CASTE

in biology, a subset of individuals within a colony (society) of social animals that is specialized in the function it performs and distinguished by anatomical or morphological differences from other subsets. Social insects such as ants, bees, termites, and wasps are the main species known to have developed caste systems. Typical castes in insect societies include the queen, the sexual female responsible for reproduction; the workers, the usually sterile caretakers of the queen and her eggs and larvae; and the soldiers, defenders of the colony (and also sterile). Morphological differences between castes, which enable their members' performance of different tasks, are sometimes noted; e.g., the pollen basket on the legs of the worker honeybee (Apis mellifera) does not exist on the queen. In many insect species, differentiation of insect larvae into various castes is determined by diet, although hormonal and environmental factors can also affect development. group of people having a specific social rank, defined generally by descent, marriage, and occupation. Widespread in India, caste is rooted in distant antiquity and dictates to every orthodox person the rules and restrictions of all social intercourse and occupation. Each caste has its own customs that restrict the occupations and dietary habits of its members and their social contacts with members of other castes. The caste system in its most developed form is found in India, but the word is applied to similar hierarchically ranked groups in other societies. The word caste (from the Portuguese and Spanish casta, meaning race, breed, or lineage) was first applied to Indian society by Portuguese travelers in the 16th century. The word used in most Indian languages is jati (meaning race, or any group sharing generic characteristics), which is the smallest endogamous social unit, usually a regional population. There are about 3,000 castes and more than 25,000 subcastes in India, some with several hundred members and others with millions. In the traditional lawbooks, and in popular usage, India's 3,000 jatis, or castes, are grouped loosely into four varnas (from the Sanskrit, colour), or classes. At the top of the hierarchy are the Brahmans (priests and scholars), then the Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), the Vaisyas (merchants, traders, and farmers), and lastly the Sudras (artisans, labourers, servants, and slaves). The members of each class are considered to be ritually polluted to varying degrees as a result of defilements brought about by their occupations, dietary habits, and customs. Those who have the most defiling jobs are ranked beneath the Sudras and were called untouchables (now known as Harijans, or Children of God, the name given them by Mohandas K. Gandhi). Influenced by Hinduism, India's Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians also have their own castes, though they place less emphasis on food taboos and inherited rank and status than do Hindus. Caste members customarily marry only members of their own caste, a practice called endogamy. A woman's sexual alliance with a male of a lower-ranking caste normally meant her excommunication from her caste. An alliance between a male and a lower-ranking female also carried with it a lowering of social rank, but not to the same degree. Pollution and purification are central concepts in the caste order. These two concepts are based on Hindu beliefs that each caste group can maintain its status by regulating its contact with lower-caste groups (that is, by avoiding their polluting effects) and by regulating its contact with objects thought to be inherently impure. The notion of bodily and dietary purity appeared early in Sanskrit literature and was elaborately developed. In early Brahmanic circles great emphasis was traditionally placed on bodily hygiene and dietary restrictions. The latter practice contributed to the store of austerities (tapas) conducive to attaining the spiritual goal of moksha, or release from the cycle of transmigration. An added factor was the increasing value of ahimsa (noninjury), or refusal to kill for nonsacrificial purposes. Sanctity increased according to the degree to which a person or group refused to kill animals for consumption. First among such animals to be excluded from consumption and the one held in greatest sanctity was the cow. The most important determinants of caste pollution came to include (1) occupational association with the destruction of cows, typified by some leatherworkers and shoemakers; (2) occupational destruction of living things, typified by slaughterers; (3) occupational association with death and decay, typified by funeral officiators and scavengers; and (4) occupational association with human emissions, typified by barbers, washermen, midwives, and lavatory attendants. The participants in such occupations are deemed polluted in varying degrees, and physical contact with either their persons or their bodily emissions is thought to be contaminating. A person can thus be vulnerable to external pollution (as by coming into contact with body emissions of any kind) and internal pollution (as by ingesting impure foodstuffs) and can also be polluted by coming into contact with people who, because of their own hygienic and dietary habits, are impure. Since members of the same caste customarily prepare and eat food with each other (a practice called commensality), a polluted individual can, by association, pollute the other members of his caste. Pollution is thus the degree to which a caste allows practices that a ritually and socially superior caste group does not permit its members. However, there are many regional and sectarian differences in the practices prescribed for individual castes. Each caste maintains its own standards, infractions of which are adjudicated and punished by the caste itself. While external pollution can be washed off with water, internal pollution requires another means of purification, normally imposed by tradition but, on occasion, by decision of the caste assembly (sabha). Purification rites can include a fine or penalty paid by giving a feast for caste members or Brahmans. A common purification rite is the consumption of a cleansing agent whose constituents include cow's milk, butter, curds, dung, and urine. Despite almost two centuries of British colonial administration and the efforts of Western-influenced Hindu reformers in the 19th century, the Hindu caste system entered the 20th century almost unchanged. At its apex were the Vedic Brahmans (those families continuing the practice of Vedic study and ritual); at the bottom were the untouchables, whose very shadows were once thought to pollute a superior group. This extremism has lessened in the 20th century, partly owing to Gandhi's influence and to successive Indian governments' efforts to abolish caste rituals, remove legal restrictions from untouchables, and promote the welfare of the lower castes in general. In the 20th century, and particularly in the decades since India gained independence in 1947, there has been increasing upward social mobility among castes. This usually takes the form of a jati trying to associate itself with a higher-ranked varna by adopting the customs, rituals, and attitudes found in the Brahmanical scriptures, a process called Sanskritization. An upwardly mobile caste aiming for a higher degree of purity abstains from earlier polluting practices, either by restricting the groups with which it allows intermarriage and commensality, by increasing its observance of vegetarianism, or by hiring another less fortunate group to do personal work of a polluting nature, such as washing clothes. While lower castes may pursue Sanskritization in an effort to raise their social status, castes already at the top of the hierarchy try to raise their status further through Westernizationi.e., the adoption of Western culture and thought and Western patterns of material consumption. Urbanization and industrialization have also increased Indian social mobility and thereby modified the caste system. Modern transportation facilities, workplaces, and residential housing have brought Indians of all castes into close and unavoidable contact with each other. As a result, prohibitions on many forms of personal contact between castes have been relaxed or abandoned entirely in urban areas, at least in public places. Declining specialization in traditional occupations has further eroded the caste system, particularly in the more industrialized areas, though new or more modern occupations do tend to generate their own new caste rankings. The Indian constitution has outlawed untouchability (see untouchable) and has guaranteed legal equality for all citizens. Moreover, the government has geared many social-welfare programs specifically toward raising the socioeconomic status of the lower castes. Modernization and economic development have tended to modify the caste system, however, rather than destroy it. Indeed, the caste system has proved flexible enough to adapt to new conditions of life in India and is emerging in new forms within the political fabric of the country's parliamentary democracy. More specifically, Hinduism is gradually being dissociated from its traditional social structure of caste, kinship, and village community and is increasingly being used by the state, the mass media, and India's political parties as a tool of political organization. Caste groups are moving toward associations in ever-larger bloc-voting pressure groups that compete in politics at all levels and vie for the control of economic opportunities and the provision of social-welfare services for their members. So, although there are many movements for caste reform and offenses against untouchables are now banned by law, caste alliances remain a powerful political and social force in India. And the caste system still retains great strength in the countryside, where the majority of India's people live.