Page 146 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 7: Class

lines, dividing the class system into a sector containing the employer and self-employed Notes
classes, a sector containing all the non-manual classes, and a manual sector. The employer
classes recruit a proportion of their members from the lower manual class, this being the
most important link between the employer and manual sectors. Much of the mobility from
the manual into the non-manual sector and within the non-manual sector is through specific
occupations, with sales work being especially important in this respect, particulalry for
women.
• Class in India has existed along with caste and power. Caste in-corporates class and class
incorporates caste in the Indian context. Neither the ‘caste alone’ view nor the ‘class alone’
perspective can help in a proper and fuller understanding of Indian society. It has been
noted that there was never a perfect congruence between caste, class and power. Mobility
and migration were quite normal activities in ancient and medieval India. However, Bailey,
Beteille and Bhatt give the impression that a congruence prevailed between caste, class and
power in the pre-independent India, and land re-forms and politicization have brought
about incongruities and caste-free areas.
• Class relations are as old as caste relations or even older than caste relations. Lamb (1975)
reports the prevalence of class relations as early as 600 B.C. in India. Material and cultural
traditions existed with a sort of congruity, and class transformation had been a vital fact in
the form of new kingdoms, settled agriculture, trade, cities and banking and guild
organizations.
• The mode of production and class contradictions are essential features of the Marxian approach
to social stratification. Gough (1980) considers the mode of production as a social formation
in which she finds interconnections of caste, kinship, family, marriage and even rituals with
the forces of production and production relations. Gough’s study of Thanjavur explains the
emergence of a new bourgeoisie, the polarization of the peasantry, and the pauperization of
the working class due to historical transformations in the mode of production. The totality of
contradictions in social stratification can be seen through the contradictions in the mode of
production.
• Approaches to the concepts of caste and class bear ideological contents. The methodology
and data used in the studies of caste and class provided legitimacy to these approaches.
Caste was treated not as a ‘social formation’, but as an encompassing institution which
encompassed all other aspects of Hindu society. However, caste, in fact, was more than a
‘ritualistic’ mechanism, and it could face a variety of forces and constraints due to its all-
inclusive character. If it were simply a ritualistic arrangement, it would have crumbled
down long ago due to its very cumbersome nature. The social formation of Indian society
comprises class, ethnicity, power, religion and economy along with caste. All these aspects
of the social formation are incorporated into each other. They provide an understanding of
the historicity of Indian society including that of caste and class. Indigenization of the concepts
of caste and class must come from the realization of such a formation and the totality of its
historicity.
• Caste is an all-inclusive institution and it subsumes class relations. Any departure from caste
is treated as incongruence between caste, status, wealth and power, hence the emergence of
class relations. Such a view is known as the structural-functional. Change within the caste
(sanskritization), resilience and consensus are the hallmarks of structural-functionalism.
Dumont is the most well known proponent of structuralism. The pivotal notions of this
approach are reflected in Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus ( 1970). Singh (1981) points out ideology,
dialectics, transformational relationship and comparison as the salient features of Dumont’s
study of caste.

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