intellectual interest in men like B. G. Tilak, A. Coomaraswamy,
was

I35

V. Sukhtankar and P. V. Kane, all of them belonging to a generation which had been put on the defensive by the incursion into India of West European culture and ideas. These modern thinkers, unable to defend siittee, thuggee, slavery, infant marriage, and the whole range of customs and institutions which they suddenly saw as social evils, became self-critical and defensive. But the gradual piecing together of Indias past, thanks to the labours of Indian and European scholars, did much to restore national of Sanskrit by the Western world led to the translation of many ancient Sanskrit texts into English and German. This in turn brought about a &dquo;bookview&dquo; of ancient Indian culture and society, a view which had its own serious shortcomings. The exact dates of the authorship of a majority of the texts are still uncertain, scholars differing widely in their respective estimation of the dates, the regions from which the authors hailed are not always known, and there is a deplorable tendency to accept as historically or factually true all that is mentioned in a text, even where there are contradictions between one text and another. Because of this approach to the texts, scholars tended, until very recently, to accept as axiomatic the view that the modern multiplicity of castes grew out of the Vedic fourfold division of society. The &dquo;explanation&dquo; of modern Indian social institutions was sought in the &dquo;facts&dquo; culled from the texts-the older the text the more authoritative the explanation offered in it-and uncritical Victorian anthropology was used to reconstruct Indian &dquo;history&dquo;. A typical work of this kind is E. K. Pillais Origin and Development of Ca.rte, published as recently as y 5 ~. It draws heavily on the Vedas and Smritis. Both race and Hinduism are treated as important factors in the development of the caste system, and even totemism and ancestor-worship are considered relevant. The approach to the study of caste is a strange blend of old-fashioned, uncritical and speculative ethnology, and Indology. While Indologists were concentrating on the sacred literature of the Hindus, another class of writers on caste was coming into existence. British administrators, most of them official of the Indian Civil Service, with intellectual interests, inquired into the customs and manners of the people of the areas they were working in. They wrote about what they actually observed, even though their observations were made in a theoretical framework which has now become outmoded. Some of these administrators collected useful, though somewhat superficial, information about castes in their areas. Baines, Nesfield, Blunt, Crooke, Russell, Sherring, Steele, Thurston, Enthoven, Risley, OMalley and Hutton are the names which come readily to ones mind in this connection. A few civilians, including Nesfield, Risley and Hutton, more than merely collected data: they tried to investigate the connection prevailing between caste and race, and between caste and occupation. Thanks to the curiosity of British officials, the gazetteers, the reports on castes and tribes, the settlement reports, the learned journals and the decennial censuses became repositories of valuable ethnographic data. The collection of data for the censuses, however, was marked by the claims of ambitious castes to belong to much higher divisions than their neighbours were willing to concede them. They took on fancy
1 Prof. J. Filliozat writes of the Dharma Shastras: "Possible motives of reform, however, deprive them of the nature of descriptive documents. Even when they are completely of this nature (descriptive documents), their value is diminished becaure of the uncertainties regarding the exact period in which they were originally written and whose customs they noted. Finally, there is uncertainty concerning the extent and the localization, in space as much as in time, of their application. Their use in the history of social phenomena and their conditions of development requires a verification by comparisons which can precisely be furnished by chance evidence from texts of other schools." (Foreword to Dr. D. R. Chananas Slavery in Ancient India, New Delhi, I960.) (Italics ours.)

self-respect. The discovery

I36

and

new names.

and demanded, often with success, to be known by their from This, apart breaking the continuity in classification and making in one census not figures comparable with the next or previous one, caused a good deal of ill-feeling among the local population. And since the twenties, nationalist Indians had begun to feel that the recording of caste data in the census and government records increased the fissiparous tendencies in Indian society and they urged that the census inquiries should not include caste. (They also disliked the showing of tribals separately from the Hindus.) After the attainment of Independence, the Indian Government decided not to record caste in the census. However, they could not carry out their intentions fully for the Constitution provided certain safeguards and privileges to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and the Anglo-Indians which necessitated recording their figures separately in the 195 census. Thus the latter gives, for the whole of India as well as for each State, figures for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes by sex, livelihood, and rural-urban classification. For Anglo-

high-sounding names,

Indians, however, figures

are

given only by

sex.

Besides the Indologist and the administrator, a third class of persons also became interested in caste, and wrote extensively about it. These were the Christian missionaries, who, in the course of their proselytizing activities, and in their schools and hospitals, came into close contact with the local population. Abbe Dubois Customs, Manner.r and Ceremonies of the Hindus (Oxford, 3rd edition, igo6), Mrs. Sinclair Stevensons The Rites of the Twice-born (Oxford, 1920), W. H. Wisers The Hindu Jajmani System (Lucknow, 1936), and Stephen Fuchs The Children of Hari (Vienna, 1950), are typical examples of the contributions made by foreign missionaries towards the understanding of Indian social institutions including caste. Of these, Wises study is remarkable for its method as well as its content: it is surprisingly modein, being based entirely on the intimate field-observation of a single village, and it does not indulge in any speculations about the alleged history and origins of caste.

III

While much of the material recorded by these Western intellectuals was of an inventorial type, there was also some theorizing on caste. Risley is known for his attempt to link up caste and race. Two Indian scholars who followed in the footsteps of Risley were G. S. Ghurye and D. N. Majumdar. Ghurye, who received his training under Rivers, Haddon and Hobhouse, has written a standard monograph entitled Cafte and Race in India (1932). The first edition of the book included a chapter on caste and race which was, however, deleted in the subsequent editions, but has been replaced in the latest edition which bears the title Caste arrd Class in India (19 5 8). Ghurye tries to provide a history of the institution of caste from Vedic times to the present day. Part of this history is, by its very nature, speculative. In the latter part of the book, however, he makes a brave attempt to study the efFects of British rule, nationalism and other modern forces on caste. Senart, Bougl6 and Hocart are prominent among the earlier theoreticians of the caste system. They drew mainly from literary sources and all three wrote their books on caste in French. While Senarts study was translated into English in I 9 30, Hocarts Casts was translated only in I 9 j o and Bougl6s work has not yet been translated in its entirety. Hocart, it must be mentioned here, tried to compare Indian caste with caste in Ceylon and with the system of social stratification obtaining in Fiji.

I37

important theoretician and his study of Indian religion (Tbe Religion of India, Illinois, 19 5 8) was translated into English only in 19 5 8. Among Webers source materials are censuses and reports which provide data which are always superficial, and occasionally, not quite accurate. Weber also made use of historical and Indological material. His chief interest was in religion, and he took account of caste mainly as it appeared in the sacred texts, and used recent data only to obtain a more dynamic view. Both his theoretical interests and the kind of data which he used, led him to view caste in all-India terms, and he did not realize sufficiently that caste was a highly localized phenomenon. This is not to deny the value of his study which contains many penetrating insights into caste and Hinduism. Another group of studies deserves mention if only for the fact that it stemmed from the empirical tradition which later led to a fruitful blending of theory and fieldwork. W. H. R. Rivers, S. C. Roy, J. H. Hutton, J. P. Mills, V. Elwin, W. V. Grigson, and C. von Firer Haimendorf are among those who made painstaking studies of tribal communities which enjoyed only minimal contact with the plains Hindus. David Mandelbaums brief and stimulating article, &dquo;Culture Change among the Nilgiri Tribes&dquo; (American Anthropologist, Vol. 43, 1941, pp. ig-z6), describes a caste-like interdependence of four montane groups, the Kotas, Badagas, Todas and Kurumbas. The study by Stephen Fuchs, already mentioned, is also significant in shedding light on untouchability from the tribal end. The above situation held good until the end of the Second World War when,
for the first time, trained social scientists from India, the U.K. and the U.S.A., started making intensive and systematic studies of Indian social life. There is, in their work, a fusion of theoretical interests and data collected in the field. In the main, they have confined themselves to making intimate studies of small areas, including single villages, or individual castes. This is in direct contrast to the previous macrocosmic and speculative studies based on a minimum of observed data. The modern field-worker spends a fairly long time in the selected field of study, sufhcient to know the inhabitants intimately; he also has the concepts and techniques to analyse the data which he has collected. One of the first results of this kind of study is to provide a picture of the day-to-day relations between castes inhabiting a village or town. There is a shift in emphasis from varna to jati. The varna are only four, and they have an allIndia spread, whereas jati.r are innumerable, small, endogamous and local groups. While the position of each varna is definite and immutable and is supported by long tradition, the position of several jati.r, especially in the middle regions of the hierarchy, is vague, and permits, if not encourages, disputes regarding mutual status. There are other discrepancies too between varna and jati. For instance, a caste, .believed to have a particular varna status, is found to be practising an occupation that is actually associated with some other varna. The varna model is unable to explain the facts of caste as they are found in the field-situation, and there is an increased awareness of the tremendous complexity of caste. Instead of the picture of a static, immutable, India-wide, fourfold hierarchy, we find one in which there are innumerable small groups, even in a single linguistic area, and mutual rank between them is vague, arguable and alterable. The caste system is also seen to vary from region to region. Caste at the all-India level may be said to be made up of several distinct regional, hierarchical systems and the varna system provides, to some extent at least, a common language which makes ranking in one region understandable in another.

Max Weber is another

138

IV M. N. Srinivass Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (Oxford, I 9 j 2) marks a definite swing away from the speculative search for origins. It draws attention to the discrepancies between varna and jati, and to the importance of the latter at the local level. It also tries to show how a dominant group, owning land and having martial traditions, is able to claim Ksbatrba status even though many of its rites and customs are not those of the classic ICrhatriyas. The study contains, at least in germ, two concepts which have influenced recent research-Sanskritization and dominant
~

caste.

The concept of Sanskritization can be briefly presented in the authors own words. &dquo;The caste system is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time. :Movement has always been possible, and especially so in the middle regions of the hierarchy. A low caste was able to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, and by sanskritizing its ritual and pantheon. In short, it took over as far as possible, the customs, rites and beliefs of the Brahmins, and the adoption of the Brahminical way of life by a low caste seems to have been frequent, though theoretically forbidden. This process has been called Sanskritization in this book, in preference to Brahn-unization, as certain Vedic rites are confined to the Brahmins and the two other twice-born* castes.&dquo; (Srinivas, 195 2, p. 30.) The concept was developed largely around the change in the position of the martial Coorgs who were probably marginal to Hinduism in earlier times, but who, when they came into contact with Brahmins and Lingayats, castes enjoying a high ritual status, began to imitate them and at the same time laid claims to being Kshatriyas. Srinivas developed this idea further in his &dquo;Note on Sanskritization and Westernization&dquo; (if); 6), in which he pointed out that, in caste, mobility occurred for entire groups, as against class in which individual persons, or families, achieved a higher status. In Hindu caste, Sanskritization is an important part of the process of social mobility. Westernization also provides a channel of mobility, and occurs more among the higher castes. In fact, while the higher castes are getting more Westernized, the lower castes are getting more Sanskritized. But the processes of Sanskritization and Westernization are not mutually exclusive, and the lower castes are not exempt from Westernization. In modern India, the two processes are linked together. It is possible, however, to envisage Westernization occurring without Sanskritization and vice versa. The idea of dominant caste is implicit in the works of earlier writers. In the Coorg study, however, we have the picture of a group which, because of numerical, economic and political dominance, moved up in the caste hierarchy by Sanskritizing its ways. This concept was also developed separately in Srinivass article &dquo;The Dominant Caste in Rampura&dquo; ( i ~ S ~), where he listed numerical strength, political and economic power, ritual status, and Western education as the criteria of dominance. When all the criteria were found present in a single caste, it enjoyed decisive dominance. Examples of castes which enjoy such dominance are to be found in several parts of India. Political life in modern India, especially at the State and lower levels, cannot be understood without reference to dominant caste. The idea also provides a clue to the understanding of the political structure in pre-British India and the maintenance of law and order in rural areas. Dr. B. S. Cohns paper, &dquo;Some Notes on Law and Change in North India&dquo; ( i ~ 5 ~), throws some light on the problem. On the basis of research carried out in a talu,~a of Jaunpur district in Eastern Uttar Pradesh,

I39

Cohn defined the position of the Thakurs as the controlling power in the area in which were dominant. The Thakurs conquered the area in the seventeenth century, and they acted as the local rulers, except in some areas where lineages of Brahmins, Bhumihars, Ahirs, Jats or Gujars replaced them. In the eighteenth century, these local ruling lineages of Thakurs were subordinate to the rulers of the successor states of the Mughal Empire. The British continued to recognize them as ruling lineages, and entrusted them with the collection of land revenue, and the maintenance of law and order. They were eminently suited for discharging both these tasks. Matters which could not be settled by a caste panchayat, and disputes between castes, were referred to the dominant Thakurs who, because they were landlords, could exercise a fair amount of control over the other castes through their social, economic, ceremonial, and traditional ties. They claimed that their voice was final in matters concerning the traditional social order and it was part of their prerogative to enforce the rules of the caste system, while the Brahmin was only adviser to the ruler, and interpreter of the law. The concept of dominance shows that it was not always, or even usually, the Brahmin who dominated the caste hierarchy, contrary to the views of Abbe Dubois and others who believed that the whole system had been created by the machinations of the Brahmins to exploit it to their own advantage. This view is a popular one with reformers and politicians, and persists even today, as can be seen in B. N. Nairs book, The DJtlafl7lC Brahmin (19 5 9). In actual fact, however, a caste which owned land exercised an elective dominance, regardless of its ritual status. The Brahmin castes were genuinely dominant only when they owned land. Where land was owned by other and lower castes, the Brahmin retained his high ritual position, but had little influence in secular matters, and even in ritual matters, he was likely to be brushed aside by a leader of the dominant caste. It was the landowning castes which were the most influential. Even though Brahmin castes do not dominate everywhere, there is a tendency for the &dquo;Brahminical model&dquo; to prevail, and values and aspirations associated with Brahmins are upheld by all castes. The process of Sanskritization is closely linked with the Brahminical model. But the existence of the Brahminical model should not be interpreted to mean that the authority of the Brahmin extended everywhere. For instance, the enforcement of the sacred laws, mentioned in post-Vedic literature, was the prerogative of the ruler. Ghurye, referring to the sacred laws of the Aryans writes, &dquo;Much of the law proper is treated ... under the heading duties of the Kshatriya.&dquo; (1957, p. S 4) ~ There are also other models besides the Brahminical model, viz.: the Kshatriya and Vaishya models. The existence of the Kshatriya model provides castes with a set of attitudes which makes them both respectful and responsive to authority. This explains why Hindu castes imitated the ways and customs of not only Hindu kings, but also Muslim and British rulers. D. F. Pocock has pointed out in his article &dquo;The Hypergamy of the Patidars&dquo; (1933) that the kingly model is represented, at the local level, by the dominant caste which claims to be Kshatriya. The shift which has taken place in Indian sociology from the study of varna to_jati is important indeed, but it should not be interpreted to mean that the varna concept is useless and needs to be jettisoned. We have already seen that it provides models for imitation by different jati.r. Also it makes the caste system of one region intelligible in another, though this usually involves over-simplification and even distortion. More important, an aspiring caste states its goals in 1arna, and not jati, terms. A jati which claimed the same status as a locally higher one would incur the wrath of the

they

I40

the dominant caste which would favour maintenance of the statues qua. at once be brought to bear on the ambitious caste. But a claim to belong to a varna which is outside of, and beyond, the local hierarchy, would not arouse the same amount of hostility. These and a few other points are made in Srinivass brief paper &dquo;Varna and Caste&dquo; (i~S4). It has been asked whether the village is a proper isolate for study in India. Srinivas (yS2) has stated that the village has a vertical solidarity while caste has a horizontal solidarity and that each loyalty cuts across the other. Dumont and Pocock (1956) argue, however, that what appears to be &dquo;village unity&dquo; is only the discipline imposed by the locally dominant caste. According to them, therefore, it is caste which is the proper unit of study. D. N. Niajumdar ( 1 9 j 8), however, has used the term &dquo;horizontal solidarity&dquo; in an entirely different sense to mean the uniting of equal castes for the promotion of their common interests. He has assumed that some castes are equal to each other. Our contention is that the so-called equality does not prevent ideas of mutual superiority being entertained. This does not, however, prevent the coming together of near-equal castes for political and other purposes. Dumont and Pocock are perhaps ignoring the bonds which arise from the occupational interdependence of hereditary groups, from the continued sharing of common

latter, and of

Sanctions would

experience-flood, famine, epidemic, feast, fast and festival-and from an investing of territorial areas with religious values. Caste unity and village unity are both real: members of the same caste are distinguished territorially, while members of the same village are distinguished on the basis of caste. Such distinctions enable a system of cross-cutting ties to be created which prevents either type of tie from imposing too
great a strain on the rural social system. Two important concepts deserve mention here. One of them is Redfields idea of Great Tradition and Little Tradition. He developed this concept to explain the position of the peasant community vis-h-vis the wider society of which it is part,

problem which does not trouble the investigator of a primitive, non-literate community. The towns and cities are centres of the Great Tradition, while villages are expressions of the Little Tradition, and there is communication between them. McKim Marriott (i~S S) used this concept in his study of Kishan Garhi, an Uttar Pradesh village, and he tried to explain the interaction of the Great and Little traditions in terms of caste interaction. To Marriott,, the extensive and highly differentiated caste system is &dquo;a living monument to a primary adjustment among tribal peoples emerging into a civilization of greater organized range and scope&dquo;. At the present time, according to Marriott,, the mobility of castes often occurs as a movement away from the Little Community into the Great Community, the Sanskritization of the Coorgs being a good example of this process. Lastly, Marriott, believes that the
a

elaborate ritual ranking of castes in the Little Communities of India must have been developed outside the villages in sophisticated centres, that is, in the Great Communities. (It may be added here that jati is an expression of the Little Community and llama of the Great Tradition.) It is now generally recognized that villages and castes are not isolated entities, but are part of a much wider political, economic, legal, religious and social system. Others besides Marriott have also tried to analyse this relationship; for instance, Bailey who emphasized economic ties in Orissa, and Srinivas who analysed the relation between religion and social structure among the Coorgs. D. F. Pocock, in a study of the Patidars of Gujarat, described the dynamics of caste as a process of inclusion and exclusion. He argued that each caste tries to include itself with the higher castes and, at the same time, dissociate itself from the lower I4I

castes.

This process

being widespread, the castes above refuse to accept the inclusion

just as the castes below try to elbow their way in.

A similar process is found to occur the different within levels a where an informal caste, among hierarchy based on secular differences is maintained by the attraction towards upper levels and the repulsion towards lower levels. Inclusion and exclusion may be, however, defined as aspects of a much wider hierarchical process, and not peculiar to a caste system. For instance, Warner and Lunt observed that in Yankee City the inclusion of some, and the exclusion of others, from membership of formal associations, helped to place individuals in a &dquo;class&dquo; hierarchy (Tbe Social Life of a A10dern Community, Yale, i~5o).

VI In recent years, there has been a shift in emphasis from the &dquo;religious&dquo; to the &dquo;secular&dquo; aspects of caste. Indias embarking on a programme of systematic economic development has resulted in a keen and almost clinical interest in the socio-economic factors hindering progress. Applied or &dquo;action&dquo; research has been encouraged by the Research Programmes Committee of the Planning Commission and a few other agencies. A good deal of the sociological research done by the Americans in India has a welfare or &dquo;action&dquo; bias. Studies have been undertaken of village leadership, power structure, communication of ideas, factions and so on, and the underlying concern has been to assess the future of democracy in India, and the success, or otherwise, of community development programmes. Oscar Lewis (1954), in his detailed account of the factions in a Jat village, asserts that a knowledge of factions is vital to the development worker. In this village, there were six factions: two were neutral, and the other four were divided into two hostile groups, consisting of two factions each. The neutral factions, though likely to be ignored because they were not aggressive like the other factions, provided the only channel of communication which existed between the several groups in the village. Contacting one of the hostile factions immediately cut off the ofhcial or the village worker from its opponents. To Oscar Lewis, factions are well-defined groups to be found in every caste, and each faction has a long history of development and combines with other groups in the village in order to pursue its interests. The opening up of new economic and political opportunities in recent years has sharpened factionalism. Lewis studies factions not so much for their theoretical interest as for their pragmatic implications. He emphasizes that they are semi-permanent informal groups existing within the formal structure of the village. Pocock ( i ~ S 7) refutes this idea, and says that the factions in a village are not related to caste, and certainly not inherent in it, but rather they are interest groups, secondary in nature to kin and lineage, and not coextensive with either, and tending to permanence only in so far as the particular interests and possibilities of conflict in a village remain the same over a long period of time. In Gujarat, Pocock found that what appeared to be factions in the Patidar caste were actually groups of Patidar families together with those members of lower castes who were economically dependent upon them. Here again, the part that factions play in the dynamic aspects of the permanent social structure has not been analysed. It may be mentioned in this context that sufficient attention does not seem to have been paid to the relationship between factions and dominant caste. Factions are noticed, and become significant in developmental work only when they involve the dominant caste, or when there is rivalry between two dominant castes neither of which enjoys decisive dominance. Factions have also not been studied with reference

I42

to patron-client ties, and to their providing a set of bonds which run counter to caste, and occasionally, across villages as well. The &dquo;pragmatists&dquo; have also paid attention to rural leadership. Leaders are needed to take villagers on to the path of development. The concern with the twin problems of development and democracy has led Drs. R. Park and I. Tinker to bring together in one volume a series of essays entitled &dquo;Leadership and Political Institutions in India&dquo; (1960). Some of these essays are based on field-research, and point to the general conclusion that most leaders develop in the important castes, that traditional leaders still command respect (though leaders of a different and more modern type are also emerging) and that, except very rarely, there is no such thing as an overall leadership of the village. Village leaders are always leaders because they belong to

leading castes.
The economic aspects of caste have been studied from two points of view: (i) the study of the traditional economic pattern, known widely as the jajmani system; and (2) the effects of technological and economic change on caste. The jajmani system was first studied in detail by Wiser (1936) in the course of a field-study of a U.P. village. He found that the servicing and the artisan castes in the village were bound by tradition to perform certain services for certain families, usually of the dominant, landowning castes. The bond was traditional and hereditary, and continued for generations. The masters, for whom the services were performed, are the jajman (from the Sanskrit word )ajamana) and the servants are called kamin. The jajman pay the servants in grain, clothing and, sometimes, cooked food. The quantity given as also the manner of payment are both determined by tradition. Services, like those of the sweeper, are rewarded by payment once or twice a year, usually at the harvest; other services like those of the tailor, or the goldsmith, are paid on a piece-work basis. But the payment is in kind, and is usually determined by tradition. Such a system of payment is ideally suited to a subsistence economy in which cash is scarce, and there is a minimum of social and economic mobility. While the jajmani system, under different names, prevails all over India, cash
are made in north-western Mysore where commercial crops are grown. The only study we have of this is by E. Harper ( I 9 j 9). For lack of a vernacular name, he calls it the &dquo;Malnad System&dquo;. Its distinctive features are: the use of money, sale of services in a free, competitive market; and a cash crop (betel-nut) which, for centuries, has been exported to other parts of India, and on which the economy is based. Harper claims that the AIa/nad g<Jtf> has the ryeight of tradition behind it. It is not known where else, outside of the Malnad, such a system prevailed. Those areas in which commercial crops have been grown for a long time (e.g. parts of Gujarat) need to be investigate. The effects of recent political and economic changes on the caste system have been studied by F. G. Bailey in his book, Caste and the Economic FrorJtrer (1957). Bailey found, in his Orissa village, that the old caste hierarchy had been organized around those groups which owned most of the land. The extension of administration under the British rule led to the integration of the area into a wider economy, and certain new economic opportunities presented themselves to the villagers. These opportunities were mainly taken advantage of by the immigrant castes who had no share in the ownership of village land. They used their new-found money to buy out some of the old landowners, as the owning of land was still a symbol of prestige. The establishment of Paw Britannica resulted in an increase in the population, and this meant that at the village level, ancestral land was partitioned into uneconomic pieces. This often forced the smaller landowners to sell their land to the newly-rich. The

payments

I43

redistribution of village land was followed by changes in the political structure, that is, in the power alignment of castes. It is important to note that the struggle which the new opportunities brought about occurred in a caste idiom. E. K. Goughs recent article (1960) also traces the effects of economic changes on the caste system of Kum-

bapettai, a Tanjore village.

VII

The institution of caste has changed in significant respects in the last one hundred and sixty years, but scholars differ about the kind of significance which should be attached to these changes. Some consider that caste is on the way out, while others point out that while the pollution aspect of caste has weakened, and while there is also a loosening in certain other aspects, caste has shown a tremendous capacity for adjustment to new conditions. Caste-consciousness is keen, and expresses itself in many contexts. The changes occurring in caste can be studied at various levels: village, region, State, and all-India. Ghurye, in his well-known work, has discussed the changes which occurred in the caste system under British rule, and the relation of caste to nationalism. Later, Srinivas, in a series of papers, and in his presidential address to the Anthropology and Archaeology section of the Indian Science Congress, 1957, discussed the role of caste in modern India. Selig Harrison (1956), Maureen Patterson (19 5 4), and N. K. Bose (19 5 8), among others, have also discussed changes in caste at the State level in Andhra, Maharashtra and Bengal respectively. The consolidation of power by the British in India meant the cessation of warfare between rival chiefs or princes, and this was followed by the expansion of the economy which until then had been stagnant. The new technological innovations such as the railway and telegraph, and the construction of roads, which made effective the political integration of the country, also brought new economic opportunities to the people. The changes which British rule brought in its wake have not been studied systematically except for Baileys study. The latter shows how, in an Orissa village, the traditional social structure underwent changes under pressure from economic, political and social forces let loose under British rule. Besides the changes in the economy, the introduction of a legal system which did not take into account the castes of the litigants, adversely affected the power of caste councils. The idea that courts of law should treat litigants on the basis of what they had done or said, and that they should not be treated according to the caste they come from, was an entirely novel idea in Indian history. The existence of courts which were superior to caste councils, and which had, on occasion, the power to punish caste leaders who sat on the councils, naturally undermined the authority of caste, though perhaps not to the same extent as is imagined. Rural folk made use of both the caste councils and the law courts. Though the British professedly refused to interfere in matters of religion and morality, they provided a body of special laws, operative in the British courts, which permitted intercaste marriage, and refused to give a legal sanction to untouchability. Later, they even provided certain concessions and privileges for the backward castes in appointments to government jobs, financial aid in education, and reservation of seats on local self-governing bodies. Conscious and organized protests against caste were made by such associations as the Arya Samaj and the Prarthana Samaj. The abolition of caste was considered to be an essential part of the revival of Hinduism, and intercaste marriages were advocated for the dissolution of caste. In Maharashtra, Jyotirao Phule, a Mali by caste (gardenI44

cultivator), opened schools for non-Brahmin children, and even for untouchables. The agitation in favour of the non-Brahmin castes was carried on, in the first two decades of this country, by the Maharaja of Kolhapur and other social reformers. The reform movements, aided by urbanization, industrialization and the advent of a new economy, led to a gradual lessening of the rigours of pollution. Also, within a single caste, barriers between sub-castes began to disappear. But the non-Brahmin movement heightened caste-consciousness in all sectors of society, and urbanization, Westernization and the beginnings of self-rule gave new opportunities for this consciousness to find expression. In South India (Srinivas, 19 5 7), a more or less similar situation existed except that the Brahmins were more powerful, though they have now been more or less completely displaced as the result of a prolonged and bitter anti-Brahmin movement. Brahmins had not only captured the important posts in the administration in the old province of Madras and in the princedom of Mysore, but they were also important landowners, and therefore dominated at the village level as well. The near-monopoly which the
Brahmins had of the posts in the administration led to a movement in which all the non-Brahmins combined to agitate for the reservation of a percentage of posts to the latter. They made alliances not only across caste and linguistic boundaries, but even across religious boundaries in order to displace the Brahmin. When dyarchy was introduced in I9 I 9, the Justice Party of Madras, the spokesman for the non-Brahmin castes, joined the government while the Congress kept out of ofhce. During its tenure of office the Justice Party did a great deal for the non-Brahmin castes, building into the administration discriminatory measures against the Brahmins. In all this, it had the consent, if not the encouragement of the British who needed a counter to the growing nationalist movement which, in the South (including Maharashtra), was being led, at least in the earliest stages, by the Brahmins. The nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi swept the avowedly casteist parties out of power in the elections of 1937. This did not lead to any weakening of the role of caste in politics, as the non-Brahmin castes, realizing the relative ineffectiveness of openly casteist parties, entered the Congress. This gradually resulted in the political parties recognition of the claims of dominant castes to a share in power and ofiice. Not giving representation to the dominant castes meant running the risk of political extinction. The need to draw in members of the dominant castes resulted not only in raising to power men who were aware of their indebtedness to their castes, but also to an increase in caste-consciousness everywhere. As the dominant castes are only a few in each region, this resulted in widespread frustration. Because Indian social life is mainly articulated through caste, any organization or association that is formed to further social interests, whether these be in the political, economic, educational, or any other sphere, tends to be coloured by caste. In fact, castes often organize themselves in order to further the interests of their members. Rudolph and Rudolph (1960) have argued that in a country which has recently adopted the democratic political system and which has a large number of illiterates, the organization of caste enables the people to participate in the national and state political processes. This role is an important one in the absence of well developed interest-groups and voluntary associations. By organizing itself in this way, caste has filled an important gap in political life, and has provided an illiterate electorate with a direct link with the legislatures and political parties. Interest groups, which cut across caste barriers, may also be formed. Intra-caste economic heterogeneity occurs in all castes except those in which the majority of members are desperately poor, being either landiess labourers, or petty traders or

I45

artisans. When internal economic differentiation is found in many

castes

there is

tendency for economic interests to cut across caste. This does not, however, mean that ties based on &dquo;class&dquo; completely supersede those based on caste. Both are present. The sociologist knows the importance of caste in Indian social and political life, and finds it diHicult to concede that caste will disappear soon from India. This conclusion of his is interesting in view of the fact that the educated Indian, brought up on liberal and socialist ideas, wants an egalitarian social order (&dquo;a classless and casteless society&dquo;) to be created in India. The Indian Constitution has abolished untouchability. The Indian Parliament has passed the Prevention of Untouchability Offences Act (195 5), which punishes those who try to prevent Harijans from having access to wells, restaurants, temples and other public places. But Harijans in rural areas have not yet been able to benefit substantially from this Act because most of them are dependent upon the high castes for their livelihood. In some places they have been beaten up for trying to assert their rights. It is necessary here to state that the relation between caste and politics is intricate and complex. While caste is an extremely important factor in Indian political life, it is only one of the factors in a complex situation. The role of caste at various political levels and in different parts of the country has to be studied in a systematic way. Historical data will also have to be used. Here is a field in which historians, political scientists and sociologists can co-operate.
VIII

Field-studies carried out in India by British, or British-trained scholars, have been either &dquo;lone-wolf&dquo; studies, or consisted of teams made up of husband and wife. They have generally preferred qualitative and impressionistic studies, and have been sceptical about the usefulness of results based entirely upon responses to questionnaires. But some of them have used quantitative techniques when they found such use necessary. For instance, F. G. Bailey and A. C. Mayer have made use of quantitative data at some points in their field-studies. Scarlett Epstein has made an extensive use of statistical techniques in her study of the social effects of economic change in two Mysore villages (to be published shortly by l~-ianchester University Press). Scholars from the U.S.A., or those trained in American universities have, on the other hand, shown a predilection for quantifying their data, and for the lavish use of questionnaires, attitude surveys, social distance scales, and even &dquo;sociograms&dquo;. They also prefer to work in teams in order to bring to bear a multi-disciplinary approach to the solution of &dquo;social science problems&dquo;. Thus a combined team of Indian and American scholars gathered data for two villages in Uttar Pradesh. Oscar Lewis, in his study of Rampur, made use of data collected for him by a team of Indian investigators. It must be pointed out here that the employment of investigators either because of the magnitude of the project, or because the director is busy with administrative matters, or because of the ignorance of the local language, brings about a separation between the collector of primary data and its interpreter. That such separation exists in other social sciences, and is probably inevitable in tackling macrocosmic problems, does not make it any the less regrettable. The important theoretical advance made in social anthropology in recent years is at least partly due to the fact that the collector and interpreter of data are one and the same person. There have been only a few urban studies and they are in the nature of general economic surveys, which for some odd reason are called &dquo;socio-economic&dquo; studies.

I46

The social parts of these studies are conspicuous by their absence, sometimes even reference to caste being omitted presumably because the authors desire to appear &dquo;progressive&dquo;. Where caste is recorded the data are packed into tables and nothing is said about intercaste relations. The most that can be expected from this type of study is the recording of the strength of each major caste without reference to its subdivisions. Dr. I. P. Desais study of &dquo;High School Students in Poona&dquo; (ys 3) is, however, an exception, an attempt being made in it to find out the relation between caste, class and the use of educational opportunities.

IX
,

Purity and pollution are two related concepts which play an important part in the hierarchical ordering of castes, and their relations with each other. They have received much attention from students of South Indian communities. It is surprising that sociologists studying other parts of the country have not paid equal attention to them. Hocart, Srinivas, and Gough, working in the South, stress the ritual aspect of caste, while D. N. Majumdar, Oscar Lewis, morris E. Opler and Bailey lay a greater stress on its political and economic aspects. There appears to be a North-South dichotomy as far as the stress on ritual factors is concerned. At first sight this would seem to be due to purity-pollution ideas being less important in the North. But what is perhaps more likely is that these ideas are also important in the North, but they are related differently to the caste hierarchy. Comparative studies of the relation of pollution-purity concepts to the caste hierarchy in different areas of India are called for. Such studies have to be undertaken soon, for purity-pollution ideas are becoming weaker, especially in the urban areas. Attempts have recently been made to determine the rank of castes with precision. McKim Marriott (19 5 9) has distinguished between &dquo;attributional&dquo; and &dquo;interactional&dquo; theories of caste ranking. By &dquo;attributional&dquo; theories he means those theories which rank castes according to ritual and &dquo;ascriptive&dquo; criteria. These range from theories held in the Dharmasastras to those held by certain social scientists. Marriott, seriously objects to the use, by social scientists, of ritual criteria in ranking castes. Rank does not always follow ritual criteria: for instance, certain non-vegetarian castes take precedence over vegetarian castes. Also, ritual criteria are not easy to use, as in the situation where washing clothes is polluting when practised as an occupation, but not so when washing ones own clothes. Then again, there is no sure way of weighting the diflerent ritual criteria, and there is no doubt that not all criteria have the same importance. Finally, castes with the same ritual attributes often have dissimilar status. There is an uncritical tendency to evaluate ritual factors according to statements made in the Dharmasastras. Instead of an &dquo;attributional&dquo; theory, Marriott has put forward an &dquo;interactional&dquo; theory of caste ranking which takes account of the actual relations existing between castes. Such a theory does not ignore ritual criteria, but places them according to their role in real interactions of castes. Thus, Srinivass ranking of castes is criticized as being &dquo;attributional&dquo;, but his concept of dominance is classed as &dquo;interactional&dquo;, as it bases rank on position in the power structure, irrespective of &dquo;attributes&dquo;. Marriott himself applies his theory to the facts of Kishan Garhi, an Uttar Pradesh

village.
applies
Marriott, however, gives up his case when he says that the &dquo;attributional&dquo; theory more in South India while the &dquo;interactional&dquo; theory applies more in the
147

North. If this is really so, the &dquo;interactional&dquo; theory does not take precedence over the &dquo;attributional&dquo; theory as each theory holds good in separate areas. Any claim to greater validity for the &dquo;interactional&dquo; theory should be based on its being able to explain much better than the &dquo;attributional&dquo; theory the facts of both parts of India. A further contribution towards a systematic evaluation of caste rank has been made, again by Marriott (1958), in his concept of the &dquo;elaborateness&dquo; of ranking. Marriott argues that in assigning rank, consistency between the different criteria of rank has to be taken into account. E. Kathleen Gough (y 5 ~) developed, from her South Indian studies, the idea of &dquo;onerousness of servitude&dquo;. In Kerala and Tanjore, where Gough worked, there was a broad division of castes into lords and vassals. The &dquo;lord&dquo; castes were those who owned the land, and the other castes were related to them in traditional forms of servitude. The more onerous, or unpleasant, the type of service that a caste rendered to the lords, the greater was its ritual distance from them. This concept was developed for a particular area. It is a moot point whether it can be applied elsewhere. Pauline Mahar (i ~ 5 ~) has worked out a questionnaire in which the respondent is asked to state which castes he will allow to touch, to sit on his cot, use his utensils, and so on. These various actions are arranged in a scale which gives an immediate diagrammatic picture of the distances between castes. Or, even more briefly, the distances can be given in scores. Mahars scale takes account of only one kind of criterion-the ritual. But similar scales could be made out for other criteiia. We may now ask the question whether a total or general rank can be ascribed to a caste. Dr. A. C. Mayer ( y S 6) made a study of the caste hierarchy of a Malwa village in terms of the various criteria of rank. The criteria he took into consideration were commensality and traditional occupation in the ritual sphere, and ownership of land, education and actual occupation in the secular sphere. Can rank in different sectors be summed up into general rank? Prima facie, this looks like an impossible task. The people themselves stated that caste X was equal or inferior or superior to Y, but then they had mainly ritual considerations in mind. Mayers construction of separate hierarchies for each criterion represents a way of studying caste rank. Consistency between the different hierarchies may provide an indication of &dquo;general rank&dquo;. The lack of consistency would indicate some confusion or controversy over rank, and it may give a clue to possible changes in the local hierarchy. A question which arises in this connection is whether there exists a tendency towards consistency in ranking. If economic or political rank is higher than iitual rank, will the latter catch up with the former in course of time, and vice versa? How does consistency come about ? Scaling techniques in the determination of caste rank would necessarily involve the assignment of weights to the different attributes. Weights can only be assigned legitimately to quantifiable attributes. In all other cases they tend to involve subjectivism. Again, there is such a great diversity in the caste observances of different regions-and even within a region-that it is very difhcult to make any but the broadest comparisons. If the purpose is only to systematize caste rank within a scheme for purposes of analysis, it would appear that the sheer fact of reducing data to a form that fits into a scale would slur over all the finer distinctions that make a full analysis possible. For one thing, it would not provide a proper idea of either the &dquo;attributes&dquo; or the &dquo;interactions&dquo; of caste that Marriott speaks of. The items on the scale pertain to behaviour in relation to other castes. But is any scale a substitute for the actual study of what one may call the total complex of interactions between castes ? The grouping together of items on a scale may be accidental, and may not

148

represent items which are actually interrelated in the system. If the items

are decided upon after an extensive preliminary investigation, the knowledge gained thereby would obviate the need for any further investigation. Even if a scale can be quickly and easily prepared, it is hard to believe that it can avoid the defects of any method that tailors data to fit into some form, and cannot therefore take account of what appear to be relatively trivial data. Even here, a scale for ritual distance may involve relatively less difficulty, as ritual distances make up a socially recognized and formal hierarchy, the rules of which are agreed upon by all concerned. But when items in a secular hierarchy are to be evaluated, and weighted, it is extremely unlikely that consistency will be found. Not all forms of wealth, for example, have the same value. Then what are the relative values of land, gold and cash? Does wealth acquired from land give a status different from that conferred by wealth acquired from trade? Which is the more important status determinant, a mans education or the occupation he follows ? Where a scale is based on the values of the people who are the subject of the study, not only will there be differences between one area and another which may make inter-regional comparisons extremely difficult, but also the criteria chosen may have no applicability outside an area. Thus the sharing of a hookah and the mode of sitting on a cot are definitely North Indian traits which are not found in peninsular India.

In India, caste has been widely considered to be the peculiarity of the Hindus and Hinduism. Parallels have been drawn between Hindu caste and the racial divisions in the Southern United States. Similar parallels have been drawn also with other societies, past and present, by Hocart, Ghurye, and others. But it seems fair to say that the only genuine parallels to Hindu caste are to be found in communities which, though professing other faiths, live with or near Hindu communities, within what Leach calls &dquo;the pan-Indian civilization&dquo;. Caste is found to be a feature of Muslim society in India (Ansari, y 5 S-S 6 ; Gupta, y 5 6; DSouza, y 5 ~), and of Ceylon (Ryan, 195 8). The essays edited by Leach (1960) deal with caste in Sinhalese and Tamil communities in Ceylon, and among the Muslims of Swat in North-West Pakistan. It is likely that those Hindus who were converted to Islam continued to regard themselves as castes, while foreign, conquering groups of Muslims, like Arabs and Pathans, fell into the position of upper castes. This seems to be true of Muslim castes all over India, as shown in accounts of Muslims as far apart as Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. These castes observe social distance in somewhat different ways from the Hindus, with a stress on deference and privileges rather than ritual status and ideas of pollution and purity, though Muslims do consider certain low castes to be polluted because of the occupations they follow. They regard their priestly castes as sacred and practise avoidance towards unclean castes, but intercaste relations among Muslims are not subject to as many taboos as among Hindus. Even the rule of endogamy is not as strict as among the Hindus, and marriages outside caste often occur. Again, Muslims have only jati.r, and no vama, the latter being exclusively Hindu. Muslims outside India also have caste, as shown by Frederick Barth in his study of the Pathans of Swat (1960). Barth does not try to explain the origins of caste among the Pathans, but instead he concentrates upon an analysis of the existing caste hierarchy in Swat, and traces its relation to traditional occupations. The system is found to diverge markedly from the Hindu system. First, the political system

149

consists of the mutual opposition of landlords, aided by their respective adherents. There is no formal council to regulate the political life of the landlord caste, and each landlord is on his own, as it were. The greater the number of clients that a landlord can command, the greater is his strength. The balance of power in the community is maintained by the opposition of these landlords to each other, mainly in the form of the feud. The political unit, therefore, consists of a landlord, and his clients from other castes, who perform certain traditional services for him, and who also support him in his political struggles. There is no political organization of the caste as a whole, equivalent to the Indian panchayat. Membership of the Pathan caste is ascribed by birth, in the classical manner, but a Pathan loses that membership as soon as he loses his land. This is not the same as being outcasted, for a person is expelled from his caste for violation of caste rules or for flouting caste authority. In the case of the Pathans, however, ownership of land seems to be even more critical than birth into a hereditary group. An examination of the other castes shows that here again there are striking divergences from the classical Indian system. Members of an occupational caste are designated by the name of the occupation. It is possible for individuals to change their caste, simply by changing their occupation. The change in occupation is not accompanied by a change in name, but after two or three generations, the family drops the old caste name, and adopts the name of its present caste and occupation. The Swat system, therefore, appears to be an extremely modified version of the caste

system.
Caste is also present in Buddhist societies, on the fringes of the Indian subcontinent. But, as with the 1B,Iushms, it is a highly modified version of Hindu caste. Sinhalese caste is believed to have been borrowed directly from India. Ryan (19 5 3) says that the Sinhalese are descendants of Indians who migrated from North-East India before the sixth century B.C., while the Ceylon Tamils are descended from Tamilians who migrated very much later. Both these societies are organized as caste systems, but of two distinct types. The Tamils have a system closely akin to that obtaining on the mainland, with this difference that the Brahmins are not as strongly entrenched as in South India. The Sinhalese have a caste system which would appear to be a modified version of the pristine Indian system which was exported to Ceylon when it had &dquo;not yet been redefined and crystallized under Brahminical domination&dquo;. It is more loosely structured than Hindu caste, and has few of the strictures and taboos which regulate intercaste relations among Hindus. Both the caste systems came from India, and they were perpetuated by the continued contact with the country of origin. Sinhalese caste, like Muslims caste in Swat, lacks an organization such as the panchayat, which can effectively discipline its members, and which can organize the collective interests of the caste. Yalman (1960) shows that Sinhalese castes are maintained largely through the component kin-groups, and that village tensions tend to develop between kin-groups and their adherents, rather than between castes. The weakness of caste as a political unit may account for the relative ease with which Sinhalese castes lose their hierarchical connotations in the cities, and take the form of a plural society. The essence of a plural society is the fact that the different ethnic groups in it are bound together only by market relationships. Sinhalese caste is also at once distinguishable from Hindu caste by the lack of an ethical and theological superstructure, including the concept of varna, and by the insufficient development of ritual ideas and practices. Another Buddhist caste system deserving of attention is that of the Newars of Nepal. The Newars are divided into two groups, Buddhist and Hindu each being

I50

on caste principles. Both groups share a large body of ritual, but they call in different priests, and subscribe to different religions. Haimendorf ( i ~ 5 6) found that the Newar castes had caste organizations similar to the Indian caste panchayat, but Newar caste differed from Indian caste in so far as &dquo;the rigid endogamy of individual castes and sub-castes, considered so often as the main point of the Hindu caste system&dquo; was absent. It is interesting to note that the ability to trace caste origins to India has a hierarchical value. Among the Newars, certain Sheshyo clans were ranked as higher, and these claimed an Indian origin. In Ceylon, too, several Sinhalese castes preserve records pointing to an Indian origin, and these records are often chronicles of caste

organized

pride.
XI
.

Finally, we list below a number of topics which we consider deserve to be investigated in a systematic manner: i. The inter-relation between caste and class. This topic should be studied in Indian, Ceylonese and Pakistani towns and cities, and an attempt should be made to find out how far, and in what sectors, caste relations are giving way to class
2.

3.
4.

S.

6.

7.

8.

9.

relations. The relation of factors such as caste, class and rural-urban residence to the utilization of educational facilities. The study of bureaucracy at different levels with a view to understanding the role of caste, class and allied factors in it. The study of the part played by caste in trade unions, and in the political life of the country at different levels. The study of the urbanization of selected castes in different parts of the country. The relation between caste and economic development. Does caste hamper occupational mobility? Is there a tendency for the benefits of economic development to be siphoned off to the high castes, thus increasing the gulf between high and low castes ? The study of dominant castes in different parts of the country, particularly with reference to the new economic and political opportunities which planned economic development, universal suffrage, and decentralization of power, offer them. Studies of hypergamous castes such as the Anavil Brahmins and the Patidars of Gujarat, the Rajputs of Gujarat and Rajasthan, the Brahmins of Bengal and the Nayars of Kerala. Comparative study of the role of purity-pollution ideas in the caste systems of North and South India.

I5I