Caste and class: differences, dominant caste and changing relations
Sociology - Indian Society Continuity and Change · Unit IV · Topic 14 of 16 · 4 min read
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Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
1. Class
A class is a stratum of people who share a similar position in the economic order. Karl Marx defined classes by their relation to the means of production (bourgeoisie and proletariat). Max Weber defined class by life chances in the market and separated it from status (social honour) and party (power). MacIver and Page: a social class is any portion of a community marked off from the rest by social status. Class is open: membership depends on income, occupation and education and can change in a lifetime.
2. Differences between caste and class
| Basis | Caste | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Membership | Ascribed by birth | Achieved: income, education, work |
| Nature | Closed | Open |
| Mobility | Very little; rank of group fixed | Upward and downward possible |
| Marriage | Strict endogamy | No rule; class endogamy only by preference |
| Sanction | Religious (karma, dharma, purity) | Secular, economic |
| Occupation | Hereditary | Freely chosen |
| Restrictions | Food, contact, dress | None formally |
| Consciousness | Caste solidarity, caste council | Class consciousness (Marx) |
| Scope | Peculiar to India and South Asia | Universal |
3. Are castes the opposite of classes?
The table suggests opposites: caste closed and ritual, class open and economic. Most Indian sociologists reject a strict opposition.
- Andre Beteille (Caste, Class and Power, 1965, study of Sripuram, Thanjavur) showed that in the past caste, class and power coincided: Brahmins owned land and held office. Over time the three separated: non-Brahmins gained power through politics, and land passed to other castes.
- Overlap: upper castes are disproportionately in the upper classes and Scheduled Castes in the labouring classes (Ramkrishna Mukherjee’s Bengal villages).
- Castes are becoming class-like: they act as interest groups competing for political power and jobs.
- Classes within castes: a “creamy layer” within OBCs and SCs; poor Brahmins.
- D.N. Majumdar called caste “a closed class”: on this view the difference is one of degree of openness, not of kind.
Conclusion: caste and class are distinct principles but not opposites. In modern India they coexist and interpenetrate, with class gaining weight in cities and caste retaining weight in marriage and politics.
4. The dominant caste (M.N. Srinivas)
Srinivas introduced the concept in his 1955 study of Rampura. A caste is dominant when it has:
- numerical strength in the village or region;
- economic power, especially ownership of a large share of the land;
- political power;
- a fairly high ritual status (not low in the local hierarchy);
- Western education and jobs in administration;
- urban sources of income.
Examples: Okkaligas and Lingayats (Karnataka), Jats (Haryana, western U.P.), Marathas (Maharashtra), Reddys and Kammas (Andhra), Patidars (Gujarat). A dominant caste settles disputes, controls the panchayat, and is the reference model for Sanskritisation in its locality. Criticism: dominance often comes from land and politics alone, with ritual status unimportant; concept fits peasant castes better than others.
5. Influence of legislation on caste
- Constitution: Article 14 (equality), 15 (no discrimination on caste; 15(4) and 15(5) special provisions), 16(4) reservation in posts, 17 (abolition of untouchability), 46 (promotion of weaker sections), 330 and 332 (reserved seats).
- Statutes: the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955; the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989; the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013; the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (inter-caste marriage); land reform and bonded labour abolition (Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976).
- Effect: legal disabilities ended; SCs and OBCs entered education, jobs and legislatures; reservation for OBCs after the Mandal Commission (implemented from 1990); the 73rd Amendment (1992) reserved panchayat seats. But reservation also made caste a basis of political mobilisation, so legislation weakened caste as hierarchy while strengthening it as identity.
6. Changes in caste and class relations
- Decline of ritual hierarchy: purity-pollution rules relaxed, especially in cities, trains, hotels and offices.
- Occupational change: hereditary work replaced by market occupations; the jajmani system has largely broken down.
- Endogamy weakened but persists; inter-caste marriages rising slowly.
- Caste in politics: caste associations and caste-based parties; Rajni Kothari’s Caste in Indian Politics (1970) on the politicisation of caste.
- Rise of new classes: a middle class drawn from many castes; a Dalit middle class through reservation; rich peasant classes from backward castes.
- Separation of caste, class and power (Beteille).
- New conflicts: atrocities and agitations as lower castes assert rights; demands by dominant castes for reservation.
Causes: legislation, education, industrialisation, urbanisation, democratic politics, land reform, and reform movements (Phule, Ambedkar, Narayana Guru, Periyar).
How this is examined
For “changes in caste and class relations”, define both, then use section 6 with causes and a balanced conclusion (caste changes its form, does not disappear). For “Are castes opposite of classes?”, give the table briefly and spend most of the answer on section 3. The dominant caste note needs Srinivas, Rampura, the six attributes and two examples.
Now try the real questions: Sociology - Indian Society Continuity and Change past question papers.