Caste and Race in India c12.119

c12.119

To sum up, social and religious privileges and disabilities born of caste are no longer recognized in law and only partially in custom. Only the depressed classes are labouring under certain customary and semi-legal disabilities. Caste no longer rigidly determines an individual's occupation, but continues to prescribe almost in its old rigour the circle into which one has to marry. One has still to depend very largely on one's caste for help at critical periods of one's life, like marriage and death. One's closest companions and friends are mainly delimited by the circle of one's caste. The difference between the old regime and contemporary society lies in this that whereas under the ancient organization the facts mentioned above were almost universally true, to-day there is a section of society—the modernly educated persons—small yet important, which has risen above all these restrictions. They are bound to serve as beacon-lights to the wavering members of society. Attitudes of exclusiveness and distrust, enshrined in the old vernacular proverbs, between caste and caste, still persevere even in the minds of the educated. Caste-associations are very common and command the services of even the most highly educated persons to further their object of helping the members of their castes. As long as endogamy is prescribed and practised, wider self-interest dictates that one should help the aggrandisement of the members of one's caste. For the better the economic prospects for the youths of the caste the greater the chances of getting well-to-do husbands for one's daughters. The rule of endogamy is in a way the fundamental factor of contemporary caste.