Has caste lost its relevance in understanding the multi-cultural Indian Society? Elaborate your answer with illustrations.. (UPSC IAS Mains 2020 General Studies Paper – 1)
The caste system was originally intended to organise the society on the basis of occupation. Caste became an arrangement to pass on the skills acquired to the posterity.
- Each caste had their own distinct customs, assumptions, values, communicative styles which coexisted simultaneously.
- But, gradually the caste system rigidified and it became hereditary and a symbol of status and pride.
- Sanskritisarion was one factor which predominantly encouraged homogenisation of cultural values, aided by modernisation.
Caste and its relevance
- The development activity of the state and the growth of private industry have affected caste indirectly through the speeding up and intensification of economic change. The modern industry created all kinds of new jobsfor which there were no caste rules.
- Urbanisation and the conditions of collective living in the citiesmade it difficultforthe caste-segregated patterns of social interaction to survive.
- Modern educated Indians attracted to the liberal ideas of individualism and meritocracy, began to abandon the more extreme caste practices. However, it was in the cultural and domestic spheres that caste has proved strongest.
- Endogamy, or the practice of marrying within the caste, remained largely unaffected by modernisation and change. Even today, most marriages take place within caste boundaries, although there are more intercaste marriages.
- Since the 1980s, we have also seen the emergence of explicitly caste-based political parties. The policies of reservation and other forms of protective discrimination are instituted by the state in response to political pressure.
- A new casteism has emerged, which is characterized by the success of certain selected privileged castes. The benefits of capitalism, after 1991, has not percolated down to castes which are deprived of education or marked by poverty.
One of the most significant yet paradoxical changes in the caste system in the contemporary period is that it hastended to become ‘invisible’ for the upper caste, urban middle and upper classes. For the so-called scheduled castes and tribes and the backward castes – the opposite has happened. Forthem, caste has become alltoo visible.
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