Study of Indian Society

SOC 431
Unit 1

● Pluralistic Composition of Indian Society

● Colonialism and emergence of Anthropology
and Sociology- Stages
● Sociology of/in/for India
● Role of Missionaries
Introduction

● Understanding Sociology and Anthropology

● The popularity of Sociology in the West due to rapid developments, urbanization,
immigration, ethnicity, crime etc.
● Nationalism was itself a product of the interaction between alien rule and indigenous
society, great improvement in communications, introduction of printing, modern law
courts and educational institutions, all of which followed the establishment of British
rule
● Nationalism: Self-awareness at other levels such as religion, sect, caste, tribe, region
and language.
Sociology and Anthropology

Andre Beteille remarked

“a generation ago, this way of making a distinction between sociology and

anthropology can lead to confusion. For if applied consistently, what
anthropology is to an American will be sociology to an Indian, and what
sociology is to an American will be anthropology to an Indian. The distinction
will work only so long as all societies, Western and non-Western, are studied only
by Western scholars. It becomes meaningless when scholars from all over the
world begin to study their own as well as other societies”.
Sociology and Anthropology

● The history of sociology is linked to the post-Enlightenment project of

modernity, to the evolution of modern social and political theory, and to the
development of a ‘scientific’ approach to the study of man and society
● While the history of anthropology, in so far as it differs from the former
(and of course there will be considerable overlap), expressly connects the
evolution of the discipline with the technologies of domination of the West
over the non-West.
IN INDIA

● Indian Sociologists attempted to integrate Sociology and Anthropology

● Synthesize the text and the Context

The Revolt of 1857: The Britishers did not have much idea about the folkways and customs of
such large masses of people. With this revolt started the interest of the Britishers to study Indian
society for their own administrative purposes and their curiosity know the Indian culture and
Society.
Three Phases
● The period between 1773-1900 A.D.: when their foundations were
laid; (Indology) (Sociology of India)
● the second, 1901-1950 A.D., when they became professionalised;
(Anthropology) (Sociology in India)
● and finally, the post Independence years, when a complex of forces
including the undertaking of planned development by the government
(Structural Functionalism) (sociology For India)
 Phases
S.C. Dube, periodised the history of Indian anthropology into three phases—

● 1774-1919,‘formative’
● 1920-47,‘constructive’
● Post-1948,‘analytical’

Ramkrishna Mukherjee (1979) identifies,‘pioneers’ (1920s-1940s), ‘modernisers’

(1950s), ‘insiders’ (1960s), and ‘pace-makers’ and ‘non-conformists’ (1970s)

● It is not an attempt to plot a narrative of linear evolution

First Phase
● British, officials discovered that knowledge of Indian culture and social life was indispensable to
the smooth functioning of government.
● In 1769, Henry Verelst, the Governor of Bengal and Bihar realised the need, and also stressed the
importance, of collecting information regarding the leading families and their customs in his
directives to revenue supervisors.
● Francis Buchanan undertook an ethnographic survey of Bengal in 1807 at the instance of the
Governor-General-in Council.
● Abbe Dubois, a French missionary in Mysore, wrote in 1816, a book entitled Hindu Manners,
Customs and Ceremonies, which is even now valuable.
● Walter Hamilton's gazetteer, A Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of of
Hindostán and Adjacent Countries, published in 1820
● In 1871 the first all-India census was undertaken by the British government.
● In 1901, attempts were made by Sir Herbert Risley to establish an ethnographic survey of India
Census
● In 1901, attempts were made by Sir Herbert Risley to establish an ethnographic
survey of India which would develop as part of the census. Among the arguments
put forward for justifying the considerable expenditure in carrying out the
survey were the following :

(1) the contribution of such a survey to the solution of European problems with the aid
of superior data available in India;

(2) the need to collect data before they disappeared through cultural and social change;
and

(3) the indispensability of data for purposes of legislation,famine relief, sanitation,

control of epidemic diseases, judicial procedure and the like (Cohn 1968 : 17).
Census
● Census has become an invaluable source of information not only for demographic
studies but for social and cultural analysis.
● The census also became an instrument of official policy.
● Risley, Commissioner of the 1901 census for instance,noted as well as deplored the
tendency of tribes to become jatis which meant their absorption into Hinduism. In
observations such as this can be seen the germs of the policy of erecting barriers
between Hindus and other groups and sections.
● The recording of Scheduled Castes as distinct from the Hindus was also in line with this
policy.
● The recording of caste divisions among the Hindus at each census sharpened the
self-awareness of each caste and gave rise to competition amongst them to claim
higher positions in the caste hierarchy than bad been traditionally and locally
conceded.
Census

● The 1941 census omitted caste for reasons of economy.

● It was only in 1951 that the recording of data on a caste basis, excepting for
Scheduled Castes and Tribes, was omitted as a matter of policy.
First Phase
● In the early days of British rule in India, Sanskrit pandits and Arabic scholars
were employed to assist British judges to decide cases involving religious
practices, customs and laws.
● 1776, a treatise on Hindu law in English was prepared, with the assistance of
Pandits, for the use of British judges
● British Orientalist, Sir William Jones, in founding the study of Sanskrit and
Indology established the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1787
● Max Muller was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of
Indian studies.
 Second Phase
● Indological trend : literary sources, particularly, the scriptures, epics and law books
● Direct empirical investigation
● W.H.R. Rivers' study of The Todas (1906), based on intensive fieldwork, was the first
monograph in the modern social anthropological tradition, to be published.
● G. S. Ghurye and K. P. Chattopadhyaya, came to play an important role in the
development of sociology and social anthropology in India. (Rivers’ students)
● During the first two decades of the twentieth century, two Indian scholars, L. K.
Ananthakrishna Iyer and S. C. Roy, made their mark in anthropology.
● Ananthakrishna Iyer produced accounts of castes and tribes of Cochin and Mysore and
also a useful study of the Syrian Christians of Kerala.
● Roy wrote monographic accounts of several tribes in Bihar.Also wrote “Caste, Race and
Religion in India” (1934)
 Second Phase
● The Ethnographic Survey was finally conceded by the British government in 1905
● In Bengal, S. C. Mukherjee organised the Dawn Society which brought out a journal devoted to
the study of folkways and cultural institutions.
● In Bengal, the National Council of Education established in 1906 the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad
(Bengali Literary Association) which played an important role in propagating ethnographic
studies.
● It was during 1900-1920 that the first steps were taken to introduce sociology and social
anthropology as academic disciplines in Indian universities.
● Brajendranath Seal, Professor of Philosophy at Calcutta, wrote, lectured, and initiated studies
on what he called "comparative sociology."
● He wrote a comparative study of Vaishnavism and Christianity,
● He left a strong impression on his students including Radhakamal Mukherjee
● He became Vice chancellor of Mysore University in 1917
● Seal also had a hand in the introduction of sociology, in 1917,in Calcutta University in the
Post-Graduate Councils of Arts and Sciences
Second Phase
● In 1914, the Government of India gave a grant to the University of Bombay for
starting the teaching of sociology, and a course of lectures in sociology and
economics was offered to postgraduate students the same year
● 1919 a department of sociology and civics was founded under the leadership
of Patric Geddes, the distinguished biologist and town-planner.
● Geddes exercised some influence on the development of sociology in India
through his students, G. S. Ghurye and N. A. Thoothi.
● Ghurye refused to make a distinction between social anthropology and
sociology.
● In 1921, a department of anthropology was established at Calcutta
● B. S. Guha, who had obtained a Ph.D. in the physical anthropology at Harvard,
joined the department in 1926.
● In 1945 he headed the newly-formed Anthropological Survey of India.
Second Phase
● Ghurye insisted on field-work, though he himself was an armchair scholar
● He founded the Indian Sociological Society in 1952 and was the first editor of
its journal, Sociological Bulletin.
● A combined department of economics and sociology was started in 1921 by the
university with Radhakamal Mukherjee as professor and head in Lucknow
University
● He was joined a year later by D. P. Mukerji and in 1928
● D N Majumdar was instrumental in establishing the Ethnographic and Folk
culture Society in U.P. in 1945.
● Its quarterly journal, The Eastern Anthropologist was first published in 1947
Second Phase
● Sociology was also one of the disciplines included in the Deccan College and
Post-Graduate Research Institute at Poona.
● A combined department of sociology and anthropology was started there in the late
1930s with Iravati Karve as the head.
● Mrs. Karve had been a student of Ghurye at Bombay and then went to Germany to study
anthropology
● Another university in which the study of sociology was introduced during this period was
Osmania university.
● The subject was first introduced at the B.A. level as one of the options in 1928 (1946 that
a full-fledged department of sociology)
● Christoph Von Furer Haimendorf and S. C. Dube were associated with the department
and their work put Osmania on the map of Indian and international anthropology and
sociology.
Second Phase
● Missionaries who originally came to India as a missionary but subsequently gave up
evangelical activity to become a tribal ethnographer and social worker deserves
mention.
● Verrier Elwin is the author of valuable monographs on the Baiga, Muna and Agaria of
Madhya Pradesh and the Saura of Orissa.
● Among learned societies, the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal(now Asiatic Society of
Bengal) was the foremost in promoting anthropology and sociology.
● The Mythic Society, Bangalore, and Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Patna, also
deserve mention.
● S. C.Roy's ‘Man in India’ and D. N. Majumdar's ‘Eastern Anthropologist’- noteworthy
journals
● The Indian Journal of Sociology was started in Baroda in 1920 by Albert Widgery, a
professor in Baroda College.
● The Indian Sociological Review was started in 1934 in Lucknow University with
Radhakamal Mukherjee as editor.
Second Phase
● Formation of National Planning Committee in the late 1930s by Jawaharlal
Nehru(Indian National Congress)-potentialities of economics in Indian
growth.
● During the years 1910-1950, the study of the two disciplines became
professionalised
● K M Kapadia, Irawati Karve, S V Karandikar, M N Srinivas, A R Desai, M S
Gore and Y B Damle are some scholars who shaped sociological studies in
India.
● Sociology was taught with economics in Bombay and Lucknow
● In Calcutta it was taught with anthropology
● In Mysore it was with Social Philosophy
● Sociology was considered a mixed bag without a prior identity of its own.
Post Independence period (50s and 60s)
● The late '50s and '60s, there was a sharp increase in the popularity of the two disciplines
● Vertical and Horizontal Mobility
● Doctoral Research , Growing needs of the planners and administrators with newer
research projects, Growing importance of Social Science research institutes
● Sociology established as a distinct discipline,
● Different Studies on diverse field of Kinship, stratification, economy, development
● Growing need of empirical research.
● Teaching posts in sociology and anthropology in universities and colleges
● Demand for education at all levels meant an expanding job market.
● The census organization, the Central Social Welfare Board, the office of the
Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and the Tribal Research Institutes, also
needed the research skills of sociologists anthropologists and social workers.
Post Independence
● Planning Commission’s recommendation in 1966 to the government to
create Indian Council of Social Science Research
● ICSSR came into existence in 1969- D R Gadgil as its first chairman
● Douglas Ensminger, Director of the Ford Foundation in India from
1951-70-making sociology popular.
● The Indian Sociological Society established in 1951
● Bi-annual journal, the Sociological Bulletin 1952- G S Ghurye
● The All India Sociological Conference was first organised in 1956 at
Dehradun by R N Saxena (from Lucknow)
● In 1967, the Indian Sociological Society and The Conference came
together (merged together)
Post Independence Period

● The 'new line' was what has been called the "structural-functional method", and
its potentialities were shown in the analysis of first hand field-material about
single villages and castes.
● It was during the 1950s that certain significant micro-studies in the area of social
change made their appearance. Katheleen Gough's (1955) analysis of a Tanjore
village gave an idea of the considerable changes which British rule had set in
motion though her facts were cast into a rather simplistic and deterministic
framework.
● Dube (1958) studied the interrelation between planned development
programmes and social and cultural factors in a few villages in western Uttar
Pradesh.
Post Independence period

● Fieldwork in different parts revealed different Uniformities like the idea of Purity
and Pollution, Dominant Caste, Patron Client Relationships, Bonded labour, caste
mobility etc
● But when the hierarchy of the jatis were same the relations between each
differed from region to region.
● Social anthropology now felt the need to use quantitative mechanisms to deal
with a large set of information across regions
● The Education (Kothari) Commission 1964-66 did a survey in the field of
sociology of education under I.P Desai and M.S Gore which led to the
publication - Sociology of Education In India.
● Contribution to Indian Sociology, 1957- Louis Dumont started with David
Pocock
● Indian anthropologists meeting in Shimla in July 1968, to discuss new
anthropological dimensions bade goodbye to the “Zoo Approach”
Post Independence Period

● At a higher level, the sociologist's analysis of the relation between caste

and politics, and of the Backward Classes' Movement were taking place
● The Education (Kothari) Commission 1964-66, sponsored a country
wide survey in the field of sociology of education under the leadership of
I. P. Desai and M. S. Gore which culminated in the publication of a book
on the sociology of education in India (1967)
● Studies on agrarian relations,land reforms,peasants,agricultural
labourers, Schedule tribes, castes etc
● Seventies:Sociology of profession, organization, medical sociology, social
demography, studies on women, Hindu Muslim relationships etc
Post Independence

● Eighties:Sociology of Deviance, Sociology of Knowledge, Sociology of Science and

Technology, Historical Sociology- emphasis on transformation, modernity and
tradition
● Nineties:Liberalisation,Privatization and Globalization- changes in media,
globalization studies, ecology and society, issues in human rights, sociology of
management, human resource development, media and society, action sociology
etc.
● Present: Sociology of Leisure, Social Data science, Queer and sexuality studies,
Contemporary social issues- going beyond the structural perspectives of looking
towards a post modern perspective.
Louis Dumont, French Anthropologist (CIA I)
● Fieldwork on the Pramalai Kallars of South India in 1949 and the Indological
literature
● Caste is not social stratification, but a system of hierarchy based on inequality
● Essential questions of the individual, society, equality, and hierarchy within the
study of caste
● ‘Traditional’ societies emphasize society as a whole, collective Man
● Individuals fit within order and hierarchy
● Hierarchy emerges from a consensus of values and ideas and is essential to social life
● “hierarchy encompasses social agents and social categories.” (Dumont, 20)
● Dumont defines caste as a pan-Indian institution, a “system of ideas and values, a
formal, comprehensible rational system.” (Dumont, 35)
 Dumont
● Caste groups are distinguished from and connected to one another through

(1) separation of matters of marriage and contact

(2) division of labor, traditions, and professions

(3) hierarchy ranking groups as relatively superior or inferior to one another

● Dumont connects Indian hierarchy to religious values, the four varnas, and the relationship to the
whole.
● Hierarchy is the “principle by which the elements of a whole are ranked in relation to the whole.”
(Dumont 91)
● Example of the jajmani system
Dumont
● The jajmani system not as economics, but as a hereditary system of labor and
relationships
● Dumont explains that the system is “founded on an implicit reference to the
whole, which, in its nature, is religious, or if one prefers, a matter of ultimate
values.” (Dumont 106)
● Caste is a set of relationships of economic, political and kinship systems,
sustained by certain values which is mostly religious in nature
● Ritual Hierarchy- Pure and Impure- Religious ranking
● Religious sanctity to the caste system (Body of Brahma)
● Caste unified from outside, divided within
● Caste is a state of mind
● Rational System
● Purity and Pollution- Ideology - Idea of Untouchability
M N Srinivas
● Varna, Caste and Jati
● Attributes of Caste as a segmental system (hereditary, ascribed,endogamy)
● Each caste has different customs of its own (life style restricted to caste group)
● Occupational Group
● Caste - hierarchy
● Interlinkages between social system and political system- Dominant Caste
● Caste not as a closed group
● Mobility possible- Sanskritization (changes )
● Middle castes- relative position-ambiguity (in relation to purity and pollution)
● Varna (Colour)- Varna model (category) does not talk about the fifth category
(reference point)
● Caste has the fifth category (Untouchability)
● Jati- sub categories-functional category- marriage rules, inter dining rules etc
● Occupational roles
Sociology of / in /for India

Understanding the change

Sociology of India
● Sociology and social anthropology emerged in Western Europe
● Economic and political processes and institutions is constantly in a shift
● Changes in cultural and scholarly centers
● The idea of ‘margins’ are also changing
● The teaching of "sociology" ( social anthropology) started in India (1919)
● Emphasized on systematic empirical research to satisfy the colonial
government's needs to classify, categorize and document
● Pre independence era: caste system, tribal communities, family, marriage and
kinship, rural and urban communities
● The colonial administration -inadequate and often inaccurate commonsense
understanding of local customs, traditions and misjudgements about different
institutional arrangements.
Sociology In India

● In 1947, sociology and/or social anthropology was taught at three universities:

Bombay, Calcutta and Lucknow, as well as in colleges in Poona, Hyderabad and
Mysore.
● Sociology was taught mostly within the larger Economics department
● The expansion of Indian social anthropology and sociology began in 1952.
● At the end of the 1970s, fifty universities and colleges offered MA programmes in
sociology.
● By 2000, sociology was taught one hundred (out of about two hundred) Indian
institutions of higher education.
Sociology in India

● According to Sujata Patel, sociology in India faces, since the last decades, at least two distinct
challenges,

1)The growth of higher education system and and the demands of the regional (in states and territories)
elites to establish local colleges and universities.

In these institutions instruction is provided in local languages, but very often without the support of
textbooks published in these languages.

Infrastructure is usually poor in these institutions.

Sociology practice often represents regional interests, mostly those of local elites.

New generations of students, coming from previously excluded and uneducated communities are faced with
sociology teachers unprepared for new students' needs.
Sociology in India

2) Social movements of different kinds,like landless people, peasants, working class ,

slum dwellers, middle and lower castes, tribal communities, religious groups and
women are examples of movements which emerged and became strong.

● Poverty level- migration- urban poor

● Need for new conceptualizations and understanding of the society.
● Subaltern studies, postcolonial studies, and feminist studies.
 Sociology in India
According to Sujata Patel, social sciences have two phases

● First phase was the role played by the discourse of colonial modernity in defining the
disciplines' identities and the propagation of the use of social anthropology theories and
methods to reproduce the upper caste and caste colonial and class colonial discourse
● It is interesting that at that time anybody who studied the "East" or "South" was defined as
an anthropologist while those studying “ West” were seen as sociologists.
● Patel distinguishes between the Ghurye's Bombay-based practice of sociology identified
as social anthropology reflecting concepts and categories having framed in Europe.
● Lucknow's "genuine" sociological perspective, oriented to the present and future, and not
to the past.
● Lucknow's sociology was to be focused on social practice, like social work and social policy,
Sociology In India

● The second phase, according to Patel, was dominated first by M. N. Srinivas and later by
A R Desai
● M. N Srinivas- Structural Functionalism- Villages- integration of the system- analysis of
the caste system in understanding social change in understanding economic and political
transformations of the homogenised Indian nation.
● He also neglected the analysis of colonialism as a force and process of societal and
cultural destruction.
● Acc to Patel, the concepts and analysis are not adequate in understanding contemporary
change and conflict situation.
● A. R Desai brings a Marxists explanation - did not focus on the homogenised Indian
nation but on but inequalities, power and property relations and the perspective of the
excluded, who engaged in new social movements
Sociology in India

● Indian scholars are very active in the international

● T. K. Oommen served as the President of the ISA (International Sociological
Association) during the 1990-1994 term,
● D. P. Mukerji and Sujata Patel served as Vice-Presidents in 1959-1962 and
2002-2006
 Sociology For India

Indian categorization of the social:

1. Theory, concepts and methodology;2. Family, kinship and marriage; 3. Economy, polity and
society; 4. Migration and diasporic studies; 5. Education and society; 6. Religion and religious
communities; 7. Rural, peasant and tribal communities; 8. Social stratification, professions
and social mobility; 9. Dalits and backward classes; 10. Gender studies; 11. Sociology and
environment; 12. Population, health and society; 13. Science, technology and society; 14.
Culture and communication; 15. Social change and development; 16. Urban and industrial
studies; 17. Social movements; 18. Sociology of crime and deviance; 19. Age and social
structure; 20. Leisure and tourism; 21. Social problems and marginalised groups; 22. Military
sociology, armed forces and conflict resolution
Sociology For India

● Language and society, sociology of sports, sociology of work, sociology of youth,

sociology of arts, biography and society, sociology of disasters, sociology of
childhood, sociology of global-local relations, and sociology of the body.
● Backward and marginalized groups, tribal communities, which face the problems
of poverty, inequality and injustice, are studied very successfully in India.
● Applied research- Action research (Relate with your service learning
experience)
Sociology For India

● Emerging fields in Sociological Research

● New methodological rigour
● Intersectionalities
● Changes in rights, movements,law- in global and local contexts
● Policies, interventions
● Research projects etc.
Role of Missionaries

In studying Indian Society

Introduction

● The modern missionary movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was largely a
evangelical phenomenon (with the mission to save)
● The London Missionary Society was one of the predominant missionary societies formed in
London in 1795 to carry out religious work during the nineteenth and early twentieth
century’s
● Even though education in mission schools was an attempt to socially reproduce both
Christian values and morals, Maharajas, pundits, and local elites patronized and supported
mission schools to reproduce their own set of values.
● The foundation was laid for the implementation of modern education
● Taught the underprivileged, both vernacular and English, and that was an obligation for
obtaining Government jobs.
● Sir Michael Sadler said: “Christian missionaries working in India have been indispensable to the
progress of western education during the nineteenth century, that they are doing work of quite
momentous importance for the future of India”
Introduction
● Numerous Indians spoke out against conversion, and Indian resistance was the major
barrier to Protestant missionary work.
● But some Indians responded by embracing rather than rejecting Christianity, and a
number even became preachers.
● Conversion seen as a tool of assimilation
● Europeans missionaries felt that "savagery was a temporary condition," one that
could be easily "overcome" with education and conversion to Christianity
● Scholarship on Indian conversion still largely assumes that such conversions were
forced
● However post colonial studies looks at how this interpretation undermines the
agency of the convert who has actively chosen to convert for the sake of belief
● Also the subtle, ways in which the converts alter the adopted religion and the
cultures that hold it.
Verrier Elwin
● Born in Dover in 1902, the son of an Anglican bishop, he received a conventional
education and then went to Oxford
● An inclination towards Anglo-Catholicism complicated his position, and he
decided to leave Oxford and join an Anglo-Franciscan ashram in India.
● The idea of becoming an anthropologist had not occurred to Elwin, and it was by
accident rather than by design that he came in touch with tribal people of India
through his missionary activities
● His closeness with Gandhi and the Congress movement made the Church
authorities and officials suspicious
● He finally managed to settle in a Gond village of Mandla District
● There he and his Indian companion Shamrao Hivale established a small ashram
and began educational and general welfare work among the local tribals.
Verrier Elwin

● His first publication was based on the knowledge acquired in this casual way, was a
diary which he called Leaves from the Jungle
● The connection with John Murray (Scottish Publisher)turned out to be invaluable when
Elwin wrote The Baiga, the monograph which was to establish his reputation as an
anthropologist of unusual promise
● It is an account of a small tribe of slash-and-burn cultivators, famous among other
tribes and even neighbouring Hindu settlers for their skill as magicians and healers, and
remarkable also for their exceedingly rich mythology.
● The Baiga was the first anthropological monograph of an Indian tribe written on the
strength of an entirely exceptional intimacy between the author and the people he
described.
● Its publication in 1939 marked a turning point in Indian anthropology.
Verrier Elwin

● Elwin's next book The Agaria followed within three years.

● It deals with the craft and the mythology of a small group of blacksmiths and
iron-smelters who are scattered over the Mandla and Bilaspur Districts
● Elwin had for long been interested in collecting and translating myths, stories
and songs, and now he set about publishing specimens of the oral literature of
tribal people in two voluminous books with the titles Folk-tales of
Mahakoshal (1944) and Folk-songs of Chhattisgarh (1946)
● Elwin's most famous book The Muria and their Ghotul was published in
1947.
● This captivating and brilliantly presented account of the youth-dormitories
and the premarital sex-life of the Muria Gonds of Bastar
● Translated into French and Italian.
● Pluralistic Composition of Indian Society

Multi cultural perspective

Unity in Diversity

● Unity and Diversity - two ends of a continuum

● Maintaining distinctiveness and uniqueness within a collective space
● Mainstreaming approach
● Value of pluralism in India
● Modern nation state after independence
● Unity means integration-social psychological condition- sense of oneness- a
sense of we-ness-stands for the bonds, which hold the members of a society
together.
● Difference between unity and uniformity
● Grierson’s survey of the Indian languages early this century has listed 179
languages’ and 544 dialects in India (1903)- Linguistic Survey of India
● 1971-1652 mother tongues
Unity and Diversity

● Diversity in kinship, marriage rites and customs, inheritance, and the general
mode of living as well as in the patterns of rural and urban settlements,
community life, forms of land tenure, agricultural operations and so on.
● India-geographical area, population
● Herbert Risley had classified the people of India into seven racial types.
These are (i) Turko-Iranian, (ii) Indo-Aryan, (iii) Scytho(Iranian)-Dravidian,
(iv) Aryo-Dravidian, (v) Mongolo-Dravidian, (vi) Mongoloid, and (vii)
Dravidian
● These seven racial types can be reduced to three basic types-the Indo-Aryan,
the Mongolian and the Dravidian
Unity and Diversity

● Hutton’s and B S Guha’s classifications are based on 1931 census operations.

B.S. Guha (1952) has identified six racial types (1) the Negrito, (2) the Proto
Australoid, (3) the Mongoloid, (4) the Mediterranean, (5) the Western
Brachycephals, and (6) the Nordic
● Negritos are the people who belong to the black racial stock as found in
Africa. They have black skin colour, frizzle hair, thick lips, etc. In India some of
the tribes in South India, such as the Kadar, the Irula and the Paniyan have
distinct Negrito strain.
Unity and Diversity

● The Proto-Australoid races consist of an ethnic group, which includes the

Australian aborigines and other peoples of southern Asia and Pacific Islands.
Representatives of this group are the Ainu of Japan, the Vedda of Sri Lanka, and
the Sakai of Malaysia. In India the tribes of Middle India belong to this strain. Some
of these tribes are the Ho of Singhbhumi (jharkhand), Bihar, and the Bhil of the
Vindhya ranges.
● The Mongoloids are a major racial stock native to Asia, including the peoples of
northern and eastern Asia. For example, Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, Eskimos,
and often American Indians also belong to this race. In India, the North Eastern
regions have tribes of brachycephalic Mongoloid strain. A slightly different kind of
Mongoloid racial stock is found in the Brahmputra Valley. The Mikir-Bodo group of
tribes and the Angami Nagas represent the best examples of Mongoloid racial
composition in India
Unity and Diversity
● The Mediterranean races relate to the caucasian physical type, i.e., the white race. It
is characterised by medium or short stature, slender build, long head and dark
(continental) complexion
● The Western Brachycephals (ancient Greek) are divided into the following three
sub-groups: (1) The Alpenoid are characterised by broad head, medium stature and
light skin, found amongst Bania castes of Gujarat, the Kayasthas of Bengal, etc. (ii)
The Dinaric- They are characterised by broad head, long nose, tall stature and dark
skin colour, found amongst the Brahmin of Bengal, the non-Brahmin of Karnataka,
(iii) The Armenoid- They are characterised by features similar to Dinaric. The
Armenoid have a more marked shape of the back of head, a prominent and narrow
nose. The Parsi of Bombay show the typical characteristics of the Armenoid race.
Unity and Diversity
● The Nordic races belong to the physical type characterised by tall stature, long
head, light skin and hair, and blue eyes. They are found in Scandinavian countries,
Europe. In India, they are found in different parts of north of the country, especially
in Punjab and Rajputana. The Kho of Chitral, the Red Kaffirs, the Khatash are some
of the representatives of this type. Research suggests that the Nordics came from
the north, probably from south east Russia and south west Siberia, through central
Asia to India
Unity and Diversity

● Cultural Pluralism
● Sources of diversity- Ethnic origins, religions and languages
● Religion- Eight major communities: Hindus (79.8%, roughly 16% are
Scheduled Castes), Muslims (14.2%), Christians (2.3%),Sikhs
(1.7%),Buddhists(0.7%), Jains(0.4%), Zoroastrians (0.3%),Jews (0.1%)
● Tribal communities-6.9%( Converted to different religious groups)
● Hindus are broadly divided into Shaivite(Shiva), Vaishnava(Vishnu),
Shakta(Mother goddesses), Smarta(all three Shiva, Vishnu and Mother
Goddess)
● Sects and Cults add to the complexity- Kabirpanthi, Satnami, Lingayats,
Aghorpanth, Kashmir Shaivism, several Tantrik schools can be identified as
examples of cults
Unity and Diversity
● The Indian Muslims are divided into Sunni and Shia
● Four School of Muslim law:Majority of Indian Sunnis follow the Hanifi School, among
the Lakshadweep islanders the Shafi school. Maliki school is followed by Sunnis of
Gujrat, Hanbali school is not followed in India.
● The Shias have their own Imami law.
● Indian Christians are divided into Roman Catholics and Protestants.
● Sikhism is a synthesizing religion that emphasize egalitarianism, but still there's
distinction.
● The lower jatis converted to Sikhism are known as Mazhabis and not called with the
honour of the title of ‘Sardar’.
● Even though untouchability is not practices and they pray and dine (together in langar)
but in marriages endogenous practices are still practiced.
● Sikhism into Namdhari and Nirankari
Unity and Diversity
● Buddhism remained confined only to few pockets in the country
● Dr Ambedkar revived it- Neo Buddhists
● The Mahayana and the Hinayana were based on doctrinal differences
and do not represent a gradation in society.
● Jainism - two main divisions Digambar (unclothed) and Shwetambar
(White robbed)
● Parsis played an important role in India’s industrial development
● They came to India in 8th C AD from Persia
● The small population with Jewish faith had two main settlements-
Cochin (Kerala) and another in Maharashtra.
Unity and Diversity

● Languages:Collective identities and conflicts

● Constitution lists 22 languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada,
Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya,
Punjabi,Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri
● All the major languages have regional and dialectical variations
● For examples Hindi has Awadhi, Bagheli, Bhojpuri, Brij, Bundeli, Chhattisgarhi,
Hadoti, Magahi, Malawi, Nimari, Pahari, Marwari. Mewari,and many others
● Granthika Telugu is different from Vyavaharika Telugu
● Around 227 mother tongues are recognised
● This makes language planning and promotion difficult.
● Tribal languages cannot be dismissed as dialects.
Unity and Diversity

● For example Nagaland, has 19 languages- Angami, Sema, Lotha, Rengma,

Chakhesang-Chokri/Chakru, Khezha, Sangtam Pochuri, Sangtam, Konyak,
Chang, Phom, Yimchungre, Kuki-Chiru, Tikhir etc.
● The Kohima station of all India Radio has to broadcast in 25 languages
● Cultural Rituals
● Food
● Cultural and religious Heritage-Music, Monuments, Historical locations
● Debate on standardization and the power dynamics in making of the
larger nation state.
Unity and Diversity

● From Badrinath and Kedarnath in the north to Rameshwaram in the south,

Jagannath Puri in the east to Dwaraka in the west the religious shrines and holy
rivers are spread throughout the length and breadth of the country.
● Little and Great Traditions
● Rituals, Practices etc.
● Festivals
● Modern India after Independence- the idea of a unified ‘nation’
● Globalization-are we losing our uniqueness and little traditions to the over
empowering global culture.
Videos

India - Unity in Diversity - A land of 100 Nations - YouTube

'The Diversity of India': Naseeruddin Shah Reads Excerpt From Nehru | The Quint - YouTube

Are you contributing to extinction of cultural diversity? | Deepti Vijaykumar | TEDxBloomingtonLive - YouTube

Top 10 Indian Folk Painting Styles - YouTube

Gond Art | Documentary (Short) - YouTube

M.N Srinivas

Varna and Caste;Dominant Caste;Sanskritization;Westernization

M N Srinivas

Interview and seminar with M.N. Srinivas - YouTube

Interview and seminar with M N Srinivas - YouTube

 M N Srinivas
● First generation sociologist in the post independence era
● After Independence we were going through large scale transformations-Srinivas’s
study on Caste system, Study of Villages in understanding change and continuity was
important.
● Book View Vs Field View
● Study of caste system from book view was a closed system, where mobility was not
possible.
● Srinivas through his Field View understood how mobility does happen even within
caste system.
 M N Srinivas

● Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas

● Born in a Brahmin Family in Mysore on 16th November 1916, Mysore and Died in 1999,
Bangalore
● He passed the Secondary School exam in 1931
● Intermediate in 1993
● He then joined Maharajas College in Mysore
● He graduated with Social Philosophy, Sociology and Social Anthropology
● Then he joined Bombay University (where Ghurye wa very prominent)
● Srinivas was brilliant student. His masters dissertation got published in 1942, ‘Family and
Marriage in Mysore’
● He completed his doctorate under Ghurye’s supervision
● His doctorate thesis was 2 volumes with 900 pages, detailed ethnographic study of the
people of Coorg- from the perspective of people.
M N Srinivas

● He went to Oxford in 1945 and worked with Radcliff Brown and Evans
Pritchard (Structural Functionalism)
● 1951 : Srinivas joined M S University, Baroda and then University of Delhi
● Senior Fellow, Sociology Unit at Institute for Social and Economic Change,
Bangalore
● Visiting Professor in NIAS, Bangalore
● Chair at UGC
● He was one of the signatories which developed the ICSSR
M N Srinivas

● Marriage and Family in Mysore (1942)

● Religion and Society among Coorgs in South India (1952)
● India's Villages (1955)
● Caste in Modern India and Other Essays (1962)
● Social Change in Modern India (1966)
● The Remembered Village (1976)
● Dominant Caste and Other Essays (1986)
● Village, Caste, Gender and Method (1998)
Two important aspects in Srinivas’s study

● Field View

● Structural Functionalism
Varna

● According to Srinivas (1962: 65) the varna-scheme is a ‘hierarchy’ in the literal

sense of the term because the criteria of ritual purity and pollution are at the
basis of this differentiation.
● The first three castes are twice born (Upanayana) while Shudras are not. The
untouchables are outside the varna scheme.
● Varna means colour- ‘arya’ and ‘dasa’- fair and dark colour
● Acc to the Varna scheme there are four castes excluding the untouchables
● The varna scheme refers at best to the broad categories of society and not to its
real and effective units
● The varna model has produced a wrong and distorted image of caste.
● It is true that the Brahmins are on the top and the untouchables in the bottom,
however the Lingayats in South India claim superior status than the Brahmins.
Caste and Varna
● A caste can be ritually high but ranked lower in the local caste hierarchy
because this hierarchy is determined by secular factors like economic, political,
educational status also.
● Thus, one of the most striking feature of caste system, as an actual reality has
been the vagueness in the hierarchy, especially in the middle rungs
● Each caste tries to prove that it is equal to a superior caste and superior to its
equals
● There is a hierarchy in diet and occupation, however that also differs from region
to region
● The castes one accepts cooked food and water are either equals or superior.
Varna and Caste
● According to the varna scheme there are only four categories.
● This scheme excludes the untouchables and its number is same throughout India.
● But this is not true in reality since even during the vedic period, occupational groups
existed which were not subsumed by varna, although one cannot be sure whether
these groups can be called castes or not.
● According to Ghurye, in each linguistic region, there are about 200 caste groups
which are further subdivided into about 3,000 smaller units each of which is
endogamous and provides the area of effective social life for the individual.
● Therefore, one can say that the varna scheme refers at the most only to the broad
categories of the society and not to the actually existing effective units (Srinivas
1962: 65).
Varna and Caste
● Srinivas states that the Varna scheme has certainly distorted the picture of caste but
it has also enabled ordinary men and women to understand and assess the general
place of a caste within this framework throughout India.
● It has provided a common social language, which holds good in all parts of India.
● This sense of familiarity, even when not based on real facts leads to a sense of unity
amongst the people (Srinivas 1962: 69).
● Thus, the Indian society (by which we basically mean the Hindu society) has been full of
changes and improvisations.
● But these changes have been against the background of the varna hierarchy.
● It is the varna frame which remains more or less constant while castes vary from
region to region. A varna may include different castes and these castes may divided
into different sub castes.
Caste & Varna

● The hereditary association of caste with an occupation used to be a very striking

feature of the caste system.
● It was so much a part of the caste system that some sociologists even argued that
“caste is nothing more than a systematisation of occupational differentiation” (Srinivas
1965: 1-77).
● In fact, it can be said that caste was a system, which ensured an occupation to
everyone, and therefore it was a method to control competition between social
groups in the economic sphere.
● However, as Srinivas says, the occupational aspect of the caste system would have
broken down completely in the context of a growing population, if not for the surplus
population in all occupational categories like artisans, traders, servicing castes falling
back on agriculture.
● Traditionally agriculture was a common occupation for all castes and Brahmans,
Kshatriyas and even Vaishyas have been dependent on agriculture
Caste & Varna

● A caste is considered to be high if its characteristic way of life is high and pure and it
is considered to be low if its way of life is low and polluting.
● By the term ‘way of life’ we mean whether its traditional occupation is ritually pure or
polluting. For example, the occupation of the Brahman Priest is ritually pure while the
traditional occupation of a leather working caste like the Chamar of U.P. is considered
to be ritually polluting.
● But the remarkable aspect of caste system is that the presumed hierarchy of ‘way of
life’, which includes diet, occupation, etc. does not often correlate with the observed
order of caste ranking found in several regions of India.
● For example, in spite of the trader castes being vegetarian (which is considered to
be ritually higher) in Rampura, a village of Mysore, they are ranked ritually lower
than the non-vegetarian peasant castes of the same village (Srinivas: 1955).
Caste & Varna/Jajmani system

● In the association of caste structure with a hereditary occupation the “jajmani

system” forms the framework.
● The jajmani system, is a system of economic, social and ritual ties between
different caste groups in the villages.
● Under this system some castes are patrons and others are service castes.
● The service castes offer their services to the landowning upper and intermediate
castes and in turn are paid both in cash and kind.
● The patron castes differ from one region to another depending on the
socio-economic and political status of the castes.
● For example, the Rajput, Bhumihar and Jat are the patron castes in the North and
Kamma, Reddi and Lingayat in the South. The service castes comprise Brahman
(Priest), Barber, Carpenter, Blacksmith, Water-carrier, Leather-worker, etc.
Sanskritization

● First use of the term Sanskritization in Religion and Society among the
Coorgs of South India (Oxford, 1952), p. 30
● Sanskritization is no doubt an awkward term, but it was preferred to
Brahmanization for several reasons: Brahmins not a homogeneous
category, Brahminical practices changes with time and space
● For example, the Brahmans of the Vedic period drank soma, an alcoholic
drink,' ate beef, and offered blood sacrifices. Both were given up in
post-Vedic times. It has been suggested that this was the result of Jain and
Buddhist influence.
● Brahmans are, by and large, vegetarians; only the Saraswat, Kashmiri, and
Bengali Brahmins eat non-vegetarian.
● If Brahmins are mentioned, which group at point in history needs to be
specific.
● Brahmanization is subsumed in the wider process of Sanskritization
 Sanskritization
● The agents of Sanskritization were always not Brahmins
● The twice born castes are castes were prohibited from following the customs and rites of
the Brahmans
● The Lingayats of South India have been a powerful force for the Sanskritization of the
customs and rites of many low castes of the Karnataka.
● The Lingayat movement was founded by a Brahman named Basava in the twelfth
century,and another Brahman, Ekantada Ramayya, played an important part in it.
● This was a popular movement in the true sense of the term, attracting followers from all
castes, especially the low castes, and it was anti-Brahmanical in tone and spirit.
● The Lingayats of Mysore claim equality with Brahmans, and the more orthodox Lingayats
do not eat food cooked or handled by Brahmins.
Sanskritization

● The Smiths of South India are another interesting example: they call themselves
Vishwakarma Brahmans, wear the sacred thread, and have Sanskritized their ritual.
● But some of them still eat meat and drink alcoholic liquor
● This does not, however, explain why they are considered to belong to the Left-hand
division of the castes.
● And no caste belonging to the Right-hand division, including the Holeyas (Untouchables),
will eat food or drink water touched by them.
● Normally Sanskritization enables a caste to obtain a higher position in the hierarchy.
● But in the case of the Smiths it seems to have resulted only in their drawing upon
themselves the wrath of all the other castes.
● Sanskritization needs to be understood in relation to local jatis.
Sanskritization

● Hindu society is a stratified one, in which there are innumerable small groups which try to pass for a
higher group
● Locally dominant caste was frequently not Brahman.
● It could be said that in the case of the numerous castes occupying the lowest levels, Brahmanical
customs reached them in a chain reaction.
● For example in the case of the Smiths of South India, a caste tried to jump over all its structural
neighbors, and claimed equality with the Brahmans which attracted non acceptance from other caste
groups.
● The three main axes of power in the caste system are the ritual, the economic, and the political ones,
and the possession of power in any one sphere usually leads to the acquisition of power in the other
two.
● The non-Brahmanical castes adopt not only Brahmanical ritual, but also certain Brahmanical
institutions and values. (Role of sons in family for pure rituals, girls as burden due to marriage
responsibilities)
● Sanskritization means not only the adoption of new customs and habits, but also exposure to new
ideas and values which have found frequent expression in the vast body of Sanskrit literature, sacred
as well as secular. Karma, dharma, papa, punya, maya, samsara and moksha etc.
Sanskritization

● Criticisms.
● Brahmins as reference point in understanding Sanskritization.
● Sanskritization and mobility might not be actually achievable due to
various other factors
● Srinivas is not questioning the structure but trying to understand changes
within the structural order.
● De- Sanskritization
● However Srinivas mentions that Sanskritization needs to be understood
culture specific in relation to the Dominant caste groups.
Westernization

● While Sanskritization is explained in the caste model, Westernization needs to be

understood in the class model.
● The upper castes had a literary tradition and were opposed to blood-sacrifices, but
in certain other customs and habits they were further removed from the British
than the lower castes.
● The Britishers ate meat, some of them are even pork and beef, and drank alcoholic
liquor; women enjoyed greater freedom among them, and divorce and widow
marriage were not prohibited.
● The British who ate beef and pork and drank liquor, possessed political and
economic power, a new technology, scientific knowledge, and a great literature.
● The form and pace of westernization of India, too, varied from one region to
another, and from one section of the population to another.
Westernization

● For instance, one group of people became westernized in their dress, diet,
manners, speech, sports, and in the gadgets they used, while another
absorbed Western science, knowledge, and literature while remaining
relatively free from westernization in externals.
● Though the scholarly tradition of the Brahmans placed them in a favorable
position for obtaining the new knowledge, in certain other matters they
were the most handicapped in the race for westernization.
● The fear of being polluted prevented them from eating cooked food
touched by others.
● To orthodox Brahmans the Englishman who ate pork and beef, drank
whisky, and smoked a pipe, was the living embodiment of ritual impurity.
Westernization
● The net result of the westernization of the Brahmans was that they interposed
themselves between the British and the rest of the native population.
● The result was a new and secular caste system superimposed on the traditional
system, in which the British, the New Kshatriyas, stood at the top, while the Brahmans
occupied the second position, and the others stood at the base of the pyramid.
● In spite of the theoretical superiority of the Brahman to all the other castes, the
Kshatriya, by virtue of the political (and through it the economic) power at his disposal,
has throughout exercised a dominant position.
● The Brahmans themselves found some aspects of westernization, such as the British
diet, dress, and freedom from pollution, difficult to accept. (Perhaps another caste
would not have found them so difficult. The Coorgs, for instance, took quite easily to
British diet and dress, and certain activities like dancing, hunting, and sports.)
Westernization

● Increase in Secularization of Indian life

● The secularization as well as the widening of the economic horizon pushed the priests into
a lower position than before.
● Sanskrit education vs Western English education
● Finally, the priests started sending their sons to Western-type schools, and this frequently
meant that there was none in the family to continue the father's occupation.
● In Mysore, among Brahmins, wearing a shirt was taboo.
● But as Western clothes became more popular Brahman men sat to dinner with their shirts
on.
● And today dining at a table is becoming common among the rich.
● Dietary practices has changed
● But meat eating is even now rare, while the consumption of western alcoholic liquor is not
as rare. Cigarettes are common among the educated.
 Westernization

● A few educated Brahmans now own farms where they raise poultry.
● The age at which girls married shot up. Over twenty-five years ago it was
customary for Brahmans to marry their girls before puberty.
● Nowadays, urban and middle class Brahmans are rarely able to get their girls
married before they are eighteen, and there are many girls above twenty
who are unmarried.
● Child widows are rare, and shaving the heads of widows is practically a
thing of the past.
● Westernization in some way has favoured Sanskritization
Westernization

● Criticisms
● Defining the “west” in understanding Westernization
● Westernization did bring about some changes in culture and practices
but was not been able to go beyond some caste occupation and
privileges
● Upper castes could make the most of the Western education
 Dominant Castes

● Dominant caste is crucial to the understanding of rural social life in

most parts of India
● Study of the locally dominant caste and the kind of dominance it
enjoys
- analysis of the hierarchy of a multi-caste village
- the settlement of a dispute at the level of village or caste
- the pattern of Sanskritization among the several castes of an area
● Local and regional dominance
Dominant Caste

● Concept of dominant caste evolves from-Field trips to Rampura

● A multi-caste village about 22 miles southeast of Mysore City in South
India
● A caste is "dominant"
- when it preponderates numerically over the other castes
- preponderant economic and political power.
● A large and powerful caste group can be more easily dominant if
its position in the local caste hierarchy is not too low
Dominant Caste
● In modern days Western and non-traditional education- means by which
dominance is acquired.
● Villagers educate their young men to be officers in the Government.
● As officers they are expected to help their kinsfolk, castefolk and
co-villager.
Rampura Village

● The Peasants in Rampura enjoy more than one element of dominance.

- Numerically they are the biggest caste with a membership of 735, while
the next biggest is the Shepherd with 235, followed by the Muslim, 179,
and the Untouchable, 125.
- The biggest landowners are among the Peasants, and the Peasants
together own more land than all the other castes put together.
- There are also more literates and educated men among Peasants than
among the others
 Rampura Village
● The ritual rank of Peasants is not very high and well below Brahmins and
Lingayats.
● But rank above the Untouchables and such low castes
● In terms of Varna they are Shudras, the fourth category in the all-India
hierarchy
● While it is true that Peasants are not ritually high, they command respect
from everyone in the village including the priestly castes of Brahmins and
Lingayats
Rampura Village
● Dominance of peasantry grew during 1900-1948
● Brahmins possessing ownership of irrigated land migrated to cities, for
education and dowry sold their land to non-Brahmins
● Non-Brahmin movement in Post World War I (post 1919)
● Non-Brahmin leaders realized that they must get Western education if they
wanted position and power.
- Agitation for institution of scholarships to help non-Brahmin youths study in
schools and colleges
- for reservation of seats for non-Brahmins in medical and technological colleges
- preference in appointments to government posts.
- The non Brahmin agitation succeeded, and gradually a number of rules
discriminating against the Brahmins were evolved by the Government of
Mysore leading to existence of Western-educated non-Brahmin intelligentia
since the late thirties
Dominant Caste

● A caste which is numerically strong and wealthy will be able to move up

in the ritual hierarchy if it Sanskritizes its ritual and way of life, and also
loudly and persistently proclaims itself to be what it wants to be.
● The dominant caste of Peasants in Rampura is plainly opposed to
the emancipation of Untouchables
● Its members want the Untouchables to supply them with cheap labor and
perform degrading tasks.
● They also resent the idea that Untouchables should use their wells and
tanks, and worship in their temples.
● They have the twin sanctions of physical force and boycott at their
disposal.
Dominant Caste

● The numerical strength of a caste influences the kind of relations which it

has with the other castes
● This is one of the reasons why each multi-caste village to some extent
constitutes a unique hierarchy.
● No two villages are identical either in the number of castes
represented or in the numerical strength and the wealth of each
resident caste. In fact, the same caste may occupy different positions in
neighboring villages.
● For instance, in Kere, Fishermen are not allowed to take their wedding
and other processions into streets in which Brahmins and Peasants live,
whereas in those villages in Malavalli Taluk where Fishermen are in the
majority, no such disabilities affect them.
 Dominant Caste

● Sense of insecurity among members of minority castes

● Statements are often made by members of minority castes that they
have no protection against bullying and exploitation on the part of men of
the dominant caste.
● The members of the non-dominant castes may be abused, beaten,
grossly underpaid for work done, or their women required to gratify the
sexual desires of the powerful men in the dominant caste
● It is not unlikely that the concentration of the members of a caste into a
ward (a feature of village life all over India) adds to their sense of
security.
Dominant Caste
● The Peasants in Rampura enjoy decisive dominance.
● They command respect not only from several lower castes, but also
from the priestly castes, Brahmins and Lingayats, who have a higher
ritual rank but who are not free from the secular control of the
dominant caste.
● The numerical strength of a caste influences its relations with the other
castes. The capacity to muster a number of able-bodied men for a
fight, and reputation for aggressiveness, are relevant factors.
● Considerations of power do prevail. The members of the non-dominant
castes may be abused, beaten, grossly underpaid, or their women
required to gratify the sexual desires of the powerful men in the
dominant caste.
● The patrons from the dominant caste are "vote banks" for the
politicians
Dominant Caste
● The dominant caste plays a very important role in the settlement of
disputes, which are settled by the traditional village and caste councils
and not by the modern statutory panchayats.
● A caste council usually has jurisdiction over only the members of a single
caste, but the dominant caste has jurisdiction over all the castes living in
a village.
● The leaders of the dominant caste not only settle disputes between members
of different castes but are also frequently approached by non-dominant
castes for the settlement of their internal, even domestic, disputes.
● In the settlement of disputes, the patron-client tie is extremely important
Dominant Caste

● A feature of the administrative system of Mysore, handed down from British days, is the
grouping of villages into hoblis.(Cluster of adjoining villages)
● The council of the dominant caste in the hobli-capital is called a kattemane (house of law),
and it settles disputes not only occurring within the capital, but also entertains
appeals from councils of every village in the hobli.
● It normally tries to uphold the authority of local elders.
● The working of caste and village councils and their relation to the council of the hobli-capital
is extremely complicated and perhaps varies from hobli to hobli.
● The study of the working of these councils is essential to the understanding of the dominant
caste.
Varna and Jati

Andre Beteille
Context

● The division of Indian society into innumerable castes and

communities
● Mr Mandal's commission listed as many as three thousand seven
hundred and forty three.
● Anthropological Survey of India has drawn public attention to the
continuing significance of the divisions of caste and subcaste in
contemporary India
● I will dwell less on these divisions and subdivisions themselves than on
the ways in which they are perceived.
Varna and Jati

● In the classical literature of India, caste was represented as varna .

● This is no longer the case and caste is now represented much more typically as
jati, or its equivalent in the regional language.
● This displacement of varna by jati indicates much more than a simple
linguistic shift.
● It indicates a change of perception
● A change in the meaning and legitimacy of caste even among those who
continue to abide by the constraints imposed by its morphology on marriage
and other matters
The consciousness of caste

● Caste is not merely a form of identity, arising from birth in a particular group; it is
also a matter of consciousness.
● The consciousness of caste would decline or disappear, at least from public view
● Caste consciousness did not decline
● However we have a different kind of consciousness now with jati rather than
varna in the foreground
● The consciousness of jati is not new-rather could be seen in everyday
communication
● Most intellectual discourse on caste has given importance to Varna than jati
● However jati becomes integral in understanding real life experiences of Varna
system
In reference to M N Srinivas’s essay on ‘Varna and
Caste’/Book View & Field View
● It may be noted that the title attempts, at least by implication, the term caste for the
designation of Jati
● Srinivas was reacting against the Indological representation of caste as varna which
he felt gave a distorted view of the Indian reality
● Srinivas's impatience with the varna-model was a response to the dominance in
Indian writing about society of what he called the 'book-view' which he was eager to
replace with the 'field-view'.
● Srinivas pointed out, that the way people actually live is very different from how
they are supposed to live, and that sociologists should concentrate on the former
and not the latter
● We cannot turn our back on the book-view of Indian society which may be regarded
as a particular form of collective representations.
Importance of Book View

● India is not just an aggregate of tribal and peasant communities.

● It is and has been a major civilization in which the book-view, or, rather, different
and even competing book-views have existed for two thousand years and more
● Collective representation
● The social reality on the ground rarely changes without some change in collective
representations; and when those change, the book-view also undergoes change.
● The authoritative texts of the past no longer enjoy their old authority today.
● For example Dharmasastra became relevant while framing Constitution
● Today, the book-view of Indian society may be found in a variety of texts:
legislative debates, judicial decisions, political manifestos, essays, pamphlets and
books of a great variety of types
Varna and Jati

● The shift in representations of caste will be found not in English but in the Indian
languages.
● For example, Bengalis, particularly of the younger generation, hardly use the term
varna or (barna) in either speech or writing
● The idiom of varna has no doubt been used extensively in the present century in the
process of upward social mobility described as Sanskritization (Srinivas 1966)
● When so many castes with manifestly inappropriate antecedents claim that they are
Kshatriyas, the category itself is bound to become devalued
● Where sixty years ago a caste would claim to be Kshatriya, today the same caste
might prefer to be designated as backward. This is not a change of small significance.
● Nevertheless, both Muslims and Europeans had other models of rulership, and where
their authority became established, the category of Kshatriyas inevitably became
emptied of some of its meaning.
Varna and Jati

● Srinivas seemed to suggest that there was an error in describing caste as varna and
that it should be described as jati.
● Beteille’s view is that this is not just a recognition of error, but also a response to
change.
● A decade before the publication of Srinivas's paper on varna and caste, the social
historian Niharranjan Ray (1945) published a book in Bengali entitled Bangali
Hindur Barnabhed, meaning caste among the Bengali Hindus.
● N K Bose used terms like barna: barnabyabastha, the affairs of caste; barnabinyas,
the arrangement of castes; asabarnabibaha, inter-caste marriage; barnasankar,
offspring of mixed unions; and so on.
● These terms are now far less commonly used among Bengalis than in the thirties and
forties.
N K Bose’s Study: Structure of Hindu Society

● The actual divisions of Bengali Hindu society did not fit at all well into the traditional
scheme of varnas: there were only Brahmins among the three upper varnas, the rest
being in some sense or other Shudras
● Telis, Kumhars, Lohars, and so on, recognized as jatis
● The language of varna also refers to such general features of their social arrangement
as division of labour, rules of marriage, and so on
● N. K. Bose drew attention to the varieties of categories to which the concept of varna
was applied.
● He wrote: 'The division into varna is not confined to human society; it is
widely known that even lands or temples are classified into Brahmin,
Kshatriya and so on'
Varna

● 'In effect we may regard the varna system as a particular method for
dividing into classes various kinds of phenomena, beginning with
human society'
● Varna: The pre-eminent scheme of social classification established by Hindu
cosmology.
● Whenever in ancient India men came in contact with different communities, they
tried to find a place for them in one or another varna according to their qualities
and actions'
● Varna has ceased to be an active principle of social classification; it has been
displaced by other principles.
Srinivas & Beteille

● Srinivas (1962: 69) said at the end of his brief essay: 'Varna has provided
a common social language which holds good or is thought to hold good,
for India as a whole.'
● Beteille: it is this language that is now, before our eyes, becoming
obsolete and anachronistic
● When Bengalis speak or write about caste, they no longer use barna as
commonly as before, but jat in the spoken language, and also jati in the
written form.
● Their experience and perception of caste has changed, and this change
is expressed in the shift of vocabulary.
Varna
● Lack of familiarity with the old vocabulary pertaining to inter-caste marriage, hypergamy,
offspring of mixed unions and so on
● Both varna and jati are polysémie terms, and therefore it is natural that there should be a large
overlap of meaning between the two.
● The primary meaning of varna, and sought its origin in the distinction between the light-skinned
Aryas and the dark-skinned indigenous population (Ghurye)
● N. K. Bose drew attention to the varieties of categories to which the concept of varna was
applied.
● The order of varnas is not only exclusive, it is also exhaustive.
● The Dharmashastra says Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, these are the four varnas and
there is no fifth.
● According to Bose, this was regularly done in the past when varna was an active principle of social
classification.
Jati and Varna

● The term jati refers more to the units that constituted the system—the castes and
communities— than to the system viewed as a whole.
● It did not provide the kind of basis for a universal social classification that varna did.
● Unlike the varnas, the jatis were not thought of as being exhaustive in a formal sense.
● One cannot draw up a complete list of all the multifarious jatis and declare categorically
that none exists besides those listed.
● New jatis could always be added on, but not new varnas.
● Whereas varna refers primarily to order and classification, the primary reference of jati
is to birth and the social identity ascribed by birth
● Jatis, unlike classes, are thought of as organic divisions, self-generated and
self-reproducing.
Jati

● The term jati is, if anything, even more elastic than its counterpart, varna.
● It may refer to a very small group, such as a subcaste or a sub-subcaste; it may refer
also to the whole of humanity
● Bengalis speak commonly of the Sadgope or the Kayastha jati, but also of manabjati
or manushyajati.
● The idea always is that the members of a jati share some qualities in common which
give then a distinctive identity that is somehow present even when it is not visible.
Men and women may be referred to separately as jatis—strijati and purushjati.
● Jatis are not always or necessarily ranked
● Hindus, Muslims and Christians are not unequally ranked. Similarly, when they speak
of Oriyajati and Telugujati, they think of them as different rather than unequal.
Beteille’s experience

When during my fieldwork in Burdwan, I asked my informants to which jat they belonged,
some of them naturally put the same question back to me. The answer that I did not
belong to any jat was rarely taken seriously. Puzzled by my name, they would ask whether
I was not in fact a Bengali. When I pointed out that that had to do with my mother tongue,
not my caste, they would say, 'Ah, then you are a Christian.' If I denied that, a sarcastic
bystander might ask, 'Then I suppose you are a Frenchman?' The point is that my
informants—and indeed many of my Bengali friends—believed that if I could not say that I
was a Brahmin or a Kayastha, I should admit to being a Bengali, if not that, at least to being
a Christian. Practically anything might serve; what does not serve is not having any jat at
all.
Caste/Jati
● In Bengal certainly, and perhaps in other parts of the country as well, when people think
about caste today, they think less about religion/morality than about politics. Hence
they find it more natural to represent caste as jati than as varna.
● Castes have become increasingly involved in politics, but they have not ceased to be
castes (Beteille 1969).
● Electoral politics increases the consciousness of caste, and at the same time creates
networks of relations across caste (Srinivas and Beteille 1964).
● All these different types of groups-castes, tribes, sects, denominations, religious and
linguistic minorities—may, depending on context and situation, be designated as jatis.
● People are loyal to religion, language, sect but not to caste as Caste as a collective force
now is replaced by the constitution.
Caste in present context

● Because there are not enough jobs to go around everyone clings as closely as possible
to the occupation with which his ethnic group is identified and relies for economic
support on those who speak his language, his co-religionists, on members of his own
caste and on fellow immigrants from the village or district from which he has come
(1965: 102)
● Civil society requires a variety of open and secular institutions—schools, universities,
hospitals, municipal corporations, professional bodies and voluntary associations of
many different kinds—to mediate between the individual and the wider society of
which he is a part
● Secularization and modernity hopefully will bring about changes in the assertiveness of
individual and - older forms of collective identities should be replaced.