Caste and Race in India c12.41

c12.41

The unique institution of caste did not fail to arouse intellectual curiosity among the more intelligent of the Britishers in India, officials as well as non-officials, and our understanding of the institution is largely helped by their work. Some of the early officials like Elliot, Dalton, Sherring, and Nesfield, evinced their interest in the subject by collecting information and publishing it with their comments. Later officials, however, adopted the easier method of utilizing the decennial census for collecting and presenting the information and indulging in the theories of the origins of caste.¹ This procedure reached its culmination in the Census of 1901 under the guidance of Sir Herbert Risley of ethnographic fame. With a view to help "us towards presenting an intelligible picture of the social grouping of that large proportion of the people of India which is organized, admittedly or tacitly, on the basis of caste" the Census Commissioner changed the classification of 1891 into one based on "social precedence as recognized by the native public opinion at the present day and manifesting itself in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern representatives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Hindu system". And this procedure Risley chose in spite of his clear admission that even in this caste-ridden society a person, when questioned about his caste, may offer a bewildering variety of replies: "He may give the name of a sect, of a sub-caste, of an exogamous sect or section, of a hypergamous group; he may mention some titular designation which sounds finer than the name of his caste; he may describe himself by his occupation or by the province or tract of country from which he comes."² Various ambitious castes quickly perceived the chances of raising their status. They invited conferences of their members, and formed councils to take steps to see that their status was recorded in the way they thought was honourable to them. Other castes that could not but resent this "stealthy" procedure to advance, equally eagerly began to controvert their claims. Thus a campaign of mutual recrimination was set on foot. "The leaders of all but the highest castes frankly looked upon the Census as an opportunity for pressing and perhaps obtaining some recognition of social claims which were denied by persons of castes higher than their own."³ In 1911 the Census-reporter for Madras wrote the following: