Preface

This book comprehensively deals with issues of caste and religion in the context of India, covering the UPSC syllabus for Sociology and Anthropology. It includes historical and ideological perspectives on the caste system presented by various thinkers and activists. It traces the philosophical connections across the major religions of India and describes their impact on the world.

Venkata Mohan

January, 2021

Caste

Class and Caste

1. Stratification

What is meant by social stratification? Most people equate stratification with inequalities, but that is wrong. Stratification leads to more inequalities, but just any kind of inequalities cannot be regarded as stratification.

What are inequalities? Would there be inequalities in a typical group of students or friends? What kind of inequalities there might be? Is everybody treated equally by everybody else in a group? Who may be given preferential treatment by some and what kind of preferential treatment would it be? Why are those inequalities there?

And when it comes to ourselves, do we try to be unequal with some people or do we try to be equal with everyone? One tries to be equal with someone above oneself, no one tries to be equal with somebody below oneself. Could you be different from this norm or have you come across anyone who is an exception to it?

If some of you were asked to write an essay on equality, you may write a lot about why equality is so important but you would want to write it better than the others. Or by any chance, would you think, ‘Let my essay be just as good as my friend’s essay, and since my friend doesn’t know how to write well, I will try to ensure that my essay is also of poor quality’?

Every person aspires to be equal with somebody above him. No matter what his or her class, gender, caste, religion, and ethnicity are. Do women who talk about equality with men treat the women below them equally? Maybe not. When we say we believe in equality, it is likely that we are actually saying we believe in our own equality with somebody above us.

Pursuit of equality with someone above us is a part of our genetic makeup. The idea that people seek equality with everyone is simply not true. A lower caste pursues equality with a higher caste. Religious minorities pursue equality with religious majorities. Poor people want to be equal to rich people. We only speak as if we are committed to equality, but in reality we are wholeheartedly committed to inequalities. Hasn’t Karl Marx himself tried to get more name and influence for himself? Hasn’t he tried to articulate more powerfully and make more impact on the world than anybody else?

Now let us discuss stratification. Stratified society refers to a society with layers of inequality. Layers are strata, and these layers can be classes. A simple way of looking at a class is going by the criterion of income: upper class, middle class, and lower class.

What anthropologists have found is that there is no society without some kind of inequalities. Take the example of band societies, a skillful hunter may get more respect, a good decision-maker can be the leader of a band. Even in these band societies, all people are not treated equally. Inequalities seem to be inherent in any group of human beings.

But in band societies there are no classes. In a class society, groups of families come under one class.In a band society, families don’t belong to any class. One person may get more respect because of his skill and ability, but he cannot pass that respect on to his child. On the other hand, in a class society, some families that have more resources can pass them on to their children. In that way, what is stratification? It is inheritance of inqualities.

In a band society, inequalities cannot be inherited. There is no power accumulation, there is no wealth accumulation. Anthropologists tell us that classes emerge in a society after the phase of intensive agriculture. When did classes first emerge in an Indian society? In the Indus Valley civilisation, there were different kinds of houses for the rich people and the poor people as the archeological evidence suggests. When a civilisation arises, classes, towns, and cities emerge, along with the state and the government.

Stratification first developed with the emergence of agriculture. Because agriculture means a land can be owned by a family and that ownership can be passed on. But how did some people get more land than others? There was no land ownership to begin with, how did privatisation of land take place?

Land had to be privatised because there was a need for better maintenance of land under the irrigation system. In band societies, there was no importance given to land. When land becomes important it gets privatised. When it gets privatised, some people who make their land yield more become richer. Some have less land and some have more, some get less produce and some get more. There will be some people who can hire others to work on their land. Classes gradually emerge. The state emerges around the same time, and it can deal with any conflicts over resources.

All these developments leading to civilisation are based on what is called surplus in production. One can hire a labourer and pay him considereably less than what he is contributing to the production. The surplus is the difference between his contribution and his wage. Intensive agriculture generates surplus because of higher productivity. Foraging on other other hand does not generate any surplus.

Higher productivity of land also meant that not everybody had to work on the land for food. Those who worked on the land produced enough food for everybody so that others could be engaged in different occupations. Many people started working outside the domain of agriculture. That is how towns and cities emerged and civilisation was born.

Do you think it could have been completely different story? Rousseau thought that all social and economic problems arose because of private property. He said that the first person who fenced a piece of land saying that the land was his should have been thrashed. If the matter was set right at the very beginning, all these other problems would not have developed later on. Rousseau’s thoughts influenced Karl Marx. The original sin according to Rousseau was private ownership of land. Would you think so? Or would you think that what happened was inevitable? Would you think there should have been a world of equality from the beginning? Or would you think that it is just not possible, inequalities and selfishness being a part of human nature?

Rousseau thought allowing inequality was the biggest blunder. Marx thought that all social and economic inequality should be undone. Those who believed in Marx went about establishing a communist state. Those who did not bother about the Marxist doctrine continued to pursue capitalism and private property.

In Marx’s view of history, economies evolved in this way: at first there was a primitive communism of hunter gatherers, no classes there; in the second stage, there were the ancient societies with masters and slaves; the third stage was feudalism and the fourth was capitalism. And in the next stage, Marx said, communism would come again. It would not have classes and all people would be affluent.

Such communism never happened. But classes emerge in any society because rise in productivity contributes to surplus. This surplus leads to classes, and these classes will have differential access to three variables – economic resources, power and prestige. A higher class will have more economic resources, more power and more prestige.

Economic resources are the things that have value in a culture, including land, tools and other technology, goods and money. Power refers to the ability to make others do what they do not want to do or influence based on the threat of force. Prestige refers to being accorded particular respect or honour. Respect or honour is given voluntarily according to a particular criterion. Power on the other hand is based on force.

Social stratification refers to any society containing social groups such as families, classes or ethnic groups that have unequal access to important advantages such as economic resources, power and prestige. Egalitarian societies are those in which all people of a given age-sex category have equal access to economic resources, power and prestige. Class societies are those that contain social groups that have unequal access to economic resources, power and prestige.

Anthropologists tell us about another kind of society called rank society. Rank societies are those that do not have any unequal access to economic resources or power, but with social groups that have unequal access to status positions and prestige. In certain horticultural societies, some families including that of the chief will not have more power or more wealth but will have more prestige. And in some cases, the chiefs accumulate wealth only to give away in order to gain more prestige. Some societies may pass through the stage of rank societies before they become class societies.

2. Mobility

What is the main difference between class and caste? One can change one’s class. Class belongs to an open system of stratification. If a person who is born in a lower class makes it to a higher class, it is called mobility.

A good example of a pathway to upward class mobility in India is the IAS exam. Maybe some of you who are already privileged may only be trying to maintain your class, as when your parents happen to be IAS officers. But to most people, the administrative services exam is a means to upward class mobility.

One can be born in one class but can move up to another class. But can everybody do that? Maintaining one’s class or moving up – which is easier? It’s maintaining. Do all people have equal opportunity to move upwards? No. Between the lower classes and the middle classes, who has more opportunity to move to a higher class? It’s the middle classes.

Between middle classes and lower classes, who will be in a better position to effectively use this exam that can facilitate class mobility? Again, it’s the middle classes. For someone to make it from a lower class is a lot more difficult compared to someone making it from the middle class. Because the middle classes have relatively more resources and opportunities.

If a poor student fails in something like an engineering entrance exam, then he fails forever. He would not be in a position to take coaching again and attempt again. But if the same thing happens to a student from a rich family, he could go for long-term coaching. One more failure would mean one more long-term batch. And if he fails even after that, he could pay heavy donation and join some college directly. And then, even if he doesn’t do well there, he can be placed in a US university. After that, he can be given a lot of support in getting a job. Privilege at every step. But for the poor students who lack those privileges, there may be only one opportunity to move up, and there may never be any other throughout life.

A class is nothing but a group of families. Being born in a higher class means having higher opportunities all through life. Being born in a lower class means constantly facing disadvantages. A class is based on inheritance of inequality. The inequalities are being passed on from one generation to the next.

While classes form an open system of stratification, just anybody cannot move up the ladder. There are all kinds of barriers to achieving upward class mobility. It can be easier for some and it can be very difficult for others. Sometimes the inequalities between the classes may be high but the mobility may be easier, there can be a higher degree of mobility. Sometimes the inequalities may be less but the mobility may be nearly absent. In a village there is less scope for mobility compared to a town. And between two villages, the village that is closer to a town or a city, may have a higher degree of mobility. What has been happening to mobility in the recent decades? It has been increasing. As opportunities increase, mobility increases. Industrialisation and urbanisation increase mobility.

The class system is an open system of stratification, while the caste system is a closed one. Can you do anything to change your caste? You can do nothing. Will intercaste marriage change your caste? No, but it can only confuse the caste of your children. That is how caste is different from class. While belonging to the same caste, you can always try for a higher class.

Let us look at the interaction between two classes in a framework of hierarchy. Hierarchy means rule by the high. You can consider it as domination. What is the connection between mobility and hierarchy? If there are more opportunities for mobility, will hierarchy come down? Yes, because when there is more mobility then it is likely that a person whom you can dominate now may become equal to you or even rise above you in the future. Domination is more when the priviliged are assured that the subordinated will forever be in a lower position. So the caste system tends to generate more hierarchy compared to the class system.

3. Emergence of caste

We have seen how classes emerge from the conditions of surplus. But how do castes emerge? In a particular society, let’s say there were three classes. Then that society came to have three castes. The first one was a class society, the second one was a caste society. How did a class society become a caste society? When do you say that this is not a class society but a caste society? When people from lower classes can move up and join higher classes, then it is a class society. When such a joining is prevented then one can say that castes are formed.

Imagine a group of priests who pass on their profession to their children who in turn pass it on to their children, this lineage becomes a caste. Why does that tend to happen? As priestly work is prestigious, people from other occupations might want to take it up and the priest families wouldn’t want that. Many people are prevented from taking up a more rewarding job, and that prevention is the caste system. A caste system is said to have formed when entry to higher occupations is blocked. And even marriage might not pave the way. Occupational restrictions and endogamy make up a caste system.

Some people think that division of labour is the source of the caste system. If it were so, then why was work divided like this? Is it conceivable that some people voluntarily chose scavenging work, leaving priestly or agricultural work to others? And over generations of doing the same work, they became outcasts. This division of work is unfair, one can‘t conceive that it happened either voluntarily or just randomly. It happened because some people wanted it to happen that way and forced it on others. This allocation of work was based on the differences in power among groups of people.

In a class system there could be scavengers just as in the caste system, but a scavenger‘s son could move up if he is enterprising and the circumstances are favorable. A farmer will give his daughter to the scavenger’s son if the young man is promising. On the other hand, if scavengers constitute a caste, no farmer will give his daughter to a scavenger’s son.

Inequalities are universal, some or other kind of stratification is universal, but caste-based stratification happens under certain peculiar circumstances. Caste-based stratification is nothing but a higher group closing its membership to someone from a lower group, no matter how good he is. There could be some reasons for not allowing enterprising people born in lower castes to move up. So for one reason or other, whether they are valid or not, an individual is marked and stamped forever in a caste society. That stamping of membership is the caste system.

Suppose you belong to madigas, an untouchable caste, and become a collector, you can only become a madiga collector. Can the caste change? No. From a madiga scavenger to a madiga collector – this is nothing but the stamping of an individual. How could such birth-based stamping have taken place?

You should first reject the idea that caste is the freezing of division of labour. It is not. While there is division of labour in the caste system, it is mainly about blocking of opportunities. Ambedkar says the caste system is not division of labour as Gandhi made it out to be, but the division of labourers. So the people are divided and their work roles are assigned to them; based on what factors could some people dictate the terms of work to others and for what reasons would these others abide by them is a different issue.

On the question of the origins of the caste system, Max Weber made an insightful proposal. Suppose there are two distinct ethnic groups and under certain circumstances one group becomes superior to the other. And then suppose no one from the superior group gives his daughter to any man from the inferior group, however enterprising that man is, then these two groups become two castes. But there should be two distinct groups to begin with, for the caste system to emerge.

Whites and Blacks in America could be taken as an example of a caste system with two castes. The White people have greater access to power, prestige and wealth. Usually, no White person would want to give his daughter to a Black person. No Black person could become an equal member of a group of White persons, for a long time. How did this American caste system develop? People in America brought people from Africa as slaves. Later on, as a part of the democratisation process, slavery was abolished. The inequalities persisted however.

What is a caste? It is an endogamously closed group. When two distinct groups come into a superior-subordinate relationship, they would then form a caste system. If these groups are not distinct to begin with, then the superior group will not block the entry of the enterprising man from the the inferior group.

Suppose there are two distinct groups that remain unconnected with each other or remain as equals, then a caste system would not develop. A caste system requires superior-subordinate relationship among multiple groups – which is possible only under certain economic conditions. Two groups of foragers, though distinct, cannot form a caste system, as one group cannot achieve any kind of superiority over the other.

Terms