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Unit 8: Changing Trends and Future of Caste System

based on their socio- religious mores and folkways. The Hindus also tolerated their customs and Notes
permitted them to retain their practices with the spirit of compromise. The tribe thus became an
endogamous caste. This slow process of assimilation was seen in various stages of development
in different parts of India.
3. The Aryan Desire for Racial Purity
When the Aryans entered India during the second century B.C., they were divided into three
classes: the ruling or military class, the priestly class, and the commoners. Initially, it was possible
for the people to pass from one class to another. The Aryans, wishing to preserve their racial
purity, seem to have prohibited inter-marriage with the aborigines. To this day, the higher castes
generally have fair skins and narrower noses than the castes lower on the scale.
4. Guild Perpetuation
The gradual development of industry brought division of labour. The Aryans, with better paying
occupations, protected the interests of their children by assigning them the traditional family
occupation, combined with guild endogamy. They forced on some of the native inhabitants heavy
manual labour, scavenging, and working with carcasses of dead cattle. Those who were compelled
with such defiled occupations were prohibited from marrying those whose work was honoured.
The desire to perpetuate the guild and its rights was a factor that strengthened caste.
5. Priestly Supremacy and Religious Dogmas
When the Aryans came into India, initially priesthood admitted recruits from other classes. The
priest class was, however, subordinate to the military class. Gradually, the Brahmins gained
supremacy by monopolizing the priestly work. When Buddhism was accepted as state religion in
550 B.C., it opposed the caste system by emphasizing virtue rather than birth as means of salvation.
The Brahmins regarded their ascendancy after wars with the Kshatriyas and promulgated many
dogmas to perpetuate their supremacy. These dogmas were piously believed and gave strong
religious backing to the maintenance of caste barriers throughout the ages. The initiation of religious
ideas has been infectious. The vested interests of the Brahmins have for centuries been supported
by the civil powers. Many a sub-castes came into origin with some new rituals and claimed full
status as an endogamous caste. And thus, the number of castes went on increasing. The rigidity in
the caste system too increased.
6. Migration
As groups moved to new places, they were soon isolated from their parental castes, since means
of transport and communication had not developed. Travel by foot or by cart was the only means
of keeping in touch with the kin. Gradually, their food, customs and rituals changed through the
years. These variations gave rise to new caste groups.
Pre-independence Industrial Period (1919-1947 A.D.)

The British did little to modify India’s religious and social customs. They adopted ‘hands off policy’
to produce planned social change. They promised complete religious neutrality and freedom of
worship to the people. The collectors of land taxes were elevated into zamindars and maharajas. Men at
the top of the caste hierarchy were confirmed in their prerogatives and powers over the destinies of
their fellows. Under such conditions, many of the customs connected with caste continued to flourish.
Some exceptions were that the civil statutes (for example, Removal of Caste Disabilities Act) and
courts sometimes regulated marriage and that the criminal courts, in stead of the caste councils,
decided cases of assault, adultery and rape. In spite of the legalization of inter-caste marriages by the
Special Marriage Act of 1872, these never became numerically important.
After the World War, India came to be industrialized more and more which led to the migration of
the people from villages to cities, that is, to the process of urbanization. Besides these two factors of
industrialization and urbanization, some other factors also changed the caste structure in this period.
Before we discuss the structure of the caste system in the present period and analyze how its rigours
have slackened, we will first discuss the role of two factors of industrialization and urbanization
responsible for change in the caste structure in the first half of the twentieth century.

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