Discuss the concept of caste and class in indian context
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
HLO......... FRND
A caste is a social category whose members are assigned a permanent status within a given social hierarchy and whose contacts are restricted accordingly.
It is the most rigid and clearly graded type of social stratification. It has also often been referred to as the extreme form of closed class system.
A social class consists of a number of individuals who share similar status often ascribed at birth but capable of being altered. Class, therefore, does not consist of organised closed groups defined by law or religion as does caste, nor are the various strata in the system as rigid and easily identifiable.
The following table summarizes a comparison between the class and caste system of society.
There are two approaches:
(i) Marxist
(ii) Non-Marxist/Weberian
Marxists analyse stratification of rural India in terms of modes of production and relations of production. Marxists say that there are many variables but the most important variable is the mode of production. Non-Marxists or Weberians feel that stratification takes place because of three variables.
(i) Wealth
(ii) Power
(iii) Prestige
1. Wealth is defined as ability to produce or inherit properties.
2. Prestige refers to honour and style of life.
3. Power means the ability to control over others.
When all these three things are considered, the individuals are accordingly categorized.
The stratification system Involve any quality which means a group of persons may get more power/prestige/wealth or all the three in combination. Many studies have been conducted on the basis of Marxist analysis.
They have given emphasis on:
(i) Ownership of land
(ii) Types of peasants (i.e. landowners, petty landholders, landless labours)
(iii) Types of technology which is used at the time of production,
(iv) Labour class.
(v) Amount of surplus at the time of production.
Supporters of Non-Marxist approach consider class, status and power as the basis of social stratification of rural India.
Iravati Karve observed that an Indian is identified mainly through three variables/areas:
(i) Caste
(ii) Language
(iii) Village.
In Indian village, northern or southern, caste has a very important role in giving identification to the individual.
(i) Caste as a cultural phenomenon.
(ii) Caste as a structural phenomenon.
Caste is associated with an autonomous form of cultural system or world view.
The basis of cultural system is:
(a) Institutionalized inequality.
(b) Closed social mobility.
(c) Simple Division of Labour (assignment of occupation).
(d) Ritualistic reciprocity (dependence on other caste categories for some rituals or customs).
(e) Importance of purity and pollution.
These classes are agricultural classes. In other words, landholdings have never been even in rural India. Differences in the size of land have created diverse agricultural classes in rural society.
Caste-class transformation is a very complex process.
In conclusion, we can sum up that both caste and class are inseparable and closely interlinked. Class like distinction within caste and caste life-style within the class are a part and parcel of the members of the society. Both caste and class are real, empirical, interactional and hierarchical.
One incorporates the other. Common class consciousness among the members of a caste is mainly due to their common economic deprivations.
In connection to caste-class nexus some conclusion can be drawn:
(i) The caste system functions as an extremely effective method of economic exploitation.
(ii) The caste hierarchy is linked with social hierarchy and it reflects ownership of land.
(iii) Caste determines a definite relation with the means of production.
(iv) B.R. Ambedkar rightly observed that the caste system not only divides labour or indicate division of labour but also divides the entire social structure.
So caste and class represent similar social reality but from varying perspectives.
I THINK THIS INFORMATION IS USEFUL TO U ........
Answer:
Explanation:
The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic example of caste. It has origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. It is today the basis of educational and job reservations in India. The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system. Vaidyanathan argues that the caste system existed at the village level to serve the needs of its people, however, the method in which the 1881 census was carried out in India by the British Raj institutionalized the caste system on a much larger national scale.
The caste system as it exists today, is thought to be the result of developments during the collapse of the Mughal era and the rise of the British colonial regime in India. The collapse of the Mughal era saw the rise of powerful men who associated themselves with kings, priests and ascetics, affirming the regal and martial form of the caste ideal, and it also reshaped many apparently casteless social groups into differentiated caste communities.The British Raj furthered this development, making rigid caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.[8] Between 1860 and 1920, the British segregated Indians by caste, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to Christians and people belonging to certain castes. Social unrest during the 1920s led to a change in this policy. From then on, the colonial administration began a policy of divisive as well as positive discrimination by reserving a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes. In 1948, negative discrimination on the basis of caste was banned by law and further enshrined in the Indian constitution, however the system continues to be practiced in India with devastating social effects.
Caste-based differences have also been practised in other regions and religions in the Indian subcontinent like Nepalese Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. It has been challenged by many reformist Hindu movements, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity, and also by present-day Indian Buddhism.[18] Each religion in India also continues to have a hierarchy based on castes, thus dalits exist among Hindus, Christians as well as Sikhs, wherein all manual scavengers and pig herders in most villages in Punjab are Dalit Sikhs.