Page 197 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes has written that “the dynamics of caste change has both economic and social aspects. The economic
aspect is related to the change in occupational specialization of castes and the social aspect concerns
with the adoption of higher caste customs, giving up of polluting professions, etc. There are changes
in both these aspects and these changes provide the background of change in the caste system”. He
further said that these changes have led to the rise of tension between the higher and the lower
castes, for there is a threat to the status quo of the upper castes. His opinion is that the caste system has
markedly changed in the urban areas where rules on social intercourse and caste commensatities
have relaxed and civil and religious disabilities of lower castes have been lifted. E.J. Miller, while
referring to the changes in the caste system, pointed out that. “In the past, inter-caste relations involved
traditionally ordained and clear-cut rights and obligations, authority and subordination. But at present
with the change in the economic structure of the village, pattern of inter-caste relations has changed.
Inter-caste conflict has emerged in the village structure as a result of the efforts made by the lower
castes to move up in the social scale.
Along with Miller, several other scholars like Bryce Ryan, M.N. Srinivas, S.C. Dube have also suggested
the changing pattern of the caste system. M.N. Srinivas (1952, reprinted 1985) has maintained that
the mutual rights and obligations among the castes are crumbling down. Change of loyalty of an
individual from his village to his caste is noted. Change has also come through sanskritization and
westernization. Brahmins were preceded by the British even though they are pork and beaf, drank
whisky and smoked a pipe. But because they had the economic and political power, they were feared,
admired and respected. The result was that new and secular caste system superimposed on the
traditional system in which the British, the new Kshatriyas, stood at the top.
But the scholars of the other viewpoint (who describe the changes in the caste system taking place
slowly and gradually and in some cases even superficial) do not consider these changes as being
disintegrative of the caste system as a whole. These scholars, though do not imply the dissolution of
caste, yet have made it clear that caste today is not the same as it was half a century or a century ago.
For example, Desai and Damle (1981: 66) said: “The magnitude of the changes in the parts of the caste
system is not as great as it is believed to be. These changes have not affected the essential aspects of
the caste system as a whole.” Ghurye (1961: 209-210) was of the opinion that caste system has shed
some of its features. He said: “Caste no longer rigidly determines an individual’s occupation but
continues to prescribe almost in its old vigour the circle into which one has to marry. One has still to
depend very largely on one’s caste for help at critical periods of one’s life, like marriage and death.”
He further said: “Though caste has ceased to be a unit administering justice, yet it has not lost its hold
on its individual members who still continue to be controlled by the opinion of the caste” (Ibid: 190).
He believed that vitality of the (caste) system in social life is as strong today as it ever was (Ibid: 211).
Narmadeshwar Prasad (1956: 240) analyzed caste functions at two levels: ritual (marriage, dining,
etc.) and ideology) (attitude to Brahmins uniting to fight elections, etc.). He found that changes were
taking place on both the levels of ritual and ideology. In spite of these changes, he maintained that
the caste system as such remains very much the same. Changes within the system do take place but
not beyond the system.
Kapadia (“Caste in Transition” in Sociological Bulletin, September 1962: 75) tried to study the transitional
nature of the different characteristics of the caste system by focusing on four characteristics: caste
councils, commensal taboos, ceremonial purity, and endogamy. Analyzing the functioning of caste
councils, he found that when caste councils were very powerful in 1860s and in 1910s, in 1960s also
though they were legally deprived of their authority to enforce their traditional norms upon their
members by ex-communication, yet they continued to regulate the conduct and minds of their
members. Talking of the change in the commensal taboo, he found that though it was true that even
in the rural areas inter-dining, where members of all castes (including the Harijans) sit together in a
row, was not uncommon in 1960s, but at the same time there was evidence to indicate that these
inhibitions were not completely uprooted psychologically even in the urban areas (Ibid: 74). Referring
to the change in ceremonial purity, Kapadia (Ibid: 77) stated that the Hindu concept of pollution was
very extensive in its scope and mandatory in its observance till the twenties of this century. These
rules are still observed in some high caste families—more often in moffusil and rural areas. But on
the whole, they may be said to have been almost dispensed with. Lastly, pointing to endogamy (Ibid:

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