A Cognitive Approach EDWIN D. DRIVER University Of

Social Class in South India: A Cognitive Approach EDWIN D. DRIVER University of Massachusetts, Amherst, U.S.A. Introductory Remarks A DISTINGUISHED ANTHROPOLOGIST, the late Irawati Karve (1965: 3) says that knowledge of three things is absolutely necessary for the understanding of any cultural form in India: the configuration of the linguistic regions, the family organization, and the institution of caste or social hierarchy. "Each of these factors is intimately bound with the other two, and the three together give meaning and supply basis to all other aspects of Indian culture." (Karve 1965: 3) Virtually all social scientists and some philosophers agree with Karve's view concerning the centrality of social hierarchy. Cohn (1971: 112) remarks: Most observers of India society, I think, accept Louis Dumont's view that, when one penetrates the bewildering proliferation of social forms and cultural expressions in India, he finds that most relations and most values come down to a question of hierarchy. While the predominant topics of interest and research for social scientists have been the jati, caste, and varna systems, there is an increasing awareness on the part of social scientists, especially the new generation of India, that it is time to thoroughly study other forms of social hierarchy, such as class and power. The view of the new generation is sharply stated by Bopegamage and Veeraraghavan (1967: 4) and by Beteille. Beteille (1974: 10) says: Several persons have criticized the excessive preoccupation with caste in Indian sociology and, since I have contributed to this criticism, it is fair that others should point out that irrespective of my stated objectives, in actual practice my own work so far has been largely concerned with caste... I would not say that caste as an institution has ceased to be important in Indian society, but that the study of caste by Indian sociologists has become a little stale. And, elsewhere in the same book, and after having described the vitality of social classes and peasant organization in rural Bengal, Beteille (1974: 187) obliquely suggests the significance of social class analysis in today's India: The events with which the book deals have grown in significance for an ever-expanding section of the rural people of West Bengal as anyone who reads the Bengali newspapers will testify. As happens so often, these events in the countryside seem to have overtaken the social anthropologist and made a little obsolescent the study of so many problems-such as those of caste ranking-to which he has devoted so much patience and care. 239 The lag between the changes in human society and the study of these changes by social scientists is in itself an intriguing topic for research. One reason for the sparse research and literature on social class may be that social scientists were not conscious of and sensitive to social class as a 'real' phenomenon and thus used concepts and research procedures which obscured the phenomenon. And, while there is not an explanation of why this consciousness of social class arises now, Ghurye (1957: x, xi) interestingly notes how the increase between 1930 and 1950 of sociological publications in Europe and the USA on caste and class followed a rise in national and international consciousness and worry over class and caste developments. Recent Studies of Social Class in India: an Overview Recent studies of social class in India are, with rare exception, based on the use of the 'objective approach' rather than the 'subjective approach.' The 'objective approach' means that the researcher rather than the community decides on the criteria and then makes a judgment as to the existence and the shape of the social class system in the community being studied. The criteria selected are usually economic-property, wealth, and occupation-the criteria which Marx and Weber also used to designate the social classes. The consensus among researchers is that social classes (i.e. a secular order of social stratification) exist in India today and are distinguishable from castes and the varna system (i.e. sacred orders of social stratification). The classes are perceived of as being viable groups few in number, in the rural areas of the South (Beals 1974; Beteille 1965; Djurfeldt 1975; Sivertsen 1963; Srinivas 1976) and of the North (Bhatt 1975; D'Souza 1969; Jain 1977; Kuppusswamy and Singh 1967; Sharma 1974; K. Singh 1967; V. Singh 1976; Y. Singh 1970) as well as in some urban areas (D'Souza and Sethi 1972; Lal 1974; Mehta 1968; Mukherjee 1970; Prasad 1968; Shah et al. 1971; Weinstein 1974). Evidence of their viability is partly suggested by an analysis of the vocabularies of communities. On the basis of a book in Bengali titled Krishak Sabhar Itihas by Abdullah Rasul (Calcutta 1969), Beteille (1974: 178, 185) says: There is a whole range of bengali terms...and their counterparts in other Indian languages which are directly relevant to the analysis of what sociologists understand by class. These are not merely terms imported into the countryside by party theoreticians but constitute categories used by the villagers to define a significant part of their social universe, to identify themselves and others and to act in a variety of contexts on the basis of these identities.... The bengali terms which are of a 'class' type are as follows: (i) a congeries comprising jamindars, taluqdars,and pattanindars, broadly described as intermediaries and occupying the top of the social hierarchy in spite of considerable diversity; (ii) jotedars,broadly described as peasant proprietors, but varying greatly in their rights of control over land and in wealth and income; (iii) bargadarsand adhiyars, who may be roughly categorized as sharecroppers and are lower in status and weaker economically than (ii); and khetmajursor agricultural laborers, often landless and occupying the lowest position socially, economically, and politically. .

Load more