Caste and Race in India c5.7

Language: English

c5.7.1

(1) *Segmental Division of Society.*—This caste-society was not a more or less homogeneous community in which, whatever distinctions of social status may exist, they are so much in the background that a special inquiry has to be made in order to realize their presence, but a society in which various groups with distinct appellations were prominent. Castes were groups with a well-developed life of their own, the membership whereof, unlike that of voluntary associations and of classes, was determined not by selection but by birth. The status of a person depended not on his wealth as in the classes of modern Europe, but on the traditional importance of the caste in which he had the luck of being born. On the distinction between caste and class, as far only as cleavage into well-marked groups is concerned, MacIver observes: "Whereas in eastern civilizations the chief determinant of class and status was birth, in the western civilization of to-day wealth is a class-determinant of equal or perhaps greater importance, and wealth is a less rigid determinant than birth: it is more concrete, and thus its claims are more easily challenged; itself a matter of degree, it is less apt to create distinctions of kind, alienable, acquirable, and transferable, it draws no such permanent lines of cleavage as does birth."² To restrict ourselves to the Marathi region, a person is born either a Brahmin, Prabhu, Maratha, Vani, Sonar, Sutar, Bhandari, Chambhar, or a Mahar, etc.

c5.7.2

If he chances to take a vocation which is not earmarked for a particular caste—say the military—he remains a casteman all the same. A Brahmin general and a Maratha general, though of equal status in the army, belong to two different status-groups in their private life and there could be any social intercourse between them on equal terms. But this is not the case in a class-society where status is determined by vocation and consequent income. A class has no council, standing or occasional, to regulate the conduct and guide the morals of its members, apart from the laws of the community as a whole. Members of one class follow different vocations, which, when organized, possess standing executive committees, which govern the members of their profession according to their rules. These rules generally exclude the legitimate province of the wider community, and refer only to professional etiquette or economic gain.

c5.7.3

"In the case of the brain-working professions, these common rules and this authoritative direction seek to prescribe such matters as the qualifications for entry, the character of the training, the methods of remuneration, the conditions of employment, the rules of behaviour towards fellow professionals and the public, the qualifications and methods of selection for public appointments, and the terms of service, the maintenance of the status of the profession, and the power of expulsion."¹ Most of the castes on the other hand, excepting the high ones like the Brahmin² and the Rajput, have regular standing councils deciding on many more matters than those taken cognizance of by the committees of the trade unions, associations, or guilds, and thus encroaching on the province of the whole community. How the Brahmin and other high castes managed their affairs is not quite clear, but in the case of the Brahmins of Southern India at least, it seems from an epigraphic record that as occasion arose they used to call a special meeting of the members of the caste.³ The assembly could get its decree executed by the king's officials. The governing body of a caste is called the Panchayat. Some of the offences dealt with by it are: (a) eating, drinking, or having similar dealings with a caste or sub-caste, with which such social intercourse is held to be forbidden; (b) keeping as concubine a woman of another caste; (c) seduction of or adultery with a married woman; (d) fornication;

c5.7.4

(e) refusal to fulfil a promise of marriage; (f) refusing to send a wife to her husband when old enough; (g) refusing to maintain a wife; (h) non-payment of debt; (i) petty assaults;