Anthropology Optional (Caste System as Social Stratification) by Sourabh Mishra

Model Answer

Question #1.Bring out the various features and the importance of the "Dominant Caste" concept.

Approach:

• Introduce the concept of dominant caste
• Defining characteristics of dominant caste
• Factors responsible and significance of dominant caste
• Criticism
• Conclusion

Hints:

The concept of dominant caste was proposed by M N Srinivas in his work ‘Dominant Caste in Rampura, 1959’ and explanation of the concept was extended in the essay ‘Social System of Mysore Village, 1959’. Rampura is composed of 19 caste groups. The Vokkaligas are dominant over all other castes economically, politically, and numerically. However, in religious life rituals they have only a middle rank and Brahmins and Lingayats surpass them in the matter of ritual purity.

According to Louis Dumont, ritual significance has no role to play in deciding what a dominant caste is. M.N Srinivas found that tribes such as Raj Gonds and low caste due to the benefit of welfare state policies have assumed dominance.

He defined dominant caste as the one which possesses all or few of the following characteristics:

• Ownership over a sizeable amount of cultivable land
• Place in the local caste hierarchy (a reasonably high place)
• Numerical strength
• Political clout
• Access to western education
• Jobs in administration

Significance of Dominant Caste (DC)

• DC often acts as reference models for the low caste groups. The low caste imitate their behaviour, ritual pattern, customs etc. to attain a DC status
  • Brahmin model – Lingayats.
  • Kshatriya model – Gulzars, Patidar, Jats. 
  • Vaisya model – Telis of Orissa
  • Sudra model – Laundrymen in Western UP. 
• DC of a particular region act as watchdogs of pluralistic culture. The high caste panchayats have a wider scope than lower caste panchayats of setting disputes across the castes and pick up the unresolved disputes in other caste councils voluntarily.
• The DC are the main power holders who establish contact with outside government officials, elected representatives and political leaders.
• DC have an opportunity of accelerating the socio-economic development of the region. 
• Every state has more than one dominant caste. These castes are always engaged in rivalries and conflicts for securing political power and economic opportunities. For example, between Vokkaligas and Lingayats in Karnataka, Reddys and Kammas in Andhra Pradesh and so on.
• Dominant caste often exhibits greater concern for its social superiority even though it is not so in the caste hierarchy. Ex: Punjab: Jats treat Brahmins as servants.
• Madhopur: Thakurs do not accept food from Brahmins except from their preceptors and priests. Rampura: Brahmin priests allow the Okkaligas to have Harathi before others have it.
• At village level, the non-Brahmin dominant castes are found to be greater exploiters of Harijan labour than the Brahmins. Sometimes the untouchables decide to give up performing services such as removing the dead animals from the houses of the higher castes. The upper caste people become annoyed and beat up the untouchables and set fi re to their huts. The attempt to dominate and resistance to dominance, thus, leads to caste conflicts.
• The lower and the unprivileged castes including the so-called untouchables have now realised that they are getting exploited at the hands of these dominant castes. This awareness has made them organise themselves politically. The “Bahujana Samajvadi Party” headed mostly by lower caste leaders, is becoming popular in states such as U.P. Bihar, Punjab, and Madhya Pradesh.
• In the recent past, factors like community development programmes, land reforms, elections and modernizations have had an impact on the power of DC. For M N Srinivas, the high position of DC is still a reality though in terms of volume and quality of power, there is a definite fall giving way to economic and class elements having a say.

Factors responsible for emergence of dominant caste:

• Factors such as Land Reforms, Sanskritization, Panchayati Raj institutions, Westernization helped in emergence of dominant caste.
• Due to immense expansion in transport and communication, village level dominance is no longer enough to make a caste a dominant caste. Instead Regional Dominance seems to be a better criteria of dominance.
• The following caste should have substantial numerical strength.
• There should be some political power.
• Jobs in administration.

Important field Studies:

• K L Sharma studied Brahmins in the villages near Kanpur and found that economically better castes have a chance of becoming dominant. For him, numerical strength and high ritual status can be occasionally overpowered by economic status.
• Wiser’s study in Karimpur, 1963: He found that Brahmins of Karimpur are considered dominant due to the larger land holdings.
• Study of Oscar Lewis, 1955: Jats of western India controlling other castes including Brahmin as they control means of economic production.
• Dominant caste and social mobilization: (M.N. Sriniwas)
• Dwija caste- westernization
• Touchable lower caste- Sanskritization
• Untouchables- Politicization

Criticism:

• S.C. Dube and Gardner raised serious objections to the very concept of dominant caste.
• According to them, it will be meaningful to speak of a dominant caste only when power is diffused in the group. Intra-caste unity and articulation of power is also necessary.
• However, it is observed that dominant individuals exploit the weaker elements in their own caste as well as the non-dominant caste.
• Thus, the fact that a number of ‘Dominant individuals’ occupying power positions belong to a particular caste, by itself, not enough to characterize the caste as dominant.

Conclusion:

However, dominant caste seem to play a very important role in the implementation of welfare schemes and schemes of economic development through democratic institutions because of their ability to control and manipulate these institutions. The political process and economic development at micro and meso levels definitely carry the stamp of the respective dominant castes.

Moreover, the concept of dominant caste is not something static and constant but dynamic and contextual.

Question #2.What do you understand about the dynamics of Caste mobility? How does the concept of Sanskritization contribute to its functionality?

Approach:

• Introduce the concept of caste mobility
• Views of various scholars
• Current scenario
• Types of caste mobility
• Modes of upward and downward mobility
• Conclusion

Hints:

By social mobility we understand the process by which individuals or groups move from one social status to another in the social hierarchy. Social mobility can be either upward or downward.

F.G.Bailey: Closed, hierarchical and stratified

KS Singh- In the rigid framework, some routes are still open.

Current scenario:

Indian social reality has been analysed by social scientists in terms of so cial categories like caste, class, tribe and religious and linguistic groups. The same categories have been used for getting an insight into the process of change in the society. While earlier it was maintained that caste system keeps Indian society as a closed system, now it is said that the triangle of endogamy, hierarchy and pollution is breaking down.

In recent times, social mobility as a process has become more active. M.N. Srinivas has explained it through the processes of sanskritisation and westernisation.

McKim Marriott, Louis Dumont and Rajni Kothari have also found social mobility prevalent at different levels:

• On the one hand, the members of lower castes attempt to raise their social status in the caste hierarchy,
• On the other hand, caste as group attempts mobility by gaining political power or through the process of politicization of castes.

Srinivas:

• Horizontal Mobility- mobility of minority families with in caste due to acquisition of land and education.
• Corporate group mobility: Sanskritisation
• Mobility of an Individual within family

Types of Caste Mobility:

• Upward
• Downward
• Caste mobility in occupational perspective
• Caste mobility through Democratic process

Modes of upward caste mobility:

• Through warfare- Srinivas, Kaulinda, Pannikar
• Through serving rulers- Kayasthas
• Through census commissioners at different levels- Kurmi and teli
• Through social processes of sanskritisation and westernization- Lingayats, Nuniya
• By use of politics- Nadars, Reddys, Marathas

Mobility through Warfare:

M.N. Srinivas and Pauline Kolenda have referred to caste mobility through resort to warfare in Mughal period. Kolenda has said that until the British unification in the first half of the nineteenth century, the most effective way to rise in the caste system was by the acquisition of territory either through conquest or by peaceful occupancy of sparsely populated or empty land.

K.M. Panikkar has said that “since the fifth century B.C., every known royal family has come from a non-Kshatriya caste”.

Mobility through Serving Rulers:

Jatis whose members served either Hindu or non-Hindu rulers attained higher varna rank. For example, the Patidars of Gujarat, a peasant group of Sudra varna, supported the Maratha descendants of Shivaji, the Gaekwads, who ruled Central Gujarat. Gradually, claiming to be Kshatriyas, they established their own small regimes (Shah, 1964).

By population census:

While recording jati’s identity in census enumeration from 1891 to 1931 many middle and lower castes made efforts to get them registered as members of twice born vaishyas. Evidence was offered from myth 7 history for every claim. Some of them were sustained but most of them were rejected for e.g. Kurmi cultivators of Bihar wanted to be Kurmi Kshatriya. Teli caste wanted to be Vaishya.

Caste Mobility through Social Processes of Sanskritisation and Westernisation:

Caste system had become so rigid in Brahmancial, Muslim, and the British periods that through several restrictions like hereditary membership, endogamy, denial of occupational mobility, and commensal and social restrictions, etc. members enjoyed a fixed status for all times. However, from the third decade of the twentieth century onwards, caste system could not remain rigid because of the processes of industrialisation, urbanisation, spread of education, enactment of some legislative measures, and social movements of several social reformers.

M.N. Srinivas explained status mobility in caste in 1952 through the process of sanskritisation and westernisation. He maintained that a low caste was able to rise in a generation or two to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism. It took over rituals, customs, rites and beliefs of the Brahmins and gave up some of their own considered to be impure.

Caste Mobility through Politicization:

Several castes have used politics in their attempt to better their condition or to achieve their goals. Use of politics, according to Eleanor Zelliot, covers securing governmental benefits and representation on legislative and political bodies.

Some examples which may be given in this connection are: Mahars of Maharashtra, Kshatriyas of Gujarat, Nadars of Tamil Nadu, and Reddys and Kammas of Andhra Pradesh.

Downward mobilization:

A. Desanskritization: many castes from higher position change their position to lower caste one within the caste system for e.g. jat belongs to Kshatriya varna however in order to reap the benefit of reservation policy, they have gone down to the status of OBC.

Recent Maratha agitation in Maharashtra and patel agitation in Gujarat.

B. Tribalisation/depeasantisation: it means when a caste through the process of depeasantization or desanskritization transforms themselves into a tribe for e.g. many castes in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh have become tribes by staying with tribal people and following their life style. Recently, Gujjar community which belongs to OBC category has been trying to acquire tribal status.

Conclusion:

Thus Indian Hindu society is not a closed or static society. Mobility is there since time immemorial. But in ancient and medieval period it was in upward direction but presently it is mainly in the downward direction.