Future of Caste System | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Introduction

• There is no sign of caste system losing its grip. The only visible change is in the attitude of different castes to rise in caste hierarchy and gain social prestige. While changes in the caste system are continuous and regular, the (caste) system remains intact for all practical purposes. It must be held that change is not in the direction of dissolving the caste system. Some sort of class consciousness has crept into different castes. 
• Electrified by the in-group feeling, they want to hold on to the caste system all the more tenaciously. Nowadays, a caste tries to organise itself for social, economic, and political purposes. Elections are being fought on caste basis. There are caste organisations like All India Kshatriya Mahasabha, All India Mathur Sangh, All India Bhargava Organisation, etc.

Progressive Hindus take three distinct stands about the future of the caste system:
(i) That caste is something evil and it should be abolished;
(ii) That the caste system has degenerated and efforts should be made to reinstate the traditional four orders. The greatest exponent of this thought was Mahatma Gandhi (young India, 1919:479-88); and
(iii) That the caste system should be continued but it should be rein­stated under totally different conditions.

• These people want to amalgamate various sub-castes having cultural unity and economic similarity. Gradually, the castes which will approximately be on a footing of equality will consolidate and ultimately a casteless society will be established. These people want the process to be slow because it would afford sufficient time for education and the formation of in­formed opinion with the require adjustment of those castes/classes which are not yet prepared for a wholesale change in their age-old customs.
• Scholars like A.J. Toynbee, T.H. Marshall, P. Kodanda Rao, etc., have evaluated these three schools of thought. Discussing the first school led by Gandhi, they contend that: first, it is impractical because the only basis of assigning a particular order (out of four orders) to persons is the occupation they follow. In the present society, occupations are so special­ised and varied and people of the same family are engaged in so many different occupations that it would be impossible to assign them member­ship of one or the other order. Secondly, even if this settlement (of including castes in one or the other of the first three orders) were possi­ble, what about the untouchable castes? Gandhiji being against untouchability naturally proposed some respectable status for these castes.
• But where are they to be provided for? In whatever order they may be included, there is bound to be tremendous protest from that or­der. Thirdly, assuming that the classification of castes in four orders would be possible, are we going to permit or prohibit marriages between these four orders? Are we going to continue restrictions in the matter of mar­riage, food, etc.? Both would create their own problems. It may, therefore, be concluded that a return to the four-fold division of society is impractical and even if accomplished, it would serve no useful purpose.
• Taking the other point of view those castes should be slowly abolished by consolidation of the sub-castes into larger castes scholars have said that to propose this point is to miss the real problem. This method, they claim, was tried in Bombay for a number of decades but the results were disastrous.
• The sub-castes that joined together to create a big group re­tained their internal feelings of exclusiveness with undiminishing vigour. The new group took up rather a militant attitude against other castes, es­pecially those which were popularly regarded as immediately higher or lower than the caste which it represented. Thus, scholars claimed that the spirit of caste patriotism or casteism is created and if we followed the sec­ond viewpoint, diminishing of casteism would be very difficult and it would create an unhealthy atmosphere for the full growth of national consciousness.
• Some scholars have supported the third view that the caste system should be immediately abolished. They are of the opinion that we have to fight against and totally uproot casteism. Ghurye was one scholar who fa­voured this viewpoint. But this opinion of Ghurye was expressed in about 1931. Since then about seven decades have passed and lot of changes have taken place in Indian society, including independence of the country and the promalgamation of many laws against the caste system.

For exam­ple, the Constitution of India (implemented from January 26, 1950) says that:
(i) For exam­ple, the Constitution of India (implemented from January 26, 1950) says that:
(ii) No citizen shall, on the ground of caste, be subject to restriction regarding access to or use of shops, restaurants and public wells and tanks (removal of civil disabili­ties), and
(iii) The practice of untouchability is forbidden.

• Similarly, there are no restrictions on the following of any occupation. Feelings of equal­ity, liberty and fraternity have been promoted which have cut the very roots of caste. A special officer (Commissioner) was appointed in 1951 for looking after the scheduled castes and the backward classes. No more in­dividual’s caste is recorded in census. In spite of these changes in the last several decades, and particularly in the last two decades, casteism and the evils of caste have not been rooted out.
• More than one and a quarter century ago (in 1869), Max Muller had opined that caste cannot be abolished in India and to attempt it would be one of the most hazardous operations that was ever performed in a politi­cal body. As a religious institution, caste will die; as a social institution, it will live and improve. Kolenda is of the opinion that the tradi­tional caste system as a set of occupationally specialised, interdependent castes, ranked by purity and pollution customs, shows signs of disappear­ing.
• With decline in occupational specialisation and in the system of purity and pollution which ranked castes relative to each other and kept them separate from one another, the key question now is whether there will be a new integration into a new caste system. Her opinion is that it is indeed unlikely that a social structure organising the political, economic and ritual life of a people for over one thousand years could be totally ex­punged within a few decades. Social scientists working in the field, all report that the caste system is alive.
• It is true that the caste system is a stumbling block in attaining the material and spiritual prosperity or in the social and national development. So long this cankerous system holds sway, we cannot achieve our social ideas. Hence, the sooner its death-knell is sounded, the higher our prospects of progress. Yet it is a fact that it is not easy to abolish this sys­tem.
• Narmadeshwar Prasad in his study of three areas—industrial, non-industrial and rural—was given a few remedies by his respondents (1,225) to weaken the caste system. These were: education and proper opportunity to all (39.1%), inter-caste marriages (35.3%), removal of untouchability (12.2%), and treating people on the basis of equality (13.4%). But will these measures really help in abolishing or even weakening the caste sys­tem? Perhaps not. Even the Supreme Court in giving its verdict on the implementation of Mandal Commission’s report in November 1992 had virtually implied that caste alone would be the basis of reservation.