Caste

Caste is a form of social stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a lifestyle which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution. Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of Indian society into rigid social groups, with roots in India's ancient history and persisting until today. However, the economic significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanization and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Indian caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside India.

Etymology

The English word "caste" derives from the Spanish and Portuguese casta, which the Oxford English Dictionary quotes John Minsheu's Spanish dictionary (1599) to mean, "race, lineage, or breed". When the Spanish colonized the New World, they used the word to mean a "clan or lineage." However, it was the Portuguese who employed casta in the primary modern sense when they applied it to the thousands of in-marrying hereditary Indian social groups they encountered upon their arrival in India in 1498. The use of the spelling "caste," with this latter meaning, is first attested to in English in 1613.

Caste system in India

The caste system in India is a system of social stratification which has pre-modern origins, was transformed by the British Raj, and is today the basis of reservation in India. It consists of two different concepts, varna and jāti, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system.

Varna may be translated as "class," and refers to the four social classes which existed in the Vedic society, namely Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Certain groups, now known as Dalits, were historically excluded from the varna system altogether, and are still ostracised as untouchables.

Jāti may be translated as caste, and refers to birth. The names of jātis are usually derived from occupations, and considered to be hereditary and endogamous, but this may not always have been the case. The jātis developed in post-Vedic times, possibly from crystallisation of guilds during its feudal era. The jātis are often thought of as belonging to one of the four varnas.