A brief survey of caste system: theories of origin and development; comparison of caste and class; links between capitalism, Brahmanism and Patriarchy; history and development of untouchability.

Course facilitator: Rev Dr David Udayakumar                       Presenter: Jacob P Thomas

3 December 2010

1. Introduction

There are many notable approaches prevailing in the understanding of the phenomenon of caste.  The first one, according to Ursula Sharma, is the naturalistic view of caste chiefly propagated by the British writers of the colonial period.  Here the phenomenon of caste is understood as the representative of a pre-rational or primitive state of the imagination and the social expression of this organic existence.[1] This view was a kind of “collapsing history into nature and rendering the Indian society ‘timeless and exotic’.”[2]  The second view is promulgated by the French writers and it tends to view caste as a moral phenomenon; “an expression of the collective consciousness at an early level of social evolution in which the individual is subordinated to an organic division of labour.”[3] What bearing this peculiar orientalist understandings of caste had is that these views helped to construct the very traditional society of India as backward. The colonial recognition of local institutions as tradition tended to freeze caste as timeless categories from what had been evolving and flexible social forms.[4] Further the Britishers took caste reality more seriously and their subsequent censuses attempted to classify the entire population in caste lines that is everyone had to be included in one or other caste groups. As a result of this apparent objectification of caste, it had become more real and liable to rigidification.

2. Caste system definitions

Caste is not an Indian word but is derived from Portuguese word casta and Spanish castus meaning that which is not mixed or pure breed. There are various terms which approximate to it in Indian languages.  There is the widely used concept of varna, which refers to the four fold division of society into estates based on function.  Then there is the term jati, which refers to the named endogamous groups that are usually more or less localized or have a regional base.  Certain elements prominent in the definition of caste are division of functions or common traditional occupations, hereditary transmission of same situation and potentialities to posterity, endogamous organisation, common name, membership through birth, hierarchy based on ritual purity and pollution and resultant stratification etc.[5]

According to Ursula Sharma, “we shall note the origins of the concept of caste in an ‘orientalist’ colonial discourse about the specific nature of Indian society and show how it finds its place as part of a more analytical sociological discourse about the nature of stratification and the division of labour in societies in general.”[6] In the colonial discourses the Indian reality was represented as “other” to the western self and privileged the knowledge of the colonial discourses as superior to the Indians themselves. The chief contributors to this knowledge were the missionaries, colonial administrators, travelers and officials.  Here India was represented as an essentially static society of which caste was the defining social institution.  Towards the end of the nineteenth century we see more systematic efforts from the ethnologists and administrators of the colonial government to comprehend the local varieties of the caste system.[7] All these efforts of the British colonial historians cum ethnographers defined caste in racial lines and projected Indian caste ridden societies as pathological. This in turn used to legitimize the British rule of India.[8]

3. Theories on origin of caste

3.1 Brahmanic theory of the origin of the castes

It is a theory derived from the Brahmanic literature to explain the creation of the universe, of human beings and of the different varnas.[9] The common belief among the Hindus is that the Brahmans proceeded from the mouth of Brahma; the Kshatriyas from his arms; the Vaisyas from his thighs and the Sudras from his feet. John Muir and Dr. Wilson were two of the prominent orientalist scholars who had done detailed investigations into the origin of castes and examined Hindu scriptures like Rig-Veda and interpreted the 90^th hymn of the 10^th book called the Purusha Sukta to explicate the Hindu idea of creation. The gods divided purusha into different parts; different beings came into existence from different parts of Purusha’s body. Likewise the mouth gave birth to the Brahman; the arms to Rajanya (kshatriyas); the thighs to Vaisyas and the feet to Sudras. [10]

The taittiriya Brahmana  states: “ the Brahman caste is sprung from the gods; the sudra from the Asuras.” I. 2,6.7.

Manu; after describing how Brahma the parent of all creations was born from a golden egg’ says:-  “that the world might be peopled, he caused the brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya and the Sudra to issue from his mouth, his arms, his thighs and his feet.”[11]

Another line of argument is that (as it is found in mahabharata and bhagavata purana) there was no originally no distinction between castes and the existing distinction had arisen out of difference of character and occupation. Bhagavata purana says there was only one caste in the Krita age.

Various smrithis like yagnavalkya smrithi and manu smrithi  strongly disapprove marriages outside one’s caste. Such marriages and the resultant children form the chandalas.

Thus the Hindu scriptures are not giving a consensus opinion on the matter of origin of castes. May theories are contradictory and conflicting. The later theories in the Brahman age are clearly depicting the differential origin of the caste and perpetuate the Brahmanical ideology of the dominance of the Brahmans in the social order. Ambedkar critiques this theory by naming it “…senseless ebullitions of a silly mind.”[12]

3.2 The caste as race theory of origin of caste/Aryan invasion theory

This is also a theory developed by the colonial orientalist scholars to explain the origin of caste system in the racial lines. This theory is based on the references of two different races in the Hindu scriptures namely the Aryas and the Dasyus. According to this theory India was invaded around 1500 BC by a people who called themselves as Aryans and possessed physically and culturally distinctive qualities from that of the original inhabitants of the land. The aryas were considered as the noble race with light skin colour and prominent nose and the dasyus was a term used by the aryas to refer to the aborigines of India who are dark and with “goat-like” nose. The former settlers and agriculturalists moved into the Indo-Gangetic plains from Europe. Whereas, the Dasyus were wandering races and the enemies of the aryas.  The aryas had a totally different language from that of the Dasyus and the latter were pushed down to the southern part of the country. Dipankar Gupta expresses his difference with this theory by citing it as a theory primarily to justify the reenactment of the conquering of the dark skinned Indians by the light colored European colonizers in the modern era.[13]  Dr Ambedkar also identifies this theory as a western theory, which attempted to fill the lacunae of origin of shudras in the Brahmanic theory of origin of castes.[14] For him the “caste is race theory” is politically misleading if not dangerous. He further proposes that the terms light and darkness referred to in the Vedas can also mean knowledge or lack of it. The nose-less ness, which has a reference in only one place in Vedas can also mean poor speech.[15]

3.3 Ambedkar’s critic of the Aryan invasion theory

Ambedkar accused the Brahmins of basking in the reflected glory of their Aryan origin. Drawing insights from the studies of Prof Ripley’s anthropometric studies on race and the studies of Max Muller on Aryan race, he arrives at a hypothesis that the Aryan race is a cultural and linguistic construction it has nothing to do with the actual anatomic peculiarities of the people.[16] Ambedkar further intercepts the Aryan invasion theory by saying that the mention of sporadic violence between a neighboring people does not indicate war and invasion, but conflicts due to cultural and cultic differences. He substantiates his point by citing references like avrata (without rites) apavrata and anyavrata (different rites) etc used to differentiate the Dasyus from the Aryans. [17] Thus in his own words, “the Aryans were not a race. The Aryans were a collection of people. The cement that held these together was their interest in the maintenance of a type of culture called the Aryan culture.”[18]

4. The Theory of Varna

According to Dumont the Varna classification can be broadly divided into two categories, namely the ‘twice born’ or dvijiya jati and the ‘once born’ or the eka jati. [19]  The former comprises the three varnas except Shudras and the Shudras in turn comprises the eka jati. And there is also a third group in addition to the two mentioned above, which is an excluded group namely the “never born” which cannot be admitted to exist. These are the untouchables, the panchama. There is no mention of untouchability in the early Vedic texts; it is only in the later vedic texts that untouchable population make their appearance. By the time we come to Buddha, untouchability had clearly established itself.[20]

Stephen knapp in his article titled “Casteism: Is It the Scourge of Hinduism, or the Perversion of a Legitimate Vedic System?” says that, varnashrama was a virtuous and legitimate system, meant for the progressive organisation of the society. This was a grouping of people into four occupational groups based on the natural proclivity of the people. But the naivety of this approach is questionable from the perspective of dalit liberative discourses of today. What is missing here is the acknowledgement of the power relations and processes of status ascriptions related to this kind of organisation of social life.[21]

4.1 Building of Hierarchy on the basis of status and power

Thus in the “theory of the varnas” one finds that status (spiritual authority represented by Brahmans) and power (temporal authority represented by Kshatriyas) is differentiated to effect the manifestation of the hierarchy in the pure form. But the important thing to note here is that these entirely distinct principles are united in their opposition to other categories in the caste system. According to Manu these are two forces represented by the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas which were been given dominion over all creatures.[22] Therefore in the varna theory the twice born are specially favored by the laws, with the Brahmans occupying the most advantageous position. The varnas are divided in accordance with the respective dharmas of the varnas, therefore we have four classes with their dharmas attached to them, namely, Brahmins, the priestly and the educated class, Kshatriyas, the military class, the Vaishyas, the trading class and the śudras the servant class. According to Ambedkar, for a period they were only classes with different dharmas but after a period they became castes and the four classes became thousands of castes and sub-castes with hierarchic relationships. Therefore he cautions the readers to be mindful of the fact that caste has never been the same throughout the history. Instead, caste has been a growing institution. Even though the caste system can be seen as an evolution of the varna system, caste should be studied separately from that of varna system.[23]

4.2 Caste as a re-organisation of varna through conversion

Dipankar Gupta says in primitive economy of the early vedic period (B C 1500 following), it was impossible for the Aryans to maintain profound distance between the indigenous subjugated groups in the day-to-day activities. Even the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas worked on the land and did other manual jobs at this early phase of Aryan expansion. Therefore the religious conversion of the indigenous people into the vedic fold was the most effective guarantee of the Aryans superiority over the rest. At this stage the full blown four varna system was not emerged. The main division existed as per the indications of the Rig veda, the oldest of the Vedas, is that between the Aryans and the dasas. The Aryans further were divided into the elites and the commoners. The latter were known as vis in the rig veda and later constituted the vaishya varna. They were common peasants engaged in agricultural practices. The Aryans also attempted to effect a workable relationship with the tribes around, but naturally from a position of strength. The friendly tribes were accommodated as the allies of the Aryans. And at the same time those unfriendly tribes who were unable to withstand the onslaught of the Aryans were enslaved by the Aryans and became a servile group in the vedic economic structure. They were the dasas and often regarded as the property of the Aryans like cattle.[24]

4.3 The status of the Shudras in the Varna system

The four varna system was ideologically refined by the Brahmanas over time. The Dharmasutras which were the compiled between 600 and 300 B. C., represented the crystallisation of these efforts by the orthodox brahmanas whose homeland was the upper-Gangetic basin. According to Dharmasutras, because śudras were born of the feet of the Universal Soul, Brahman, they were destined to serve the three upper varnas born from his mouth, arms and thighs. They had to support their lives with the small compensation they received for their services to the twice born varnas. The Dharmasutras determined this compensation as cast-off shoes, umbrellas, garments,  mats and left over food of the twice born.[25] On the other hand the Dharmasutras also require the masters to take care of their śudras. The sudra was strictly prohibited from participating in the veda religious ceremonies. If a śudra intentionally overhears the Veda chants, he shall have his ears filled with molten tin and dark red pigment. Though these punishments were not widely and frequently carried out, they signify how unrighteously the śudras were excluded from the customs of the twice born.[26] And because of the ritual purity sought by the twice born, the śudra were excluded from offering or cooking food and drinks for the former. Śudra males out crossing the endogamous rules of the varna system were severely punished even up to the point of death and a twice born male having a śudra wife was considered always in a state of ritual impurity and was forbidden from being part of sraddha (ancestral worship) ceremonies. All these regulations, according to Kotani were intended to segregate the śudras from the twice born societies. The loopholes provided in the Dharmasutras for failing to stick on to the proscriptions of the Varna Dharma were also unjustly discriminating against the śudras and apparently favoring the twice born. The theoretical basis of the four-varna system as described in the dharmasutras was systematized in the Manu-smriti, which was compiled between 200 B. C. and 200 A. D.[27] Manu-smriti lays out in an even more substantive manner,  than the dharmasutras, provisions about discrimination against śudra varna and its exclusion from the twice born society. For example in the Manu-smriti it is stated that the śudra varna was created by the God for the purpose of serving the twice born society and that any wealth amassed by the śudras belonged to the latter.  The king in his position as the upholder of the state order was strictly directed to ensure that the śudras stay in a servile position to the twice born.

5. Untouchability

5.1 Origin and development

5.1.1 Theory of illegitimate birth of chandalas

The term untouchable is one of the several terms used to refer to the castes historically regarded as irredeemably polluted. According to the Hindu law codes, the chandala the representative of the untouchables of the ancient times was the progeny of a sudra father and a brahmana mother, ie, the offsprings of the most condemned pratiloma marriage. But this theory of origin of untouchables is an ideological production of the varna conception of the orthodox Brahmins and was not based on the historical facts. According to Kotani, the chandalas came into existence only towards the later vedic period, when the brahmanas secured the top position in the society by virtue of their monopoly of the priesthood. A primitive ideological distinction between purity and pollution in ritualistic terms came into existence during this period to legitimize the brahmanic purity and sanctity over all other social realities. This emphasis on purity gave rise to people on the opposite end of the society who were considered to be impure. Then between the most pure Brahmins and the most polluted untouchables were inserted the remaining varnas of the varna system and they were ascribed different levels of purity in accordance with their respective dharmas.[28]

5.1.2 Degradation of hunting gathering life in comparison to the settled agrarian life

Most of the untouchables originated in the tribal peoples carrying on hunting and gathering in the forests on the peripheries of Aryan agrarian society. During the later Vedic era (1000- 600 BC) the Aryans moved over to the middle and upper gangetic basin and formed themselves as agrarian societies. The religious ideologies like transmigration too have resulted in the development of antagonism towards people who are leading life styles other than settled agrarian and engaging in the acts of hunting and slaughtering animals. Later on some of the tribal groups accepted the Aryan agrarian way of life and eventually got assimilated into the varna system. But those who were not able to undergo this transition was continued to be stigmatised as impure and were socially discriminated.  The name chandala was originally used to refer to such indigenous non-concomitant tribes and as their untouchability developed over time all people associated with their way of life were came to be called the untouchables or chandalas.[29]

5.1.3 Theory based on Brahmanic counter movements to Buddhism

Another theory of origin of untouchability is closely connected with the Brahmin counter-reformation against Buddhism and the persistent practice of beef eating among Buddhists.[30]

5.2 Untouchability in contemporary Indian society

Untouchability in Indian social realities denote the status gap persistent between the ordinary clean artisans and those exterior groups who are often associated with “polluting” occupations such as scavenging or tanning. The practices used to mark these castes off and enforce the distance between them and other groups included obliging them to live in separate hamlets, use separate wells to draw water, imposing restrictions on wearing certain types of clothes and ornaments etc. In some areas low caste women were not allowed to wear upper clothes to signify their lower status.[31] While slavery is an almost extinct practice, untouchability remains very much a living presence in India of today. Following legislation making the practice a crime, it is no more an open thing, but it is there all the same.[32] Gandhi saw untouchability as an aberration of varnashrama dharma, thus his effort was to purify it. Vivekananda also held a similar view on caste system.[33]

But it was Ambedkar who was more critical about the social system perpetuating untouchability. Ambedkar did not find Gandhi’s condemnation of untouchability radical enough. He was unapologetic in his hostility towards a varna-based society.[34] For Ambedkar equality did not mean equal status of varnas, but an equal economic, political and social order.[35]  Later on anthropologists like Hutton endorsed the position taken by Ambedkar in saying that (1946), the unfortunate position of the “exterior castes” cannot be remedied without destroying the caste system. 

6. Caste and class

Scholars like Dumont, Hocart, Hutton, Pocock, Srinivas, and others argued that caste and class belong to different social realities. Caste and class are two different principles of social stratification. Caste as an age old tradition is particularly associated with the social life of the Indians and in a very few other regions of south Asia. On the other hand class was seen as a universal phenomenon of modern society. In the caste system, one’s position, whether it is high or low, in the social hierarchy is decided purely on the basis of birth. On the other hand, class refers to the differences in the life standards caused by the economic factors in.[36]  Class is the principal type of organizational base in the western societies. Class is a division of a population marked off from the rest by different criteria such as income, occupation, education, prestige or status. For Marx class is a mirror reflecting the totality of the relations in every society.  Class for him is relations with the means of production. Thus Marx differentiates between a labour class and the owning class.

The early approaches of Indian academia towards the analytical study of these two types of stratification was based on a substantial difference made between these two categories to see caste as a rigid dysfunctional category and class with a kind of opposite nature of caste, i.e., as flexible and dynamic. This kind of approaches to the study of caste and class put them into polar opposites.[37] Now a day, caste is also understood as a developing structure rather than a rigid, absolutist, unchanging reality. Several intended and unintended changes in the caste system have brought both positive and negative changes, which have implications for the changes in the class structure and the power relations.[38] Yogendra singh views both these realities as mutually embedded. For him caste is not simply a reality of social stratification based on ritual purity and impurity of the people alone. But it has economic and power dimensions also. G. Dietrich and B. Wielenga comments on attempts to make clear-cut distinctions between class and caste as superficial.[39] This is because of the fact that in social reality we note that the social mobility across the class borders is not that frequent and great. On the other hand certain decisive social changes have also brought in conspicuous changes in the organisation of the castes as against the common notion of it as rigid and static. K. L. Sharma comments that, with the emergence of a new middle class disproportionate to the size of the upper and the lower classes, the stage is set for the forging of a new alliance between caste, class and power.[40]

7. Caste and patriarchy

Patriarchy is one of the oldest forms of discrimination based on gender difference embedded in the structure of the family from the early days. It too was a product of the historical processes of social and economic structuring of life like caste system based on the functions of the participants of the particular societies.[41] It has through the centuries regulated the relationship of sexes and generations in the households; and structured the productive processes of life like child birth and rearing to subsistence production in an obviously sex determined manner. Like caste system, patriarchy also survived so many social changes and is still causing suffering to the women all over. The feminist studies in depth on this reality reveal that, this is a product of history and not something like a God-given natural reality.[42] Patriarchal structures are analyzed as part of a power relationship, which denies or restricts access to property, to education and other amenities, which regulates division of labour and uses violence and all sorts of social pressures to maintain its power and dominance. In short patriarchy is a multidimensional dominance over the women’s labour, sexuality and fertility.

Caste as an endogamous marriage circle needs and uses patriarchy to perpetuate itself. In this way the access to resources like that of land is retained in the control of the dominant castes and of the males. Both in caste and patriarchy the interaction with organic life brings forth notions of purity and impurity. There for all women and dalit women and men have pollution in common, associated with their involvement in the production of life.[43] Thus there is a commonality for their struggle to protect their production of life and land, livelihood and water.

7. Caste and Capitalism

Capitalism according to William I Robinson is the spread of capitalist mode of relationships of production, replacing all the pre-capitalist mode of productions thereby. Further more, capitalism means unequal development. Globalisation is seen as the culmination of the age long process of capitalism. In the dalit perspective, what the capitalism is doing in today’s world is an ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. It is all about two mutually enriching economic process, viz., the expansion of the market and the simultaneous resource appropriation. The privatization process of the capitalism freezes the social security mechanisms in place for the subaltern like dalits and women and makes them more vulnerable.  As capitalism supports elitism, in the Indian socio-political scenario it promotes the patriarchal elite ideologies like Hindutva and thereby reinforce Brahmanism, which in turn continues the control of the dalits and the women in the contemporary Indian situations.[44]

8. Conclusion

All the attempts to unearth the ideological formations in the Indian polity, which discriminate against people on the bases of caste, class and gender, must converge into a movement towards a non-caste, non- patriarchal social life. Such a society re-imagined in today’s Indian context should be equalitarian and sustainable. What we urgently need in today’s context is the integration of various efforts initiated in different parts of the country for liberation and self-affirmation to form such a movement, where the differences are not assimilated into any common universal value system. It also signifies a re-imagination of the nation as different from the one which dominates the current Indian political scenario, based on the Aryan cultural. Indian Christian community too must take a very cautious and conscious course of life and witness in differentiating it with the hegemonic tendencies of assimilation and appropriation of the cultural diversities of the marginal communities. It’s witness instead must be catering such diversities as a medium of reflecting God’s glory and at the same time challenging the monolithic formulations of nationalism.

Bibliography

Monographs

Dumont,Louis. Homo Hierarchicus. Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress,1988. Indian edition.

Karinanithi, G. Caste and Class in Industrial Organisation: A Case Study of Two Indusstrial Units in Tamilnadu. New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers, 1991.

Moon, Vasant. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches Vol. 7. Bombay: Education Deprtment Government of  Maharashtra, 1990.

Gabriela Dietrich and Bas Wielenga, Towards Understanding Indian Society,Madurai: Centre for Social Analysis, 1998 (Reprint).

Gupta, Dipankar. Caste:Understanding Hierarchy anddifference in Indian Society,New Delhi: Penguin, 2000.

Kotani, H. ed. Caste System, Untouchability and the Depressed. New Delhi: Manohar, 1997.

Murdoch, J. compiler. Caste: Its Supposed Origin; its History; its effects; the duty of the Government; Hindus and Christians with respect to it: and its Prospects. Madras: CLS for India, 1896.

Omvedt, Gail. Dalit Visions, Hyderabad: orient Longman, 1995.

Sharma,K. L. ed. Caste and Class in India, New Delhi: Rawat Publications. 1994.

Ursula Sharma, Caste. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999.

Journals

Ashok K. Pankaj, “Engaging with Discourse on Caste, Class and Politics in India”. South Asia Research. 27/392007). 333-353.

Dietrich, Gabriela. “Patriarchy, Caste and Class”. Journal of Dharma 23/1(1998).104-111.

Kavoori, Purnendu S. “The Varna Trophic System: An Ecological Theory of Caste formation,” Economic and Political Weekly ( March 23, 2002): 1156.

Webliography

Gupta, Dipankar. “Caste, Race, politics,” Seminar, (3 October, 2001):

http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/508/508%20dipankar%20gupta.htm

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[1] Ursula Sharma, op. cit., 7,8.

[2] Ibid., 8.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] G. Karunanithi, Caste and Class in Industrial Organisation: A Case Study of Two Indusstrial Units in Tamilnadu, (New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers, 1991), 19-23.  

[6] Ursula Sharma, Caste  (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 3.

[7]Ibid.,7.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches Vol. 7 Edited by Vasant Moon, Bombay: Education Deprtment Government of  Maharashtra, 1990, 37.

[10] J. Murdoch, compiler, Caste: Its Supposed Origin; its History; its effects; the duty of the Government; Hindus and Christians with respect to it: and its Prospects, (Madras: CLS for India, 1896): 4.

[11] Ibid., 7.

[12] Ambedkar, op. cit., 66.

[13] Dipankar Gupta, “Caste, Race, politics, Seminar,” (3 October, 2001):

http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/508/508%20dipankar%20gupta.htm

[14] Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, op. cit., 65,79.

[15] Dipankar Gupta, op. cit.

[16] Ambedkar, op. cit., 66-69.

[17] Ibid., 74,75.

[18] Gail Omvedt, Dalit Visions, Hyderabad: orient Longman, 1995. 48.

[19] Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus, (Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress,1988, Indian edition), 67.

[20] Poornendu S. Kavoori, op. cit., 1159.

[21] From the e-materials provided by Dr Udayakumar

[22] Dumont, op. cit., 72.

[23] Ambedkar, vol 5 p156.

[24] Dipankar Gupta, Caste:Understanding Hierarchy anddifference in Indian Society,New Delhi: Penguin, 2000. 202-204.

[25] H. Kotani,ed, Caste System, Untouchability and the Depressed, New Delhi: Manohar, 1997. 4.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Kotani, op. cit., 8.

[28] Ibid., 11.

[29] Ibid., 12.

[30] Gabriela Dietrich and Bas Wielenga, Towards Understanding Indian Society, Madurai: Centre for Social Analysis, 1998. 41.

[31] Ursula Sharma, op. cit., 47,48.

[32] Purnendu S Kavoori, “ The Varna Trophic System: An Ecological Theory of Caste formation,” Economic and Political Weekly ( March 23, 2002): 1156.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Poornendu S. Kavoori, op. cit.

[35] Ibid.

[36] G. Karunanithi, op.cit., 18.

[37] Ashok K. Pankaj, “Engaging with Discourse on Caste, Class and Politics in India”. South Asia Research. 27/392007). 333-353.

[38] K. L. Sharma,ed., Caste and Class in India, New Delhi: Rawat Publications, 1994. 2.

[39] Gabriela Dietrich and Bas Wielenga, Towards Understanding Indian Society,Madurai: Centre for Social Analysis, 1998 (Reprint). 34,35.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Dietrich & Wielenga, op. cit., 35.

[42] Ibid., 36.

[43] Gabriela Dietrich, “Patriarchy, Caste and Class”, Journal of Dharma 23/1(1998), 109.

[44] Ibid., 110.