Question

What do you understand by dominant caste in 100 words?

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

The concept of ‘dominant caste’ was propounded by M.N. Srinivas. It was for the first time appeared in his essay on the social system of a Mysore village. While constructing the concept, perhaps Srinivas was unconsciously influenced by African studies on the dominant clan and dominant lineage. Srinivas developed the concept in his study of Rampura village which is a little away from Mysore city in Karnataka state. Srinivas, in fact, wanted to give a comprehensive study of Rampura.  

To write down the details of the village he had gone to Stanford for writing down a monograph on Rampura. But there “by a strange quirk of fate all the three copies of my fieldwork notes, processed over a period of eighteen years” were destroyed when a fire took place in his Stanford office. Everything was destroyed for Srinivas. Whatever he remembered about Rampura, later on came in the form of The Re­membered Village (1976). The definition of ‘dominant caste’ has undergone some change over a period of time. Srinivas worked in Rampura in 1948.

His find­ing was first reported in 1955. He defined the concept as below:  

The concept of dominant caste which has emerged in recent socio­logical research is important in this connection. A caste is dominant when wields economic or political power and occupies a fairly high position in hierarchy (even in the traditional system of a caste which acquired economic and political power did succeed in improving its ritual status).  

Srinivas says that the existence of dominant caste is not particular to Rampura only. It is found in other villages of the country also. For instance, in Mysore villages, Lingayat and Okkaliga; in Andhra Pradesh, Reddy and Kamma; in Tamilnadu, Gounder, Padayachi and Mudaliar; in Kerala, Nayar; in Maharashtra, Maratha; in Gujarat, Pati- dar; and in northern India, Rajput, Jat, Giyar and Ahir are dominant castes. Traditionally, numerically small castes owning land in rural ar­eas or wielding political power or inheriting a literary tradition were able to dominate the villages. Srinivas has provided historical reasons for the power exercised by the traditional higher castes. He says that the traditional high castes had influence because of western education and the benefits which they conferred.  

Earlier, numerical strength of a caste was not much important. But with the coming of adult suffrage and the reservation given to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, numerical strength has assumed importance. Srinivas writes:  

Nowadays, with the coming of adult suffrage, numerical strength has become very important and the leaders of the dominant castes help the political parties to secure votes.  

But the traditional forms of dominance have not entirely disappeared and neither has dominance shifted fully to the numerically strongest caste, there is no doubt, however, that there is a shift and this traditional phase is marked by inter-group tensions. But what is significant from our point of view is that in many parts of India there are castes which are decisively domi­nant.

three characteristics of a dominant caste:

1. A caste dominates when it wields economic and political power.  

2. It has a high rank in caste hierarchy.  

3. Numerical strength.