Why scholars still struggle to define India's caste system
Writing in 1932, the sociologist G. S. Ghurye admitted that despite endless study nobody had a real general definition of caste, and that any attempt seemed doomed by its complexity. He tried anyway, listing six features. Almost a century later, a Pew survey of 29,999 Indian adults found 98% still identify with a caste.
Ghurye's six traits were membership fixed by birth; a ranking usually headed by Brahmins, though sometimes disputed; detailed rules on which food and drink upper groups could accept from lower ones; segregated living, with the dominant caste at the village centre and limits on shared wells and streets; inherited occupations; and marriage within the group. He conceded that in large parts of India all four classes farmed or fought, so hereditary work did not always apply. Critics later faulted his model for leaning on colonial census reports.
Much confusion comes from two overlapping ideas. Varna, meaning type, order or colour, is an ancient fourfold scheme of Brahmins as priests, Kshatriyas as rulers and warriors, Vaishyas as merchants, artisans and farmers, and Shudras as labourers, with Dalits and tribal Adivasis treated as outside it. Jati, meaning birth, refers to thousands of real communities, found among Hindus, Muslims, Christians and tribal peoples alike, with no clear linear order among them. Serious Indologists now take care not to treat the two terms as interchangeable.
Explanations differ as well. The anthropologist Louis Dumont read jati rankings as a matter of religious purity and pollution, while others see a secular arrangement shaped by economics, politics and geography. Jeaneane Fowler notes that belonging to a jati does not stop someone from taking up another trade, and M. N. Srinivas argued caste hierarchies allow considerable mobility.
Dating is contested too. A 2016 DNA study of unrelated Indians traced marriage within jatis to the Gupta Empire, whereas a 2013 study from Tamil Nadu, based on male lineages, suggested endogamy began 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Caste distinctions spread beyond Hinduism into Sikh, Christian and Muslim communities, and through Indian influence they reached Bali in Indonesia.
Source: Caste system in India
