CASTE AND INHERITED STATUSsuch as good health, education, and a well-paying
job. Unequal resources between groups also influ-
ence their interaction with all the basic institutions
of society: the economy, the political system, and
religion, among others. An understanding of how
inequalities arise, their forms and consequences,
and the processes that tend to sustain them is
essential for the formulation of policies that will
improve the well-being of all in society.
All societies in the world are socially stratified
(i.e. wealth, power, and honor are unequally dis-
tributed among different groups). However, they
vary in the ways in which inequality is structured.
One of the most frequently used bases for catego-
rizing different forms of stratification systems is
the way status is acquired. In some societies, indi-
viduals acquire status on the basis of their achieve-
ments or merit. In others, status is accorded on the
basis of ascribed, not achieved characteristics. One
is born into them or inherits them, regardless of
individual abilities or skills. A person’s position is
unalterable during his or her lifetime. The most
easily understood example is that of the prince
who inherits the status of king because he is the
son of a king.
Sociologists who study stratification use the
idea of ascribed and achieved status to contrast
caste systems with class systems. In class systems
one’s opportunities in life, at least in theory, are
determined by one’s actions, allowing a degree of
individual mobility that is not possible in caste
systems. In caste systems a person’s social position
is determined by birth, and social intercourse
outside one’s caste is prohibited.
The term ‘‘caste’’ itself is often used to denote
large-scale kinship groups that are hierarchically
organized within a rigid system of stratification.
Caste systems are to be found among the Hindus
in India and among societies where groups are
ranked and closed as in South Africa during the
apartheid period. Toward the end of this article,
examples of caste systems will be given from other
non-Hindu societies to illustrate how rigid, ranked
systems of inequality, where one’s position is fixed
for life, are found in other areas that do not share
India’s religious belief system.
Early Hindu literary classics describe a society
divided into four varnas: Brahman (poet-priest),
Kshatriya (warrior-chief), Vaishya (traders), and
Shudras (menials, servants). The varnas formed
ranked categories characterized by differential ac-
cess to spiritual and material privileges. It exclud-
ed the Untouchables, who were despised because
they engaged in occupations that were considered
unclean and polluting.The varna model of social ranking persisted
throughout the Hindu subcontinent for over a
millennia. The basis of caste ranking was the sa-
cred concept of purity and pollution with Brahmans,
because they were engaged in priestly duties con-
sidered ritually pure, while those who engaged in
manual labor and with ritually polluting objects
were regarded as impure. Usually those who had
high ritual status also had economic and political
power. Beliefs about pollution generally regulated
all relations between castes. Members were not
allowed to marry outside their caste; there were
strict rules about the kind of food and drink one
could accept and from what castes; and there were
restrictions on approaching and visiting members
of another caste. Violations of these rules entailed
purifactory rites and sometimes expulsion from
the caste (Ghurye 1969).The varna scheme refers only to broad catego-
ries of society, for in reality the small endogamous
group or subcaste (jati) forms the unit of social
organization. In each linguistic area there are about
two thousand such subcastes. The status of the
subcaste, its cultural traditions, and its numerical
strength vary from one region to another, often
from village to village.Field studies of local caste structures revealed
that the caste system was more dynamic than the
earlier works by social scientists had indicated. For
example, at the local level, the position of the
middle castes, between the Brahmans and the
Untouchables, is often not very clear. This is be-
cause castes were often able to change their ritual
position after they had acquired economic and
political power. A low caste would adopt the
Brahminic way of life, such as vegetarianism and
teetotalism, and in several generations attain a
higher position in the hierarchy. Upward mobility
occurred for an entire caste, not for an individual
or the family. This process of upward mobility,
known as Sanskritization (Srinivas 1962), did not
however, affect the movement of castes at the