Social Stratification in India - Coursework Example

Social Stratification in India: The Religion, Psychology, and Culture of Caste System Despite advancements in economic conditions and the adoption of a universal human rights framework that eliminate different forms of discrimination, being a Hindu in India continues to mean being part of its caste system, one of the lasting practices of social stratification in the world (Dalmia; Sankaran). Discrimination based on caste has been illegal in India for the past sixty years, yet reality shows that the caste system’s discriminatory practices are present up to now (Sankaran). The law, for instance, shows bias for upper-caste members. Madras high court's acquitted 23 upper-caste landowners who burned 43 Dalits, also called Untouchables, in their huts until they all died (Datta-Ray). The dead included men, women, and children (Datta-Ray). Lower-caste people continue to report discrimination in everyday community and workplace experiences too (Giridharadas). The paper describes and analyzes the underlying cultural and ideological systems that impact the maintenance of caste in India. Social stratification in India is based on Brahmanical orthodoxy and reinforced by the hierarchical socio-economic culture of India and the social classes who have psychological essentialism embedded in their mindsets toward social class distinctions. Despite the deep-seated ideological roots of caste, a number of lower caste members are questioning and challenging the system through changing their social grouping economically and culturally, although discrimination is a large obstacle that threatens their faster spreading across Indian society. The caste system is embedded in India’s culture for around 1,500 years now, in accordance to Brahmanical orthodoxy and Indian culture. Brahmanical orthodoxy is part of the Hindu thinking (Clooney 4). The caste system has a simple rule: “All men are created unequal” (O’Neill 2). Social class ranking in Hindu system is based on Brahamanical legend where an ancient being created the main social class groups, or varnas. The legend says that the Brahmans, or the highest caste group, came from the mouth of the being; the Kshatriyas, rulers and soldiers, developed from its arms; the thighs produced the Vaisyas, merchants and traders; while the feet was the source of the Sudras, the laborers. Every varna is further subdivided into hundreds of groupings of hereditary castes and subcastes, or jatis (subdivisions), where hereditary means that the caste group is handed from one generation to the next by blood, and subcastes mean that, even among the lower caste members, there are upper and lower class members too. The fifth group is called achuta/dalits, or untouchable. The ancient being was believed to not claim them as part of itself. The first three varnas are said to be “twice-born” based on their beliefs in reincarnation (Clooney 7). The Brahmans have enjoyed the benefits of being part of the upper class for many centuries. In India, untouchables are social outcasts, where other social groups see them as too polluted that they cannot be seen as human beings. Their society sees them as too impure that they cannot enter temples and upper caste houses, and they can only use separate utensils in public places (Raheja 500). They cannot also use certain streets and cannot use the same wells that upper class members are using. Untouchables are vulnerable to insult and abuse, while some upper class members even rape, burn, or lynch them to death. Conflicts arise on how social scientists interpret the causes and elements that preserve caste. Gloria Goodwin Raheja, member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies of the University of Chicago, Chicago, questions the limited analysis of Louis Dumont, French anthropologist and associate professor at Oxford University du ring the 1950s. Dumont’s 1970 book, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications, described Indian social structures. He argues that the caste system depends on the differences between the pure and the impure (qtd. in Raheja 500). He borrows heavily from Célestin Bouglé, a French philosopher, who interpreted the caste system in Western egalitarian framework. Bouglé proposes that the caste system follows three principles: hierarchy, the division and mutual revulsion of castes that is preserved through marriage and communal rules; and division of labor that is based on historical caste labor specialization (qtd. in Raheja 500). Dumont agrees with these three principles, but goes as far as reducing them to one: “the superiority of the pure to the impure” (qtd. in Raheja 500). Raheja criticizes Dumont’s understanding that power and socio-economic causes produce and expand caste. She believes that caste is better analyzed through cultural and ideological constructions that are indigenous to India, and not set against Western ideologies (501). She explains caste based on cultural values, beliefs, and practices that are part of how caste members see themselves in relation to others, thereby removing Western-centered analysis of caste. These conflicts underline the importance of understanding caste, not under the judgmental views of the West, but according to cultural and ideological systems of India itself. The continuation of caste into modern times continues to be analyzed, as it reveals local beliefs and motives in the rightness of its preservation. Several scholars offered frameworks for understanding caste thinking and behavior. Shefali Chandra explores how the Brahmins used Victorian values in the nineteenth century to establish gender and caste lines. Though she focused on Indian prostitutes and how they are perceived as lower than liberal European women who are sexually active, she also explores the connection between Brahmin class and the education and media they use to control gender roles and expectations within proper caste grouping. Chandra says: Brahmanism was quietly being made to stand in for Hinduism itself…sexual practices, as materialized through the institutions of patriarchal sexual control, determined the differences between Hinduism and other Indian religions. (137). Brahmanism is supposed to be a branch of Hinduism only, but it has a history of taking over Hinduism’s core beliefs and practices. Chandra presents an interesting analysis, wherein, by taking over the moral policing of the female body, Brahmanism establishes what makes Hinduism different from other religions, and this authority gives them opportunity to also own Hinduism at increasing larger ways. The article shows that religion provides the cultural mindset that monitors and corrects proper behaviors, when it is within the realm of sexuality or public life. Other scholars also believe in the connections among gender, religion, and caste. Manuela Ciotti, a researcher of South Asian studies, focuses on the ethnography of Uttar Pradesh to understand low-caste women who are active in political activism. These women are rejecting the use of Dalit because it holds a disempowering status for them. Being a Dalit means accepting what it means to Indian caste- a full control of their identity and destiny- since their social class defines their behaviors as women and as Dalit members. The article offers an important analysis of how words, or language in general, shape how caste members see each other. Language, especially gendered language, reinforces social stratification through labeling and differentiating upper from lower-class identities. Another framework for explaining the lasting caste system is psychological essentialism. Essentialism is a psychological process by which people think that things are represented through their natural essences (Mahalingam 735). Ramaswami Mahalingam, professor of Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, used essentialism to describe caste thinking. He uses the definition of psychological essentialism frm Gelman et al. who says that it is an “implicit assumption people have about the structure of the world and how it is represented in our categories” (Mahalingam 735). Some cognitive psychologists think that essentialism provides cognitive bias because it justifies how people form and defend their social categories (Mahalingam 735). Mahalingam conducted a study on Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India which has a three-tier caste system. The upper tier has the Brahmins (priest and white collar professionals) and Vellalas (landowners); the middle tiers are made of caste groups, for instance, Thevars, and Vanniyars (small landowning castes and blue collar workers) (Mahalingam 738). They are also called “backward” castes by the state government, where they do not have access to social mobility, but they are not treated as untouchables or Dalits. The bottom tier has Dalits who had reservations for education and jobs by the federal government. Tamil Nadu has a “backward” caste party called DMK (Dravidar Munnetra Kazagam—Dravidar Progressive Organization) that was established in 1967. Mahalingam used the brain transplant system to understand essentialism among the caste members of the Brahmins and the Dalits. The brain transplant system asks if transferring rich and poor men’s brains changed their behaviors. His findings showed that Brahmins largely believed that a rich person’s brain changed how a poor person acts, while a poor person’s brain cannot change a rich person’s actions, while half of the Dalits essentialized for the rich and poor person, wherein changing their brains affected both their actions (Mahalingam 742). The study shows how caste deeply affects caste members that they believe that transferring brains across caste groups can impact how people act. These are examples of how Indians preserve caste through accepting essentialism in their ideology. As caste survives in modern times, some lower caste members undermine it by changing their economic status, which also affects their social and cultural positions to some extent. Several anecdotes, cases, and studies underscore the rise of secular thinking against traditional Hindu identity. Anand Giridharadas, an online writer for The Times and the author of “India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking,” interviewed Ravindra Misal, whom he called “caste buster.” Misal rose from being part of the daily-wages working class to becoming a teacher and business owner (Giridharadas). He owns a school that teaches roller-skating and a company on events management, as well as a school that builds personality and teaches English for a low price (Giridharadas). Misal describes the injustice he feels when he becomes aware, for the first time, that he belongs to a different social class. He says that he noticed that the Jaiswals, Agarwals, and Guptas, the children of business people, could buy ice cream for 2 rupees, while his friends could only afford ice cream for 50 paises (Giridharadas). He notes that in school, children of the working class were almost never selected in introducing guest speakers at school, and during weddings, they have to wait until all the guests have eaten (Giridharadas). Misal also observes that he lacks even the basic modes of transportation- bike and sandals or slippers, for it is only in ninth grade that he was able to have slippers (Giridharadas). In his mind, he opens his eyes to the poverty of his social class and asks why: “Why am I not getting all these things? Why only I don’t have all these things? And at that time I decided that I will earn great money, and I will remove my poverty. I considered poverty as a disease” (Giridharadas). Misal believes that poverty is not an innate element of his social class, but a disease that can be cured. He thinks education, determination, and planning are his main tools for escaping the poverty of his social class. Misal experienced ups and downs in life before establishing himself economically and socially. He pursued college but failed his exams in second year though because he could not balance his numerous jobs and studying (Giridharadas). Still, his desire to change his circumstances inspired him to studying diverse skills, including English, in finishing schools. Soon, he became a sought-after teacher of English because he is also a part-time motivational speaker who knows how to inspire others to reach for their dreams (Giridharadas). In addition, Misal’s roller skating business booms, as his students became chosen to represent India in international competitions. The skating team chooses Misal as the manager too (Giridharadas). The newspaper further reports that he owns a motorcycle, the first in his family to be able to buy one, and constructing a new home (Giridharadas). For Giridharadas, Misal has used his dreams and feelings of social injustice to challenge caste. What are missing though in the story are the experiences of discrimination. Still, Misal must be focusing on the positive aspects of his life and no longer focuses on the conflicts he experienced as he shifts from being a working class to being a business person. Education is truly an important aspect of breaking caste. College, in particular, is one of the aspirations of many of the poor, both working class and untouchables, because it brings them closer to economic growth. Ritty Lukose, Assistant Professor in the Education, Culture, and Society Program in the Graduate School of Education in the University of Pennsylvania, explored the deconstruction of caste through college education in Kerala, India. She studied secularism and democratic initiatives in a low-caste college, the Sree Narayana Colleges. She learned that caste has become a “fault line” for existing negotiations between opposing forces: tradition versus modernity, the private versus the public, and the religious versus the secular (53). In college, students are facing the challenge of Hindu nationalism that questions secular changes to caste: The transformations of caste relations within the last 100 years or so involve both upper-class and lower-caste social transformation and struggle at the intersection of a reworked Hindu tradition and an emergent secular identity. (Lukose 45). Lukose is observing how many of the upper classes want to preserve caste. They do not want to change it in any way that can threaten their comfortable positions in the status quo. Nonetheless, college students are showing determination in changing their destiny by acquiring college education that will free them from poverty and ignorance. Having better socioeconomic conditions that comes from changes in social and economic conditions is under threat, however, because caste discrimination against the lower class persists and threatens their social improvement, including their ambitions for it, in life. Reports on discrimination are widespread because some upper class members reject social mobility. They then use traditional forms of violence to ensure that caste remains intact. Works Cited Chandra, Shefali. “Whiteness on the Margins of Native Patriarchy: Race, Caste, Sexuality, and the Agenda of Transnational Studies.” Feminist Studies 37.1 (2011): 127-153. Literary Reference Center. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. Ciotti, Manuela. “Futurity in Words: Low-Caste Women Political Activists' Self-Representation and Post-Dalit Scenarios in North India.” Contemporary South Asia 18.1 (2010): 43-56. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. 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Raheja, Gloria Goodwin. “India: Caste, Kingship, and Dominance Reconsidered.” Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988): 497-522. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. Rao, Ursula. “Caste and the Desire for Belonging.” Asian Studies Review 33.4 (2009): 483-499. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. Sankaran, Lavanya. “Caste is Not Past.” The New York Times 15 June 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. Read More