Caste in the Present

Caste in the Present

The story of caste in independent India is not one of simple decline or persistence, but of profound and often contradictory transformation. The nationalist movement had set the stage for abolition, but the post-colonial state inherited a deep tension: it was constitutionally committed to ending caste, yet unwilling to dismantle the economic structures that sustained it. The result is a caste system that has adapted, mutated, and in some ways grown more complex.

The Nationalist Legacy and the Post-Independence State

The struggle against caste predated the fight for political freedom. From the second half of the nineteenth century, both ends of the caste spectrum were active — upper-caste progressive reformers and lower-caste leaders like Mahatma Jotiba Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar (in western India), and Ayyankali, Sri Narayana Guru, Iyotheedass, and Periyar (in the South). By the 1920s, both Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar were organising protests against untouchability, and anti-untouchability programmes became a significant part of the Congress agenda. By the time independence was near, there was broad agreement across the nationalist spectrum to abolish caste distinctions.

The dominant nationalist view treated caste as a social evil and a colonial ploy to divide Indians. Yet leaders like Gandhi managed a delicate balancing act: working for the upliftment of lower castes and advocating abolition, while simultaneously reassuring landowning upper castes that their interests would be protected.

The post-independence Indian state inherited and reflected these contradictions:

• On one hand, the state was committed to abolition and explicitly wrote this into the Constitution.
• On the other hand, the state was both unable and unwilling to push through radical reforms that would have undermined the economic basis for caste inequality.
• At yet another level, the state assumed that operating in a caste-blind manner would automatically lead to the undermining of caste-based privileges and eventual abolition.

This caste-blind approach had a predictable flaw. Appointments to government jobs took no account of caste, leaving the well-educated upper castes and the ill-educated (often illiterate) lower castes to compete on "equal" terms. The only exception was reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Economic Change and Its Indirect Effects

The development activity of the state and the growth of private industry affected caste indirectly through speeding up and intensifying economic change. Modern industry created all kinds of new jobs for which there were no caste rules. Urbanisation and the conditions of collective living in cities made it difficult for caste-segregated patterns of social interaction to survive. At a different level, modern educated Indians attracted to liberal ideas of individualism and meritocracy began to abandon the more extreme caste practices.

The Resilience of Caste

Despite these changes, caste proved remarkably resilient. Recruitment to industrial jobs — whether in the textile mills of Mumbai (then Bombay), the jute mills of Kolkata (then Calcutta), or elsewhere — continued to be organised along caste and kinship-based lines. The middlemen who recruited labour for factories tended to recruit from their own caste and region, so that particular departments or shop floors were often dominated by specific castes.

Prejudice against the untouchables remained quite strong and was not absent from the city, though not as extreme as in the village.

It was in the cultural and domestic spheres that caste proved strongest. Endogamy — the practice of marrying within the caste — remained largely unaffected by modernisation and change. Even today, most marriages take place within caste boundaries, although there are more intercaste marriages. While some boundaries may have become more flexible or porous, the borders between groups of castes of similar socio-economic status are still heavily patrolled.

Caste and Politics

Perhaps the most eventful and important sphere of change has been politics. From its very beginnings in independent India, democratic politics has been deeply conditioned by caste. While its functioning has become more and more complex and hard to predict, caste remains central to electoral politics. Since the 1980s, we have also seen the emergence of explicitly caste-based political parties.

In the early general elections, it seemed as though caste solidarities were decisive in winning elections. But the situation soon got very complicated as parties competed with each other in utilising the same kind of caste calculus.

Key Sociological Concepts

Sociologists and social anthropologists coined many new concepts to understand these processes of change. The most common are 'sanskritisation' and 'dominant caste', both contributed by M.N. Srinivas, but discussed extensively and criticised by other scholars.

The land reforms took away rights from the erstwhile claimants — the upper castes who were 'absentee landlords', meaning they played no part in the agricultural economy other than claiming rent. They frequently did not live in the village but were based in towns and cities. These land rights now came to be vested in the next layer of claimants — those involved in the management of agriculture but not themselves the cultivators. These intermediate castes in turn depended on the labour of the lower castes, including especially the 'untouchable' castes, for tilling and tending the land.

Once they got land rights, these intermediate castes acquired considerable economic power. Their large numbers also gave them political power in the era of electoral democracy based on universal adult franchise. Thus, these intermediate castes became the 'dominant' castes in the countryside and played a decisive role in regional politics and the agrarian economy.

Examples of such dominant castes include:

The Paradox of Visibility and Invisibility

One of the most significant yet paradoxical changes in the caste system in the contemporary period is that it has tended to become 'invisible' for the upper caste, urban middle and upper classes.

For these groups — who have benefited the most from the developmental policies of the post-colonial era — caste has appeared to decline in significance precisely because it has done its job so well. Their caste status had been crucial in ensuring that these groups had the necessary economic and educational resources to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by rapid development.

In particular, the upper caste elite were able to benefit from subsidised public education, especially professional education in science, technology, medicine, and management. At the same time, they were also able to take advantage of the expansion of public sector jobs in the early decades after independence. In this initial period, their lead over the rest of society (in terms of education) ensured that they did not face any serious competition. …