Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s2.5

c6.s2.5

Leaving out of account certain populations definitely inferior by race, isolated by geographical conditions and by history, and secondary in numerical importance, the whole of India appears to us not as a simple collection of individuals, but as a mass of corporate unities. Their numbers, names, character, and functions are infinitely diverse; they form everywhere the invariable and apparently necessary framework of the population. The family-community has been maintained or restored in vast regions; the village-community owes its right of self-government either to traditional custom or, more especially, to the impotence of the central power, which, before the advent of British rule, drew up no wise measures: it was inclined to confine its normal activities to tax-collecting. But I have in view groups less restricted than these. They are not by their nature attached to any definite geographical division; they include many villages, or are involved in the same domain with a multitude of analogous groups. Unequal in number and opposed in customs, they have, however, common traits which place them in the same category: they are distinguished by special names, and meet together in assemblies to confer on certain matters. They isolate themselves sedulously in order to avoid intermarriage and to keep the rule which prohibits any contact or sharing of meals between them. Each is differentiated by his special hereditary occupation. Their jurisdiction keeps watch over the strict observance of the rules sanctioned by tradition. These groups are *castes*—or, it should be added, *quasi-castes*.