Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s2.6

c6.s2.6

In reality, all these, in spite of the general resemblance both of the practices they observe and of the machinery by which they are maintained, are profoundly different. Many have entirely local existences, and several have very exceptional laws. The military aristocracy of the Nayars, confined to the coast of Malabar, is founded on polyandry. In the Panjab, where the Muslim conquest and the constant infiltration of foreign elements has reacted perceptibly on the social constitution of the country, large classes—for example, the Pathans and the Baluchis,¹ whose name attests a more or less purely geographical origin—are free from several laws which are essential characteristics of the caste, as properly defined. At another extremity of India, in Bengal, a number of corporate unities, while approximating as closely as they can to the constitution laid down for the caste by Brahmanic precepts, are betrayed either by their name or by the authoritative agreement of all witnesses, as imperfectly assimilated non-Aryan groups. Their inclusion in the scheme of Hindu organization is more or less arbitrary. It is the same everywhere, so that the ideas of tribe and caste are closely connected and sometimes even confused.