Page 144 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 6: Caste System in India

and Animism is artificial and meaningless. This means that because we find admixture of Hindu Notes
religious elements and values in tribal religion and tribal values in Hindu religion, religion as a
single criterion cannot be used to distinguish between a tribe and a caste. Ghurye, Naik and Bailey
have also rejected this criterion.
Using geographical isolation as a criterion of distinction, it is said that the tribals live in geographically
isolated regions like hills and mountains, but Hindus live in plain regions. Due to lesser contacts
with the civilized neighbours, tribals are more uncivilized than the Hindus. It may be true by and
large that tribals live in hills away from the lines of communication but we have examples which
show that many caste Hindus also live in isolated regions and many tribals live in plains. This means
that in addition to a purely geographical isolation, we demand other criteria also to distinguish a
tribe from a caste.
The third criterion is language difference between a tribe and a caste. It is suggested that each tribe
has its own language but not a caste; for example, Gonds speak Gondi language, Bhils speak Bhili or
Vagdi language, Santhals speak Santhali language, and so on. But since there are tribes which do not
have their own languages but speak a dialect of one of the main Indian languages, as in South India,
therefore purely cultural criterion of language also is not a scientific criterion for distinguishing between
a tribe and a caste.
Economic backwardness too is not a correct criterion for distinction between a tribe and a caste. To
maintain that tribals are backward and primitive but caste Hindus are not is not a correct statement.
It is true that many tribes even today are economically backward; they have low income, use primitive
methods in cultivation and in some cases still use barter system in exchange, but there are many
tribes (for example, Meena) which are economically advanced. At the same time, there are many
castes which are as much economically backward as many tribes. Bailey (1960: 9) also rejects this
criterion by holding that in so far as the phrase ‘economically backward’ refers to a standard of living
rather than to a type of economic relationship, it is sociologically unsatisfactory. He has suggested
that instead of taking the totality of behaviour, we should narrow the enquiry (in differentiating
between a tribe and a caste) by concentrating on particular fields of behaviour in a given society. He,
thus, used politico-economic system or ‘economic structure’, as he calls it, for differentiating between
a tribe and a caste in his study of Konds (tribe) and Oriyas (caste) in Orissa. In the analysis of the
politicoeconomic organization, he concentrated on two factors: (i) control over land, and (ii) right to
resources of land. He maintained that in both the tribal and caste societies, we find ‘landowners’ who
have direct access to land, and ‘dependents’ who are dependent on the landowners for achieving
their share of land’s resources. But analyzing the economic organization of a village territory (inhabited
by castes) and a clan territory (inhabited by tribes), he found that a village is divided into economically
specialized interdependent castes arranged hierarchically, whereas though a clan territory is also
composed of groups but these are not hierarchically arranged and nor they are interdependent through
economic organization. In other words, in a tribal society, a larger proportion of people has a direct
access to land while in the case of a caste-based society, the larger population of people achieves the
right to land through a dependent relationship. Thus, according to Bailey (Ibid: 264-65), a tribe is
organized on a ‘segmentary system’ and a caste is organized on an ‘organic system’. He writes: “The
only solution (to differentiate between tribe and caste) is to postulate a continuum, at one end of
which is a society whose political system is entirely of the segmentary egalitarian type and which
contains no dependents whatsoever, and at the other end of which is a society in which segmentary
political relations exist only between a very small proportion of the total society, and most people act
in the system in the role of dependents. The political system of this society can be compared with an
organic system.” But he holds that at what point of continuum a tribe ceases and a caste begins is
impossible to say.
In India, the situation is even more complicated because there is hardly any tribe which exists as a
separate society. No tribe in India has a completely separate political boundary. Big tribes like Bhils,
Santhals, Oraon, etc. are territorially dispersed. Further, almost all tribes have been absorbed in varying
degrees into the wider society. Economically too, the tribal economy is not different from the regional
or national economy. Thus, tribes which answer to the anthropologists’ conception of the ideal type
are rarely to be found. Andre Beteille (1969) says that what we find today in India are tribes in

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