According to Louis Dumont, the fundamental principle underlying the caste system is:

The opposition of the pure and the impure

Endogamy superimposed on exogamy

The opposition of the pure and the impure

Economic exploitation of labour

André Béteille's study of Sripuram found that caste, class and power had become:

Merged into a single class structure

Fully congruent under Brahmin dominance

Which of the following were among Tumin's criticisms of the Davis-Moore theory of stratification? Select all that apply.

Stratification can generate hostility and distrust

The functional importance of positions is difficult to measure

Stratification can generate hostility and distrust

Stratification exists only in industrial societies

The functional importance of positions is difficult to measure

Bouglé identified three principles of the caste system. Which set is correct?

Repulsion, hierarchy and hereditary specialisation

Purity, pollution and encompassment

Sanskritisation, Westernisation and secularisation

Assertion (A): According to the social model, disability is created by society rather than by impairment. Reason (R): The social model distinguishes an individual's bodily impairment from the exclusion produced by barriers in the social and built environment. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Fredrik Barth's Ethnic Groups and Boundaries argued that the critical focus for studying ethnicity should be:

The ethnic boundary that defines the group

The territory the group occupies

The cultural traits a group possesses

Which pairing of a position on tribal policy with its proponent is correct?

Integration with autonomy — Nehru's Panchsheel for tribal areas

Tribe-caste continuum — Louis Dumont

Integration with autonomy — Nehru's Panchsheel for tribal areas

Assimilation — Verrier Elwin (early position)

In Dumont's analysis, the relation between the Brahmin and the king is one in which:

Religious status encompasses political power

The two are equal and unrelated

Religious status encompasses political power

Political power encompasses religious status

Both are subordinated to the market

Social Stratification: Difference, Hierarchy and Inequality; Caste and Class; Gender, Sexuality and Disability; Race, Tribe and Ethnicity

The third block of Unit 3, Social Stratification, has four items: social difference, hierarchy, inequality and marginalization; caste and class; gender, sexuality and disability; and race, tribe and ethnicity. It is the block where this syllabus comes closest to material that general-studies courses also teach, and the difference lies in approach: here caste is read through the structural theories of Bouglé, Ghurye, Dumont and Béteille and against Ambedkar's critique, gender through feminist theory from Beauvoir to Butler, disability through the social model, and ethnicity through Barth's boundaries. The chapter begins with the general theories of stratification that frame all four.

1. Difference, hierarchy, inequality and marginalization: theories of stratification

Not every difference is inequality; stratification exists when differences are ranked into a hierarchy of unequal access to rewards and are reproduced across generations. The functionalist theory of Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) argued that stratification is universal and necessary: society must motivate the most talented to fill the most important positions, which requires unequal rewards. Melvin Tumin (1953) replied that functional importance is hard to measure, that stratification limits the discovery of talent among the disadvantaged, that it breeds hostility and that inherited privilege is not a reward for merit. Marx rooted stratification in property; Weber separated class, status and party. Marginalization is the process by which groups are pushed to the edges of economic, political and cultural life — denied full participation rather than merely ranked low — and is closely linked to the idea of social exclusion treated in Unit 6.

2. Caste and class

Approach	Central claim about caste
Célestin Bouglé (Essays on the Caste System, 1908)	Three principles: repulsion (separation of groups, as in endogamy and commensal rules), hierarchy and hereditary specialisation.
G.S. Ghurye (1932)	Six features, from segmental division to restrictions on marriage, read through texts and ethnography.
Louis Dumont (Homo Hierarchicus, 1966)	Caste is a system of ideas founded on the opposition of the pure and the impure; hierarchy is a principle by which the whole ranks its parts, and in it religious status (the Brahmin) encompasses political power (the king). India is 'homo hierarchicus' against the West's 'homo aequalis'.
Gerald Berreman; F.G. Bailey	Critics of Dumont's idealism: caste is a system of power and inequality experienced as oppression by those at the bottom, comparable to racial stratification elsewhere (Berreman).
André Béteille (Caste, Class and Power, 1965)	In Sripuram, a Tanjore village, caste, class and power, once congruent under Brahmin dominance, were becoming disjunctive: land passed to non-Brahmins and power to numerically strong castes through electoral politics.
B.R. Ambedkar	Caste as endogamy superimposed on exogamy and as graded inequality sanctioned by scripture — a critique from below that rejects the idea of caste as a consensual system.

Class in India cuts across caste. Scholars trace a colonial and post-colonial class structure of landlords, rich peasants, agricultural labourers, an industrial working class, a large informal sector and an expanding middle class, whose growth after economic liberalisation has been studied as a new consumerist stratum (Leela Fernandes, India's New Middle Class, 2006). The key debate is whether caste is dissolving into class — castes acting as interest groups competing for resources, a process Srinivas and Rajni Kothari described — or persisting as a distinct form of inequality that shapes access to land, jobs, marriage and dignity. Most contemporary analysts find both: caste's ritual dimension weakening while its role in mobility, politics and discrimination continues.

⚠️ Encompassment is Dumont's, disjunction is Béteille's

Dumont's hierarchy is one in which the higher value (purity, the Brahmin) encompasses the lower (power, the king). Béteille's argument is that caste, class and power, once bundled together, have come apart. An option that swaps these two is a common trap.

3. Gender, sexuality and disability

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) — 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' — opened the distinction that Ann Oakley (Sex, Gender and Society, 1972) made explicit: sex is biological, gender is the social and cultural construction of masculinity and femininity. Patriarchy, for Sylvia Walby (Theorizing Patriarchy, 1990), operates through six structures — paid work, household production, the state, male violence, sexuality and cultural institutions — and has shifted from private to public forms. Feminist theory ranges from liberal (equal rights) through Marxist and socialist (patriarchy and capitalism) to radical (patriarchy as the root oppression). Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) argued that gender is performative — produced by repeated acts rather than expressing an inner essence — and Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) coined intersectionality for the way race, gender and class combine to produce distinct experiences of disadvantage. In India, Uma Chakravarti's concept of Brahmanical patriarchy links the control of women's sexuality to the maintenance of caste purity and endogamy.

Sexuality entered sociology as socially organised rather than natural, most influentially through Foucault's History of Sexuality; queer theory questions the fixed binaries of heterosexual and homosexual. Disability is read through two models. The medical model locates disability in an individual's impairment, to be diagnosed and treated. The social model, set out by the UK Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (1976) and developed by Mike Oliver, distinguishes impairment (a bodily condition) from disability (the exclusion produced by a society organised without regard for people with impairments — stairs, inaccessible information, discriminatory attitudes). India's Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, which recognises 21 conditions, reflects a rights-based approach in this spirit.

4. Race, tribe and ethnicity

Race was once treated as a biological division of humankind; modern biology finds far more variation within than between so-called races, and sociology treats race as a social construction with very real consequences — racism, segregation, differential life chances. Colonial ethnology tried to read caste as race: H.H. Risley's census work used nasal index measurements to rank castes by 'Aryan' descent, a thesis Ghurye and later scholars rejected. Ethnicity refers to groups that share a sense of common origin, culture, language or religion. Fredrik Barth (Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 1969) shifted attention from the 'cultural stuff' a group holds to the boundary it maintains: ethnic identity persists through interaction across boundaries, and the cultural content can change while the boundary endures.

Tribe in Indian sociology is defined partly by administrative listing — the Scheduled Tribes under Article 342 — and partly by features such as territorial concentration, distinct language and religion, relative isolation and a lesser degree of internal hierarchy. Debate over tribes took three positions: isolation (Verrier Elwin's early 'national park' proposal), assimilation (Ghurye's 'backward Hindus') and integration with autonomy (Nehru's 'tribal Panchsheel', set out in his foreword to Elwin's A Philosophy for NEFA). F.G. Bailey proposed a tribe-caste continuum, since many tribes have moved towards caste-like organisation through Sanskritisation or peasantisation, and Surajit Sinha studied the Bhumij case of tribal groups becoming Kshatriya-claiming castes.

🎯 Why Barth changed the study of ethnicity

Before Barth, an ethnic group was defined by a list of cultural traits, which made it impossible to explain why groups survive when their culture changes. By locating identity in the boundary and in ascription by self and others, Barth explained how Pathans or Adivasis can adopt new dress, language or occupations and still remain distinct.

Key takeaways

Davis and Moore justify stratification as functionally necessary; Tumin's critique stresses unmeasurable importance, wasted talent and inherited privilege.
Bouglé's repulsion-hierarchy-hereditary specialisation, Ghurye's six features, Dumont's purity-impurity and encompassment, and Béteille's disjunction of caste, class and power are the core structural readings of caste; Ambedkar and Berreman stress power and oppression.
Gender theory runs from Beauvoir and Oakley's sex-gender distinction through Walby's six structures of patriarchy to Butler's performativity and Crenshaw's intersectionality; Brahmanical patriarchy links gender to caste.
The social model of disability separates impairment from the disability produced by social barriers, against the medical model.
Race is a social construction; Barth locates ethnicity in boundaries rather than cultural content; tribal policy debates run through isolation, assimilation and integration, and Bailey proposed a tribe-caste continuum.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

According to Louis Dumont, the fundamental principle underlying the caste system is:
1. Endogamy superimposed on exogamy
2. The opposition of the pure and the impure
3. Racial difference
4. Economic exploitation of labour
Show answer
Answer: B — The opposition of the pure and the impure
In Homo Hierarchicus (1966) Dumont derives hierarchy, separation and division of labour from the single opposition of the pure and the impure. Endogamy superimposed on exogamy is Ambedkar's formulation.
André Béteille's study of Sripuram found that caste, class and power had become:
1. Irrelevant to village life
2. Merged into a single class structure
3. Fully congruent under Brahmin dominance
4. Increasingly disjunctive
Show answer
Answer: D — Increasingly disjunctive
Béteille's Caste, Class and Power (1965) showed that the three dimensions, once concentrated in the Brahmins, were separating as land and political power shifted to other castes.
Which of the following were among Tumin's criticisms of the Davis-Moore theory of stratification? Select all that apply.
1. Stratification limits the discovery of talent among the disadvantaged
2. Stratification can generate hostility and distrust
3. Stratification exists only in industrial societies
4. The functional importance of positions is difficult to measure
Show answer
Answer: A — Stratification limits the discovery of talent among the disadvantaged; B — Stratification can generate hostility and distrust; D — The functional importance of positions is difficult to measure
Tumin (1953) made the points about measurement, wasted talent and hostility, among others. He did not claim stratification exists only in industrial societies; his objection was to its functional necessity, not its spread.
Bouglé identified three principles of the caste system. Which set is correct?
1. Repulsion, hierarchy and hereditary specialisation
2. Class, status and party
3. Purity, pollution and encompassment
4. Sanskritisation, Westernisation and secularisation
Show answer
Answer: A — Repulsion, hierarchy and hereditary specialisation
Bouglé's Essays on the Caste System (1908) named repulsion, hierarchy and hereditary specialisation; Dumont later built on Bouglé but reduced all three to the purity-impurity opposition.
The claim that gender is produced through the repetition of acts rather than expressing a pre-existing inner identity is associated with:
1. Kimberlé Crenshaw
2. Sylvia Walby
3. Judith Butler
4. Ann Oakley
Show answer
Answer: C — Judith Butler
Butler's Gender Trouble (1990) introduced gender performativity. Oakley drew the sex-gender distinction, Walby theorised six structures of patriarchy, and Crenshaw coined intersectionality.
Assertion (A): According to the social model, disability is created by society rather than by impairment. Reason (R): The social model distinguishes an individual's bodily impairment from the exclusion produced by barriers in the social and built environment. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Because the model separates impairment from disability, it can say that disability is produced by social barriers — the distinction in R is exactly what makes the claim in A possible.
Fredrik Barth's Ethnic Groups and Boundaries argued that the critical focus for studying ethnicity should be:
1. The ethnic boundary that defines the group
2. The racial ancestry of members
3. The territory the group occupies
4. The cultural traits a group possesses
Show answer
Answer: A — The ethnic boundary that defines the group
Barth's famous formulation is that the ethnic boundary defines the group, not the cultural stuff it encloses; boundaries persist despite the flow of people and changing cultural content.
Which term did Kimberlé Crenshaw coin in 1989 for the way race, gender and class combine to produce distinct forms of disadvantage?
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: intersectionality
Intersectionality holds that forms of oppression are not additive but interlocking: a Black woman's (or a Dalit woman's) experience cannot be understood by adding separate analyses of race (caste) and gender.
Which pairing of a position on tribal policy with its proponent is correct?
1. Tribe-caste continuum — Louis Dumont
2. Isolation — G.S. Ghurye
3. Integration with autonomy — Nehru's Panchsheel for tribal areas
4. Assimilation — Verrier Elwin (early position)
Show answer
Answer: C — Integration with autonomy — Nehru's Panchsheel for tribal areas
Nehru's five principles for tribal areas combined development with respect for tribal rights and self-governance. Elwin's early position was isolation and Ghurye's assimilation; the tribe-caste continuum is F.G. Bailey's.
In Dumont's analysis, the relation between the Brahmin and the king is one in which:
1. The two are equal and unrelated
2. Religious status encompasses political power
3. Political power encompasses religious status
4. Both are subordinated to the market
Show answer
Answer: B — Religious status encompasses political power
For Dumont, status (purity) and power are separated in India, and the superior value — status — encompasses power: the king may rule, but ranks below the Brahmin in the hierarchy of values.