The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s14.34

c19.s14.34

33. The foremost authority at the time was Sir Herbert Risly (see *Religionssoziologie* 1: 1, n. 1) who served as census commissioner for the 1901 decennial census of India. His code of regulations formed the basis on which the census of 1901 and of 1911 were conducted. It is not without interest that his *The People of India* (1908) was felt at the time to overstress in the matter of caste "its modern, rigid form" (second, posthumous, edition, edited by W. Crooke, [Calcutta, Simla, London], 1915, xvii). On one hand, early on, British officials evinced "a tendency to emphasize the caste category at the expense of all others," thereby making caste more comprehensive and rigid than warranted (see C. A. Bayly, "Indian Merchants in a 'Traditional Setting,' " in *The Imperial Impact*, ed. C. Dewey and A. C. Hopkins, [London, 1978], 180, n. 54). On the other hand, F. Buchanan, in the beginning of the last century, still spoke of the warlike Sakarwars of the Benares, Shahabad, and Bihar districts adopting "the doctrine of caste and rules of modern purity" (see D. H. A. Kolff, "An Armed Peasantry and Its Allies," [Doctoral thesis, Leiden, 1983], 139, 149).