Table Of Content

THE STRUCTURE OF INDIAN SOCIETY This book explores the structural features of Indian society, such as caste, tribe, sect, rural–urban relations, sanskritization and untouchability. Based on a wealth of fi eld research as well as archival material, the book • Interrogates the prevailing thinking in Indian sociology on these structures; • Studies Indian society from contemporary as well as historical perspectives; • Analyses caste divisions vis-à-vis caste hierarchy; • Critically examines the public policies regarding caste-less society, reservations for Backward Classes, and the caste census. This second edition, with four new chapters, will be a key text for students and scholars of sociology, social anthropology, political science, modern history, development studies and South Asian studies. A.M. Shah is former Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, and National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, India. Felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Sociological Society in 2009, he has also been the recipient of the Swami Pranavananda Award from the University Grants Commission, and the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Delhi. He has held fellowships at the University of Chicago; the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, Stanford; the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK; and the University of New England, Australia. He has authored and edited many books, including The Household Dimension of the Family in India (1973); D ivision and Hierarchy (co-authored with I.P. Desai (1988); T he Family in India: Critical Essays (1998); E xploring India’s Rural Past (2002); T he Writings of A.M. Shah: the Household and Family in India (an omnibus, 2014); and S ociology and History (2017). He has contributed extensively to academic journals and symposia, including ten articles in Gujarati. He has been honoured with a festschrift, U nderstanding Indian Society: Past and Present (2010), edited by B.S. Baviskar and Tulsi Patel. ‘This book forces its reader to revisit the Indian society as it exists today . . . [it] comes as a fresh guide for young sociologists in understanding the Indian social structure in a refreshing and befi tting academic framework.’ — Rajesh Gill, S ociological Bulletin ‘Shah’s articles open up some less trodden paths in the study of India.’ — Sirpa Tenhunen, J ournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute THE STRUCTURE OF INDIAN SOCIETY Then and Now Second Edition A.M. Shah Second edition published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 A.M. Shah The right of A.M. Shah to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2010 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shah, A.M., 1931– author. Title: The structure of Indian society : then and now / A.M. Shah. Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2018058195 (print) | LCCN 2019002872 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429401268 | ISBN 9781138351288 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367193195 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Caste—India. | Class consciousness—India. | Social classes—India. Classifi cation: LCC HT720 (ebook) | LCC HT720 .S379 2019 (print) | DDC 305.5/1220954—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058195 ISBN: 978-1-138-35128-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-19319-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-40126-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC To the memory of Purushottam kaka scholar, educator, reformer CONTENTS Preface to the Second Edition ix Acknowledgements xi Glossary xii Introduction 1 1 Caste in the 21st Century: From System to Elements 26 2 Purity, Impurity, Untouchability: Then and Now 44 3 Sanskritization Revisited 57 4 Sects and Hindu Social Structure 68 5 The Rural–Urban Networks in India 101 6 The ‘Dalit’ Category and Its Differentiation 127 7 Can the Caste Census be Reliable? 131 8 Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat 134 viii Contents 9 Untouchability, the Untouchables and Social Change in Gujarat 164 10 The Tribes — So-called — of Gujarat: In the Perspective of Time 176 11 The Mirage of a Casteless Society in India 184 12 A Government Programme to Train Scheduled Caste Priests 195 13 The Village in the City, the City in the Village 198 14 Myths, Rural and Urban 205 Bibliography 209 Author Index 223 Subject Index 227 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In the second edition of this book I have included four essays written since the publication of the fi rst edition. One of them ( Chapter 11 ), ‘The Mirage of a Casteless Society in India’, deals with the goal of creating a casteless society in India that the English-educated new intelligentsia developed since the beginning of India’s engagement with the West in the early 19th century. The expression of this goal, passing through various stages, reached its climax when in 1950 the Constitution of democratic independent India declared discrimi- nation on the basis of caste as unlawful. A number of social scientists also believed that caste would wither away under the impact of industrialization, urbanization, and modernization. I have tried to show how the achievement of this goal is getting increasingly frustrated, on the one hand, by innovative activities organized by caste groups to retain their unity and integrity, and on the other hand, by the failure of political as well as judicial leadership to take appropriate legal steps to control the power of caste groups. In recent years, the country has witnessed in different states massive demonstrations by castes to press for getting their demands accepted. Similarly, in all elections, all political parties and their candidates, including even those aspiring to be prime ministers, have appealed to voters’ castes for votes. Achievement of the goal of a casteless society has thus become a mirage. I had discussed in Chapters 2, 6 and 9 how the Dalit category is highly differentiated, and how the caste hierarchy among the Dalits includes at its top a caste analogous to Brahmin. In Gujarat, such a caste called Garo or Garoda (from Sanskrit ‘g uru ’) performs traditional Hindu rituals for other Dalit castes. Signifi cantly, the Government of Gujarat has been giving scholar- ships to Garo boys to train them in Karmakand , the corpus of Hindu rituals.