Page 292 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 13: Changing Dimensions of Social Stratification

New Dimensions of Social Stratification Notes

Caste
Several misconceptions about caste have been dispelled with that it is not a static system; it is not
opposite of class; and caste and class are found in both rural and urban settings. Social mobility
and structural changes, migration, conflicting claims and feuds relating to land, property and
resources have always been there in Indian society. Both structural and positional changes and
upward and downward mobility have taken place at different levels, such as group, family and
individual. The nexus between caste and class and its continuity and change could explain the
structural and processual aspects of social stratification in Indian society.
Historicity of the nexus between caste, class and power needs to be studied far more seriously and
carefully. Members of a caste compete each other, and they also exhibit mutual cooperation and
harmony. Class-like distinctions within a caste are quite common, but their conspicuous display is
considered to be an anti-caste activity. Such distinctions are, however, an indicator of high social
status. In matrimonial alliances, such intracaste class-like distinctions play a decisive role.
Caste continues to function as an imagined status group and as a referent for evoking collective
mobilizations and actions on certain occasions. It operates as a device of social arrangement of
people in the local context. At the macro level caste is used as a means of identity, not necessarily
paving way for commonalities and intimate interpersonal relations. Caste functions at times both
formally and informally as an interest group. It becomes a resource, and a means of establishing
as well as expanding social networks.
Caste is increasingly becoming a matter of interpretation rather than substantialization. Caste
refers to purposive rationality, and at the same time, it provides a description and explanation of
the pathologies of modern polity, economy and culture. There is no unilinear hierarchy of caste.
Multiple hierarchies characterize the Indian society. Castes are “discrete categories”, because they
are no more related to each other organically, nor are they segmentary entities. Intercaste relations,
which were the bedrock of caste system, have disappeared. Jajmani has become a defunct institution,
and family and individual have taken over the place of caste in everyday life.
Increasingly, caste has become a desideratum, a state of mind, a plastic and malleable institution.
No more hypersymbolization is manifest to express caste differences and typifications on a
continuing basis. Though there is a process of delegitimation of the “essential” of caste, yet the
sporadic appearance of caste-based decisions, and articulation of religious and metaphysical
interpretations of caste and its divinity, pose a serious challenge to the secularized understanding
of social reality.
Economic/class interpretation of caste is quite common in the Marxist scholarship. Caste has been
appropriated as a means of exploitation. Ramifications of class can be seen in a given caste, and a
caste can be observed in different classes.
Hence, caste-class polarity is unrealistic. As a system of stratification, caste does not have a
monolithic ideology and pattern. Caste needs to be seen more as a process of inequities and social
justice.
Dipankar Gupta pleads for an intersubjective sociology/anthropology against typification to study
the caste system. He rightly ventures to search “individual” in caste. Because, individuals interrogate
their own social existence, reflect on it, and maximize their options. Locating such an individual
in caste would demythologize the rigid and closed hypersymbolizations, typifications and binary
oppositions of Louis Dumont and his tribe. K.L. Sharma has argued in his study of six villages in
Rajasthan that units of social mobility are individual, family and group. The three units are
distinct conceptually, but are also interdependent and non-antagonistic. Gupta substantiates the
differentiated nature of social mobility through search for “individual” in the caste system.

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