“Write short note: Caste as a class.” (1998)
The view of caste as a class holds that beneath its ritual idiom, caste is at bottom a system of economic stratification, of control over land, labour and surplus. The opposing view treats caste as a distinct status order built on purity. The debate matters because each side predicts a different future for caste under capitalism.
Arguments that caste is a class
- B. R. Ambedkar (Castes in India, 1916): “a caste is an enclosed class”. Endogamy was imposed on originally open classes to seal their privileges.
- Marxist analyses:
- Kathleen Gough‘s work on Thanjavur showed caste rank largely coinciding with landlord, tenant and labourer positions.
- Joan Mencher (“The Caste System Upside Down”, 1974) argued that, seen from the bottom, caste is a mechanism of economic exploitation that also divides the poor.
- Economic interdependence: Edmund Leach (1960) saw caste as a division of labour. When castes compete for economic advantage, he argued, they act like trade unions or classes, against caste principles.
- Economic change reshuffles rank: F. G. Bailey (Caste and the Economic Frontier, 1957) found in Bisipara, Odisha, that castes enriched by new trade (the distillers) rose in rank. This suggests that economic power drives ritual status.
- Dominant caste as a class: scholars such as Ghanshyam Shah read M. N. Srinivas‘s dominant castes as coalitions united by economic and political interest.
- Contemporary congruence: Hindu upper castes, about 22% of households, held roughly 41% of wealth (Nitin Tagade, Ajaya Kumar Naik and Sukhadeo Thorat, 2018). Of profiled sewer and septic-tank workers, 67% are Scheduled Castes (NAMASTE, 2024).
Arguments against reducing caste to class
- Louis Dumont (Homo Hierarchicus, 1966): caste rests on the religious opposition of pure and impure, in which status encompasses power. A poor Brahmin still outranks a rich Shudra ritually.
- Max Weber: caste is a status group ranked by honour, not a market-based class.
- Structural contrasts:
| Caste | Class |
|---|---|
| Ascribed, closed, endogamous | Achieved, relatively open |
| Group mobility, slow | Individual mobility |
| Religious legitimation | Economic relations |
| Membership permanent despite wealth | Membership changes with economic position |
- Class within caste: André Béteille (Caste, Class and Power, 1965) showed economic classes inside a single caste in Sripuram. Caste, class and power are therefore related but distinct.
- Persistence despite mobility: Dalits who enter the middle class still face caste stigma, and only about 5% of marriages cross caste lines (IHDS-II, 2011–12).
Assessment
Caste has class-like functions: it closes access to resources, fixes a division of labour and legitimises exploitation. Modern change has secularised it into interest groups, which D. L. Sheth (1999) links to the rise of a new middle class. But its identity, endogamy and stigma cannot be reduced to economic position.
Conclusion
Caste is best described as a class-like system with a status core. Caste and class overlap and reinforce each other, but they cannot be collapsed into one. That is why class mobility alone has not dissolved caste.