Page 192 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 8: Changing Trends and Future of Caste System

castes, for example, Julaha (weavers), Teli (oil pressers), Chauffeurs (car-drivers). Among the chauffers, Notes
those who drive Rolls Royce give themselves higher status than those who drive Ford. Similarly, Fiat
or Maruti drivers claim higher status than those who drive Standard car. Enthoven (Origin and Growth
of Caste in India, January 1932) has said that modern India, having created a caste of chauffers from
the menials who tend motor cars, is almost ripe for a Rolls Royce caste rejecting food or marriage
with the Ford drivers. Many religious groups also have been accepted as separate castes; for example,
Brahmo Samjis, Arya Samajis, and Kabir Panthis. Even though these groups have broken away from
Hinduism yet they are considered as Hindus. Cunningham has said that lower castes can raise their
status through education also. The Census Superintendent of Assam wrote in 1931: “The respectability
of a community in Assam can be generally measured by the number of persons belonging to that
community who are in government service.” Thus, as a body, caste serves communities as a ladder
for rising in the social scale.
Lastly, caste transmits culture (skill, knowledge, and behaviour) and the benefits and advances,
achieved in man’s struggle to control environment, from generation to generation. Well-guarded
craft secrets are also transferred to descendants through this process. In this context, caste acts as an
occupational guild in which form it can effectively influence the actions of individuals or of corporate
bodies outside its own membership; for example, every municipality depends upon its scavenging
castes. The strike of sweepers has the most devastating effect on the health and comfort of an urban
population. The united action of caste achieves its objects. Such united action of castes is found in
elections also, though such action is never beneficial to the political life of the community.
From the Point of View of Society
Firstly, the caste system provides for functions necessary to social life, and ranging from education to
scavenging or service of the most menial type. It makes this provision under the sanction of a religious
dogma, the belief in karma (deeds) which renders the superficially inequitable distribution of functions
acceptable as being part of the divine order of the universe. The caste claims that by performing these
functions, if one acquires merit in one life, he may rise in the scale in the birth. Similarly, if one is
suffering from any degradation in caste in this life, it is by reason of its trangressions in the previous
life. In this way, caste acts as a stabilizer. Thus, Shanans of South India, in spite of the wealth they
have acquired, have no right to build two-storied houses, to wear gold ornaments, or to use an
umbrella. The very nature of the (caste) system discourages attempts to surmount existing barriers of
rank or occupation. Hutton (1961: 122) has maintained that the truth is that caste has developed as a
quasi-organic structure in which a caste stands to the society as a whole in a relation almost analogous
to that of an individual cell to the greater organism of which it forms part.
Secondly, caste performs the genetic function of maintaining balance in the sex ratio. India is a country
in which males always out-number females. While in 1901 and 1911, there were 905-908 females per
1,000 males, their number in 1971 was 911, in 1981 was 919, and in 1991 was 913. Amongst Hindus,
there are 953 females for every 1,000 males. The caste system contributes to the preponderance of
mas-culinity. Westermark takes the view that a mixture of race leads to an increase in the ratio of
females to males. This is because mixed marriages produce more girls. Hutton has said that this may
not be proved but there is a good deal of evidence to support the theory that pure-blooded societies
produce an excess of males. The caste system, through its rule of endogamy, preserves what is called
in Genetics ‘the pure line’. With the preservation of pure line, the perpetuation of all characters
common to it necessarily follows.
Thirdly, caste acts as a political stabilizer, that is, it keeps political order free from change. It was this
function of the caste system which moved Abbe Dubois (A Description of the People of India, 1817,
quoted by Hutton in Caste in India, 1961) to regard the caste system as being responsible for (a) the
preservation of India from complete barbarism, (b) as the sure basis of orderly government, (c) as
defence against despotism (uncontrolled government), (d) as a means of preserving arts, and (e) as a
means of preserving the Hindu pattern of culture under the regime of alien conquerors. S.C. Hill
(Origin of Caste System in India, 1930) also holds the same view. He writes: “Whereas in Europe, we
are accustomed to think of the political and social systems of a country as one and the same thing, the
Hindus regard them as distinct and separate. Thus, his intimate life, the life which to the Hindu

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