“How does the rise of new ‘cults’ and ‘sects’ influence intercaste relations?” (2026)
Ernst Troeltsch saw the sect as a voluntary, protesting offshoot of an established faith. Howard P. Becker (1932) described the cult as a looser, personal, often guru-centred group. In India both have long served as a religious language of caste protest. Their effect on intercaste relations is two-sided: they open spaces of equality, and they also draw new caste boundaries.
Integrative influence: equality within the fold
- Commensality and shared ritual: the Radha Soami tradition (Agra, 1861) forbids caste distinctions and runs common langar and satsang, where devotees of every caste sit and eat together.
- Dignity without conversion: Max Weber‘s “theodicy of disprivilege” fits the deras of Punjab. Ronki Ram (“Social Exclusion, Resistance and Deras”, Economic and Political Weekly, 2007) shows Dalits turning to deras after exclusion from Jat-controlled gurdwaras in a state where Scheduled Castes are 31.9% of the population (Census 2011).
- Erasing caste markers: in 2007 Dera Sacha Sauda asked followers to adopt the surname “Insan” (human) in place of caste names.
- Historical precedent: Kabirpanthis, Guru Ghasidas‘s Satnamis (Chhattisgarh, c. 1820) and the Matua sect of Namasudras in Bengal all rejected Brahmanical hierarchy.
Divisive influence: new boundaries and conflict
- Sect becomes caste: Louis Dumont argued that the renouncer’s egalitarian sect is slowly reabsorbed into the caste order; Lingayats became a jati cluster. Surinder Singh (2024) finds that “Insan” soon became hyphenated (“Sidhu-Insan”), producing “a caste within a caste”.
- Caste-coded congregations: deras recruit mainly from Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes, so religious difference now overlaps caste difference.
- Open conflict: Dera Sacha Sauda’s 2007 ritual imitating Guru Gobind Singh set off Sikh–dera clashes across Punjab. The 2009 Vienna attack on Dera Sachkhand Ballan’s saints triggered riots and led, in 2010, to a separate Ravidassia religion with its own scripture, the Amritbani.
- Political blocs: deras bargain as vote banks, which hardens rival caste mobilisation.
- New arenas: Pentecostal “prophet” churches drawing Mazhabi and Ravidasia Dalits in Punjab have stirred tension with Sikh bodies.
Assessment
Cult and sect membership rarely changes marriage, the core of caste. The Pew Research Center (2021) found 64% of Indians consider it very important to stop women marrying outside their caste. As M. N. Srinivas noted for Sanskritisation, such movements shift status without dismantling structure.
Conclusion
New cults and sects soften caste in worship and dining but rarely in kinship. They give lower castes dignity and a collective voice, yet often turn caste into separate religious identities. Their net effect is to change the form of intercaste relations, from hierarchy towards competing difference, rather than to end caste.