CASTE

The word caste probably comes from the Portuguese word casta, meaning "species" or "breed" in relation to botany and animal husbandry. It was first applied by the Portuguese to describe the predominant organizing principle of Indian society. The word subsumes two kinds of categorization. One categorization is religious, represented by the word varna, which means "color" in Sanskrit. According to the varna principle, Hindus are divided into four caste groups, together with a fifth group, the untouchables, that exists outside the caste system. The other categorization is by what is called jati, the endogamous, (that is, in-marrying) birth grouping that determines a person's social position and duties and primary nonfamilial allegiances. There are thousands of jatis, often with highly contested (and changing) rankings by varna–and even within a particular varna.

The origins of caste are debated but probably include a mixture of scriptural injunctions, ancient ideas about racial exclusivity, long-term occupational heredity, and colonial categorizations and impositions that converted local endogamous units into pan-Indian groupings.

Caste-like categorizations also exist in some other societies, although without the fine grades of classification found in India. The best-known example outside South Asia is that of the Burakumin ("village people"–social outcasts, known also by the more pejorative term Eta) in Japan, a group of about 2.5 million that has faced persistent barriers to social, economic, and marital integration into mainstream Japanese society based on their ancestry.

Institutionalization of Caste

So tenacious is the hold of caste (and the concepts of social ranking and exclusivity associated with it) that it is a continuing feature of the Indian diaspora even in the developed countries of the West–witness, for example, the caste details specified in the marriage advertisements in Indian publications in the United States. Caste categories are often applied also to non-Hindus of the Indian subcontinent. Sociologists have recorded the caste-consciousness of Muslim and Christian communities in India, the caste referring to that of the Hindu ancestors of these groups before they converted to Islam or Christianity. Such caste-consciousness restricts social intercourse and deters marriages across these ancestral caste lines.

This institutionalization of the social hierarchy implicit in caste rankings in Hinduism is politically important because of the commitment of the post-independence Indian government to a casteless society and to affirmative action to improve the situation of the lowest castes. Pan-Indian and regional caste loyalties have been exploited by both the upper and lower castes to press economic and political demands, increasing intercaste rivalries. In the process, the lower castes have become better able to organize and resist the authority of the upper castes.

Demographic Implications

There are also more direct demographic implications of caste endogamy and caste hierarchy. The widespread acceptance of caste rankings has meant that groups lower down in the hierarchy try to raise their status by adopting the practices of the higher castes–a phenomenon the sociologist M. N. Srinivas termed Sanskritization. Sanskritization is not modernization, though the latter usually accompanies the former. Instead, Sanskritization often entails copying the most traditional, oppressive, and insular habits of the upper castes and giving up of many of the social and, especially, gender equalities and freedoms that characterized the lower castes. In many respects caste is little different from class, and in most societies, as observers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, the eighteenth-century English feminist and writer, and others have pointed out, the upper classes have not been known for greater gender sensitivity.

Caste is an important marker of demographic outcomes. India's censuses and official surveys no longer collect information on caste as such (all censuses from 1872 to 1941 included some question on caste), but they do separate out the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). The Scheduled Castes are the former untouchables, and the Scheduled Tribes are the non-Hindu tribal groups that have remained outside the Indian cultural mainstream. The numerous jatis that make up these two groups have been listed for the purposes of affirmative action. Many of the affirmative policies also apply to what are called the "Other Backward Castes" (OBCs), a mixture of the lowest castes in the fourfold varna system and those untouchable groups that have converted to other religions. Together, SCs (about 19% of the population), STs (about 9%), and OBCs (about 32%) account for some 60 percent of the total population of India (a share that was probably fairly stable over the twentieth century). It is difficult to be sure, because these categories are more fluid than they appear.

In spite of affirmative action policies, socioeconomic differences by caste continue to be large. Even using the three broad caste-group categories, there are significant differences in fertility, mortality, and health that are not explained by differences in standard socioeconomic factors such as income and education. For example, the 1998–1999 Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS) found infant mortality rates (per 1,000 births) of 83 for the SCs, 84 for the STs, 76 for the OBCs, and 62 for the other (upper) castes. The corresponding levels of under-five mortality were 119, 127, 103, and 83. The disadvantage of the SC and ST groups is obvious. Fertility differences are less stark: The total fertility rate in 1998–1999 was 3.15 for the SCs, 3.06 for the STs, 2.83 for the OBCs, and 2.66 for the other castes. For fertility, the regional contrasts in India are much larger.

Caste in India also continues to be a determinant of demographic behavior because it is strongly associated with socioeconomic class, and socioeconomic differentials in fertility and mortality are still marked at this stage of the demographic transition. For instance, literacy levels among ever-married female respondents in the NFHS were 27 percent for the SCs, 21 percent for the STs, 39 percent for the OBCs, and 56 percent for the other castes; corresponding figures for regular exposure to the mass media were 52 percent, 38 percent, 59 percent, and 69 percent. As can be seen in all these indicators, the Scheduled Tribes are the most disadvantaged groups, significantly worse off than even the untouchables. Not only are these tribal groups at the lowest levels of socioeconomic development, they are also the least organized for any kind of concerted political action.

For historical (often to do with the emergence of charismatic leaders), demographic (often to do with their relative numbers), political (often to do with mass mobilization), and cultural (often to do with the position of women) reasons, caste plays more or less salient roles and the relative power of the lower castes differs in different parts of the country. The future of caste as an organizing principle of society is also difficult to predict. With education, urbanization, and all the forces associated with modernization, it could become less relevant in all but the most intimate areas of social relations (that is, marriage) and a less obvious marker of demographic behavior. However, it is also plausible that the upheavals of modernization will mean more caste-based conflict and unrest before this happy homogenization of socioeconomic aspirations and achievements comes about.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bailey, Frederick George. 1960. Tribe, Caste, and Nation: A Study of Political Activity and Political Change in Highland Orissa. Bombay, India: Oxford University Press.

Bayly, Susan. 1999. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

Beteille, Andre. 1969. Castes, Old and New: Essays in Social Structure and Social Stratification. Bombay, India: Asia Publishing House.

Dangle, Arjun, ed. 1992. Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature. Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman.

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Dirks, Nicholas B. 2001. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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International Institute for Population Studies. 2000. India: National Family Health Survey II, 1998–1999. Mumbai, India: International Institute for Population Studies.

Moon, Vasant. 2001. Growing Up Untouchable in India: A Dalit Autobiography. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield.

Srinivas, M. N. 1962. Caste in Modern India, and Other Essays. New York: Asia Publishing House.