Page 147 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes In the ‘opinion-assessing’ method, the ranks of various castes in the collective caste hierarchy are
assessed on the basis of the opinions of various respondents from different castes. The advantage
in the ‘opinion-assessing’ method over the ‘observational’ method is that in the former, it is possible
to regard hierarchy and interaction as two variables and study their relationship. A.C. Mayer,
M.N. Srinivas, D.N. Majumdar, S.C. Dube, Pauline Mahar, etc. had used the observational method
while Mckim Marriot and Stanley Freed had used the opinion-assessment method in analyzing
the caste ranks in the caste hierarchy. S.C.Dube ( 1955: 34-42) used only one criterion for determining
the caste hierarchies in three villages in Telangana: which castes can theoretically take food from
which other castes. Mayer (Caste and Kinship in Central India, 1960) on the other hand, used the
criterion of ‘commensality’ which involves principally the giving and taking of food and water
and sharing of the same pipe (huka) among various castes. Pauline Mahar ( 1959: 92-107) ranked
castes with regard to their ritual purity and pollution by using a multiple-scaling technique. She
issued a 13-item questionnaire about the kinds of interaction between castes which involve to a
considerable extent ritual purity and pollution. M.N. Srinivas (cf. Mckim Marriott, 1955) and D.N.
Majumdar (1959) constructed their own picture of hierarchy. Srinivas, however, agrees that such
evaluations (by constructing one’s own picture of hierarchy) are somewhat subjective. Mayer also
maintains that caste hierarchies constructed according to different criteria do not completely agree.
Mckim Marriott (1955) and Stanley Freed (1963: 879-91) used the card system to determine median
rank for each caste in the collective caste hierarchy. Both presented a set of movable cards, upon
each of which was written the name of a caste, to each respondent with a request to arrange the
cards in their order of rank. The slight difference between. Marriott’s and Freed’s procedure was
that Marriott presented the cards one by one, while Freed presented them altogether. Scholars
like Srinivas and Mayer have commented that caste membership may influence a person’s view
of the caste hierarchy, or at least his opinion about the place of his own caste within it. But Freed
did not find it to be so. In his study of twenty-five respondents in 1957-58 selected from twelve
castes in Shantinagar village (pseudonym) near Delhi, he found that most of the respondents
ranked their own castes close to the ranks accorded to them by others. He, thus, concluded that
caste membership has little effect upon a person’s overall views of the caste hierarchy.
In recent years, though there has been a change in some characteristics of the caste system but
there has been no change at all in the hierarchical characteristic.
2. Commensal Restrictions
Detailed rules are laid down with regard to the kind of food that can be accepted by a person from
different castes. According to Blunt (1911: 90), there are seven important taboos in this respect: (i)
commensal taboo, which determines rules regarding persons in whose company a man may eat;
(ii) cooking taboo, which lays down rules regarding persons who may cook food that a man may
eat; (iii) eating taboo, which prescribes rituals to be observed at the time of eating; (iv) drinking
taboo, which prescribes rules regarding accepting water etc., from other persons; (v) food taboo,
which prescribes rules regarding the kind of food (kachcha, pucca, green vegetables, etc.) a man
may eat with members of other castes; (vi) smoking taboo, which lays down rules regarding
persons whose pipe (hukka) a man may smoke; and (vii) vessels taboo, which determines the
types of vessels to be used or avoided for cooking food to protect oneself from being polluted.
Blunt believes that the commensality restriction is the result of marriage restriction, but Hutton
(1963: 73) claims it is the other way round, if one comes before the other at all. On the basis of the
severity of the food taboo, Blunt (Ibid: 90) has classified castes into five groups: (i) castes which
take the kachcha (cooked with water) and pucca (cooked with ghee) food cooked only by a member
of their own endogamous group; (ii) castes which eat food cooked by the members of own caste
and also by Brahmins; (iii) castes which take food cooked by the members of own caste or by
Brahmins or by Rajputs; (iv) castes which take food cooked by the members of own caste or by
Brahmins or Rajputs or by lower castes of rank which they regard as at least equal to their own;
and (v) castes which eat food cooked by almost anyone. Hutton (Ibid: 75) has criticized this
classification because of the distinct restrictions on the kachcha and pucca food. Some which fall
into one group as regards the kachcha food will fall into another in regard to the pucca food about
which they are not so strict. For example, some Brahmin castes and Kachhi (vegetable sellers) and

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