Question

Assignment on emerging trends of Cates mobility

Answer 1

Caste Mobility: Caste Mobility in India!

Indian social reality has been analysed by social scientists in terms of so­cial categories like caste, class, tribe and religious and linguistic groups. The same categories have been used for getting an insight into the process of change in the society. While earlier it was maintained that caste system keeps Indian society as a closed system, now it is said that the triangle of endogamy, hierarchy and pollution is breaking down (K.S. Singh, 1992:23).

The problem of social mobility is directly linked with the sys­tem of social stratification. Yogendra Singh is of the opinion that the tradition-modernity dichotomy in the studies of social mobility has often led to a confusion of perspectives. Such confusion was found among western scholars. It led them to contend that mobility was absent in the social system of traditional India which was said to have a closed system (ascriptive-oriented) of social stratification.

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This only shows the ideological bias of the scholars. M.N. Srinivas too has said that while traditional Indian society was stationary in character, it did not preclude the mobility, upward as well as downward, of individual castes in the local hierarchy. Surajit Sinha (1957) has also pointed out that many tribals ascended to the position of royalty in India by establishing claim to Kskatriyakood by conquest and accumulation of power.

Silverberg has talked of social mobility in India through renunciation. In the scheme of ashramas, renunciation was prescribed for the twice-born castes. In practice, however, members from the lower castes also used to become sanyasins (mendicants/monks) to escape the deprivations of their own place in the social hierarchy.

In recent times, social mobility as a process has become more active. M.N. Srinivas has explained it through the processes of sanskritisation and westernisation. McKim Marriott, Louis Dumont and Rajni Kothari have also found social mobility prevalent at different levels. On the one hand, the members of lower castes attempt to raise their social status in the caste hierarchy, on the other hand, caste as group attempts mobility by gaining political power or through the process of politicisation of castes.

We will, thus, study caste mobility at different levels:

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(i) Through warfare,

(ii) Through serving rulers,

(iii) Through census commissioners at different levels,

(iv) Through social processes of sanskritisation and westernisation, and

(v) By use of politics.

Mobility through Warfare:

M.N. Srinivas and Pauline Kolenda have referred to caste mobility through resort to warfare in Mughal period. Kolenda has said that until the British unification in the first half of the nineteenth century, the most effective way to rise in the caste system was by the acquisition of territory either through conquest or by peaceful occupancy of sparsely populated or empty land. K. M. Panikkar (the historian) has said that “since the fifth century B.C., every known royal family has come from a non-Kshatriya caste”.

Kolenda has said that in ancient India, rulers were Kshatriyas. There were however, some rulers of peasant jati who after capturing territory had established a kingdom. The peasant conquerors af­ter becoming rulers made claims to being Kshatriyas. Thus, the peasant conquerors rose to Kshatriya rank.

M. N. Srinivas has given the example of Shivaji in Moghul period. Shivaji’s father was Jagirdar or vassal to the Muslim ruler of Bijapur (in present Maharashtra). Shivaji overthrew the Moghul rule and established his own empire from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. His caste, the Maratha, was considered to be of Sudra varna. So Shivaji went through a religious rite of transition into Kshtriyahood.

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