From the Indian Individual to Hierarchising Discourse: Elements for a Theory of Caste

Abstract

To understand caste in India we must explain the particularity of this mode of stratification, while avoiding an essentialism that isolates caste from other social forms. Stratification appeared in India long before an emic model of caste. Yet in contemporary India, I found actors concerned to place themselves in a rank order, even in ephemeral situations. I outline an Indian concept of the individual, characterised by relative immunity of the self to the social sphere, and argue that this immunity acts as a shield to keep ranking apart from the self. Indian actors show their social capability by adapting to situations rather than imposing a consistent personality across them. Local stratification is explained by actors in a historical mode, as if history was an interactional sequence played out between communities rather than individuals. Indigenous models of society provide an alternative explanatory mode, as when Brahmins claim the superior position. Their holistic model, however, is matched by king-centred and merchant-centred models. Subalterns have yet other views of Indian society. I argue that holistic models in India are constructions of the dominant, and should not be taken to represent ‘Indian culture’. Indian society should rather be seen as plural, with several emic models used to describe and explain it. Still, the tendency to create rank in so many situations points to particular rules of interaction and discourse, which implies talking ‘as if’ hierarchy, in the Dumontian sense, was an objective reality.

Keywords:

• India
• Caste
• Social Stratification
• Interaction
• Discourse

Notes

[1] I refer here to Quigley’s (1993) book The Interpretation of Caste. In a later article (Quigley 1994) he chooses a rather different angle, concentrating on social organisation.

[2] See, for example, the extract from Capital, volume 1, found in Bottomore and Rubel (1963 [1956], 122–123).

[3] The date varies with different scholars. Klostermaier (1994, 483) puts it between 200 BC and 100 AD. Embree (1988, 214) at the Shunga period, second to first century BC. Yadava (2002, 82) between 200 BC and 200 AD. Kulke and Rothermund (1986, 85) opt for the second or third century AD, later than most scholars.

[4] Brahmadeya villages were ‘given to Brahmins’ by the king and centred on a temple in which they were the priests. They effectively became the landowners and the ‘dominant caste’ in the village, enjoying a share of the income from the temple’s lands. The land was cultivated by subaltern peasants whose status was that of tenants on the temple lands. There were thus two basic levels of transactions: between the king and the temple Brahmins, and between the latter and the actual cultivators.

[5] In his early work Dumont (1966, for example) saw the concept of the individual mainly as a product of the Enlightenment. In a later article (1985) he extends the history of the concept backwards, alleging its roots in earlier Christian thought. My criticism does not concern the specificity of this Western construct. Rather, I argue that there may be several, culturally specific, ideas of the self making for different conceptions of the person.

[6] For a description of these villages, see Tambs-Lyche (2004, 232–292).

[7] A description of villages in the Sundarbans will be found in Tambs-Lyche (forthcoming).

[8] This argument is set out more fully, with examples, in Tambs-Lyche (2004, 184–231).

[9] This form corresponds closely to the model Quigley (1994) presents in his article, though he speaks of ‘lineages’ while I would prefer ‘lineages and castes’.

[10] This was, of course, the base of what Wittfogel (1957) called ‘Oriental Despotism’. Apart from the blatantly orientalist implications of this term, we may agree that this direct transactional relationship with the cultivators brought a ‘revolution’ in the centralisation of power, as well as, probably, in the scale of revenues controlled by the king. It also wrought a new territorial dimension to the state formation, since territorially circumscribed villages, rather than socially defined communities, became units in the transactional structure.

[11] Merchants continued to be important in Gujarat, becoming revenue-collecting middlemen between king and peasant (Hardiman 1996).

[12] Baechler’s (1988) thesis, that the caste system is a response to a weak state, may thus fit some, but not all Indian state formations.

[13] Typically, the big Rama temple in Dhrangadhra, capital of the senior Jhala Rajput state, bears the blazon of the ruler over its main entrance.

[14] Rajas is, with sattvas and tamas, one of the three fundamental ‘qualities’ in Indian thought. Rajas—from the root raj, as in raja (king), may be translated as power, but also as order. Sattvas means purity or truth, a quality associated with renouncers and Brahmins. Tamas, which may be translated as ‘disorder’ or ‘chaos’, also implies what we may call ‘impurity’, and is associated with untouchables. These three qualities are cornerstones of what Marriott (1989) called an ‘ethnosociology’ of India, an interpretation of Indian society built on emic categories. These three categories certainly provide a far more precise rendering of the stereotypes attached to different castes than does Dumont’s (1966) purity–impurity axis.

[15] Thus merchant castes revere their own orders of gurus and renouncers rather than Brahmins, reducing the latter to a role of ritual specialists employed on occasions such as marriage. This is true even when the merchants are Brahmins themselves (Tambs-Lyche 2011).