SOCIAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
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SOCIAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
More...
Social Infrastructure: The Caste System
Social stratification is a system in which people are divided into layers according to their relative power, property, and prestige. Caste is a form of social stratification. In a caste system, status is determined by birth and is lifelong. In sociological terms the basis of a caste system is ascribed status. Achieved status cannot change an individual’s place in this system. Someone born into a low-status group will always have low status, no matter how much that person may accomplish in life.
Societies with this form of stratification try to make certain that the boundaries between castes remain firm. They practice endogamy, marriage within their own group, and prohibit intermarriage. To prevent contact between castes, they even develop elaborate rules about ritual pollution, teaching that contact with inferior castes contaminates the superior caste.
Caste |
Occupation |
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Brahmin |
Priests or scholars |
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Kshatriya |
Nobles and warriors |
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Vaishva |
Merchants and skilled artisans |
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Shudra |
Common labourers |
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Harijan |
The outcastes; degrading labour |
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India provides the best example of a caste system. Based not on race but on religion, it has existed for almost three thousand years (Chandra 1993a,b). India’s four main castes, or varnas, are depicted in the Table above. The four main castes are subdivided into thousands of specialised subcastes, or jati, with each jati working in a specific occupation. For example, knife sharpening is done only by members of a particular subcaste.
The lowest group listed on the Table above, the Harijan, is actually so low that it is beneath the caste system altogether. The Harijans, along with some of the Shudras, make up India’s “untouchables”. If someone of a higher caste is touched by one of them, that person becomes unclean. In some cases, even the shadow of an untouchable is contaminating. Early morning and late afternoons are especially risky, for the long shadows of these periods pose a danger to everyone higher up the caste system. Consequently, Harijans are not even allowed in some villages during these times. If anyone becomes contaminated, their religion specifies ablution, or washing rituals, to restore purity. (Lannoy 1975).
Although the Indian government declared the caste system abolished in 1949, the force of centuries-old practices cannot be so easily eliminated, and the caste system remains part of everyday life in India (Sharma 1994). The ceremonies one follows at births, marriages, and deaths, for example, are dictated by caste (Chandra 1993a). Due to industralisation and urbanisation, however, this system is breaking down, for it is difficult to maintain caste divisions in crowded and anonymous cities. (Robertson 1976).