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Unit 6: Caste System in India

varna has provided a common social language which holds good or is thought to hold good for India Notes
as a whole, that is, it has enabled ordinary men and women to grasp the caste system by providing
them with a simple and clear scheme which is applicable to all parts of India. He further holds that
the importance of the varna system consists in that it furnishes an all India frame into which the jatis,
occupying the lower rungs, have throughout tried to raise their status by taking over the customs
and rituals of the top jatis. This has helped the spread of a uniform culture throughout the Hindu
society.
However, to fit in jatis into the Brahmanic and the Sudra groups is easy but to fit them into the middle
groups, that is, in the Kshatriya and the Vaishya groups is difficult and confusing because one jati in
one area may be treated as a Vaishya jati but the same jati in another area may claim a Kshatriya
status. The varna model, thus, has been the cause of misinterpretation of the realities of the caste
system (Srinivas, 1962: 67). Caste is tied to locality but varna functions on an all India basis. Therefore,
to understand the caste system clearly and scientifically, it is necessary for a student of sociology to
free himself from the hold of the varna model. Hsu (1963: 96) also has said that varna is a mere conceptual
scheme for the Hindu society as a whole, while caste is a description of a real situation in the Hindu
society.
Caste and Sub-caste

It is not easy to give a clear-cut distinction between a caste and a sub-caste because both have similar
attributes. However, a sub-caste is a sub-division of a caste. For example, Kayasth is a caste and it is
divided into various sub-castes like Mathur, Saxena, Srivastava, Nigam and Bhatnagar. Similarly,
Agarwal caste is divided into Dasa and Bisa sub-castes, while Oswal caste is divided into Dhaya,
Pancha, Dasa and Bisa sub-castes. The marriage between a Dasa Oswal boy and a Dasa Agarwal girl
will thus be an example of an inter-caste marriage. Brahmin is always erroneously designated as a
caste, when it is in fact a varna, a constellation of many castes. The examples of Kanyakubja, Saryupari
and Gaur Brahmins are the examples of castes, and Shrimali, Purohit and Pushkarna Brahmins are
the examples of sub-castes, while Bhardwaj, Gautam, and Kashyap Brahmins are the examples of
gotras. Castes and sub-castes are both endogamous groups but gotra is an exogamous group.
How did sub-castes originate? There are two views: one, they have arisen out of a fission from a
parent group, and two, they have emerged as independent groups (Chauhan, 1966: 44). According to
Ghurye (1957: 34), the sub-castes came to be distinguished from castes due to territorial separateness
(for example, Gujarati and Malwi weavers in Madhya Pradesh, or Mewari and Marwari barbers in
Rajasthan), mixed origin (for example, Bhilala in Madhya Pradesh having emerged due to mixed
origin from the Rajput and Bhil parentage), occupational distinction (for example, Kumhars who
work as potters and are called Gadhede, and Kumhars who work on field and are called Kheted),
some peculiarity in the technique of the occupation (for example, Mochi subcaste among leather
workers who make only new shoes), dissimilarity of custom (for example, relating to widow re-
marriage), and due to nick-names.
Iravati Karve (1958: 125) has accepted the view that sub-castes are either the fissioned divisions of
castes or they have an independent origin. Referring to this, she has said (1958: 133): “The difference
in religious practices and techniques reflects the separate existence and history of these entities than
serves as cause for their separation from the larger units.” Risley (1915), Hutton (1961: 55) and
Majumdar (1958: 357) have referred to sub-castes breaking away from the main castes/tribes to raise
their status. B.R. Chauhan (1966: 45) has maintained that the origin of sub-castes due to the process of
fission may be explained in terms of mechanisms like migration, change of customs, political decisions,
etc. Krickpatrick (1912) has explained that sub-cas-tes, which are the fissioned groups of castes, were
earlier formed as the result of migration and political and social factors but today they are the results
of attempts by the well-to-do elements in a despised caste to cut adrift from their humbler caste
brethern and raise themselves in the social scale by finding a new name and a dubious origin, and
associating themselves with some higher caste.
Another question is: What activities belong to the specific fields of caste and sub-caste? The three
functions performed by sub-castes are: restricting marriages, restricting commensal relations, and
regulating behaviour or communal life in terms of subsisting within the larger society. The three

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