Page 149 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes 3. Fixed Occupation
Each caste has a fixed hereditary occupation. There is an old saying, once a Brahmin, always a
Brahmin and once a Chamar, always a Chamar. Since certain occupations are considered unclean,
persons following them become untouchable and anyone adopting them, unless in company with
his caste, must necessarily be outcasted to preserve the whole caste from pollution. But this also
does not mean that all Brahmins have always to remain engaged in priestly occupation, or all
Rajputs are always to take to protective function by joining the military, etc. Under certain
circumstances, some members in a caste were permitted to change their occupations. Similarly,
different sub-castes of the same caste are found engaged in different occupations. For example,
four sub-castes of a Khatik caste (a caste of butchers) in Uttar Pradesh are engaged in different
occupations of butchery (bekanwala), masonry (rajgar), rope-making (sombatta) and selling of fruits
(mewa farosh). Similarly, Teli caste in Bengal has two divisions—Tili and Teli—the former engaged
in pressing oil and the latter in selling oil since the pressing of oil-seeds is stigmatized as a degrading
occupation because it destroys life by crushing the seeds. Tilis are treated as untouchable but not
the Telis. Telis will outcaste a member who should venture to press it. The change of occupation
did not necessarily involve the change of caste unless it involved the change of status. According
to Blunt (1911: 13), when such a change of status occurs, it will take one of the three forms: (i)
segregation into a new caste, or (ii) affiliation of the new group to another already existing caste,
or (iii) the creation of a new endogamous sub-caste within the original caste.
Though generally the occupational restrictions imposed by caste have a religious motive but
sometimes they may have a purely economic purpose also. For example, O’Malley (Indian Caste
Customs, 1932: 134-135) refers to Sonars (goldsmiths) of one district in Madhya Pradesh who have
a feast at which the caste men take oath that they will not reveal the amount of alloy decided to be
mixed with gold by the Sonars on pain of being outcasted.

After the industrialization of the country, particularly after the two World Wars, a
significant change has come to be observed in this characteristic of the traditional
occupation of caste. Restriction on change of occupation has been weakened and
occupational mobility has become feasible.

4. Caste Councils
Each caste has a council of its own, known as caste panchayat. This panchayat exercised tremendous
power over its members till recently. Today, though some caste panchayats are found to have branches
all over India because of the development of the postal system and rapid communications of various
kinds but till few decades back, these panchayats acted only for a limited area, an area small enough
for the members of the council to assemble and for members of the caste within the area to have
some knowledge of each other as a general rule. Local conditions, such as ease of communication,
etc., determine the area within which the caste council functions. Thus, since the ideal of a council
for the whole caste or even a sub-caste is impossible to attain, the members of a caste or a sub-caste
usually form a nearly related group called biradri (association of kinsmen) which constitutes an
exogamous unit within the endogamous sub-caste or caste. This group acts for the caste or the sub-
caste as a whole in enforcing sanctions on the members within their sphere of action. Some of the
offences dealt with by these panchayats till recently were: eating and drinking with other castes and
sub-castes with whom such intercourse was forbidden, keeping as concubine a woman of other
caste, adultery with a married woman, refusal to fulfil a promise of marriage, non-payment of debt,
petty assaults, breaches of customs, and so on. The mode of punishment usually adopted was
outcasting, fine, feast to caste men, corporal punishment, etc. (Ghurye, 1961: 4). All the members of
the caste were obliged to accept the verdict of their panchayat. Even in the British period, these
panchayats were so powerful that they could retry cases which were once decided by the civil and
the criminal courts. In a way, thus, a caste panchayat was a semi-sovereign body.

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