Is a Theory of Caste Still Possible?

Abstract

A theory of caste must offer a way of ordering the facts in such a way that it does not diminish the significance of some or ignore others. It must also be comparative. Caste organisation is found in some parts of South Asia but not all. Equally, structural parallels may be found in many other parts of the world and one should not therefore assume that the defining characteristics of caste are unique to Hindu communities or to the ideology of Brahmanism. What is needed is a theory which explains why all of the traits associated with caste are found together where and when they are, whether in South Asia or elsewhere. Various theories of caste are reviewed in this chapter before coming to the conclusion that one of these makes much more sense of the historical and ethnographic evidence than the others. Most theories depict castes as arranged in a ladder-like vertical order. Sociologists have tended to emphasise this ‘stratification’, regarding the ideological and ritual manifestations of caste, such as the pervasive concern with purity and impurity, as epiphenomenal. Anthropologists have generally avoided this error but have faced other intractable problems. Some see caste as a recent colonial artefact, others as an ancient indigenous category. Many are heavily influenced by the ideological reductionism of Dumont's theory of Hindu society. On the other hand, Dumont's analysis raises so many problems that some have attempted to retreat from theory and restrict their studies to ethnographic description. The argument here is that caste results from an uneasy stalemate between the pull of localised lineage organisation and the forces of political, ritual and economic centralisation encapsulated in monarchical institutions. Caste systems are the product of a certain degree of centralisation which involve the organisation of ritual and other services around the king and dominant lineages. The central institution is (as Hocart suggested) the monarchy, and not (as Dumont suggested) the Brahman priesthood. The removal of Hindu kings in India with the advent of colonialism does not negate this thesis, for it is a specifically western view of kingship which allows for only one monarch within a territory. Kingship (and the configurations of castes associated with it) was always reproduced at the court of lesser chiefs, and is still replicated today in the households of members of dominant castes.