Social Institutions: Continuity and Change

The caste system is based on two linked ideas: separation and hierarchy. Separation means that each caste is supposed to be different from and strictly separated from every other caste. This is why caste rules regulate marriage, food-sharing, social interaction, and occupation so that castes do not mix. Hierarchy means that all castes are placed in an ordered rank, from higher to lower. This rank is explained through the distinction between purity and pollution: castes seen as purer get higher status, while castes seen as impure get lower status. So, separation keeps castes apart, and hierarchy arranges them in unequal ranks.

Some important rules imposed by the caste system are:

1. Birth determines caste — a person is born into the caste of the parents and cannot choose it.
2. Endogamy — marriage must take place within the caste.
3. Rules about food and food-sharing — caste prescribes what food may or may not be eaten and with whom food may be shared.
4. Hierarchy of rank — every caste has a fixed place in a ladder-like social order.
5. Sub-divisions within castes — castes usually contain sub-castes.
6. Hereditary occupation — a person traditionally had to follow the occupation associated with the caste, and others could not enter it.

These rules create strict boundaries between castes and prevent mobility.

Colonialism brought major changes in the caste system. The British tried to understand caste through surveys, reports, and especially the census. The 1901 Census under Herbert Risley tried to record the social hierarchy of castes, and this encouraged castes to make claims about their rank through petitions and evidence. As a result, caste identities became more rigid and officially recorded than before. Colonial administration also introduced the category of “depressed classes” and later gave legal recognition to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes through the Government of India Act, 1935. So colonial rule helped transform caste from a more fluid system into one that was more fixed, counted, and classified.

For the urban upper castes, caste has become relatively “invisible” because their caste status already gave them the educational and economic advantages needed to benefit from modern development. They were able to use subsidised education, especially professional education, and also take advantage of public sector jobs and later private opportunities. Their success then makes it seem as if caste no longer matters in public life. For them, caste often appears to be limited only to the personal sphere of marriage, kinship, and religion, so it seems less visible than before.

Tribes in India have been classified in two main ways:

1. Permanent traits: region, language, physical characteristics, and ecological habitat.
2. Acquired traits: mode of livelihood and the extent of incorporation or assimilation into Hindu society.

On the basis of livelihood, tribes may be described as fishermen, hunters and food gatherers, shifting cultivators, peasants, plantation workers, or industrial workers. On the basis of language they are grouped into Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austric, and Tibeto-Burman categories. In physical-racial terms, they are classified as Negrito, Australoid, Mongoloid, Dravidian, and Aryan.