Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s2.13

c8.s2.13

To confound the one with the other is, in my opinion, to produce general confusion. I have given several reasons for this. The class and the caste correspond neither in extent, in character, nor in natural tendencies. Each one, even among the castes which would belong to one and the same class, is plainly distinguishable from its fellows; it isolates itself from them with a rigour which is not tempered by any regard for an underlying unity. The class subserves political ambition; the caste obeys narrow scruples, traditional customs, or, at most, certain local influences which have as a rule no relation to class-interests. Above all, the caste clings to the safeguarding of an integrity which is the subject of deep concern and sensitiveness even with the humblest. It is the distant echo of the class-struggles, handed down by legend, with which tradition resounds. By the reaction of principles on facts the two institutions may have become fused together; they are none the less essentially independent.