Write short note: Caste among the non-Hindu. (1984)
Every non-Hindu religion in India preaches the equality of believers, and every one of them contains ranked, endogamous, descent-based groups. A survey by community shows how far the caste principle travelled beyond the faith that produced it.
Muslims
Indian Muslims are conventionally described in three strata: Ashraf, the “noble” groups claiming foreign or Rajput descent (Sayyid, Sheikh, Mughal, Pathan); Ajlaf, the converted artisan and service groups such as Julaha, Darzi and Qassab; and Arzal, the lowest, doing scavenging and similar work. Ghaus Ansari described this ordering for Uttar Pradesh (Muslim Caste in Uttar Pradesh, 1960), and the volume edited by Imtiaz Ahmad on caste and stratification among Muslims (1973) made it a national finding. The operative unit is the endogamous biradari, which arranges marriage and settles disputes much as a caste panchayat does.
Christians
Conversion rarely dissolved the convert’s original group. In Kerala the Syrian Christians, who claim Brahmin ancestry and an ancient lineage, remain socially separate from Latin Catholics and from Dalit converts, and marriage across these lines is uncommon; Susan Visvanathan’s The Christians of Kerala (1993) shows the rank worked into ritual and kinship. In Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Paraya and Madiga converts have long complained of separate seating, separate cemeteries and exclusion from parish office.
Sikhs
The Gurus rejected caste and instituted the common kitchen, yet Jat Sikhs dominate land and gurdwara management, while Mazhabi and Ramdasia Sikhs often worship in their own gurdwaras or in Ravidassia deras. The state itself recognises the division: Punjab reserves a part of its Scheduled Caste quota with first preference for Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs.
Jains, Buddhists and Parsis
Jains marry within Agrawal, Oswal and Porwal groupings, caste-like in everything but name. The neo-Buddhists who converted with B. R. Ambedkar in 1956 remain a distinct community whose disabilities did not lapse; Parsis practise strict endogamy without internal rank.
How these formations differ from Hindu caste
- No doctrinal or textual sanction; hierarchy is customary, and is usually denied when asked about.
- The purity–pollution idiom is thin, surviving mainly at the very bottom.
- Rank rests on claimed descent and occupation rather than graded ritual status, so it is flatter and contested.
- Endogamy, however, is as strong as among Hindus — the core of the institution is intact.
Conclusion
Caste among non-Hindus is best described as a set of caste-like formations: structurally similar, ideologically unsupported. Their legal recognition remains unsettled — the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 confines Scheduled Caste status to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, and the commission appointed in 2022 to examine the claims of Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam has yet to report.