Inequalities Within Caste and Kin: What Has That to Do with Religion?

The basic flaw of conventional sociology in India has been that it studies caste and kinship in isolation from the economic and political structure. Consequently, it fails to understand the basis of unity in kin and caste groups. I have argued that unity between members of the same kin and caste groups depends, in the last analysis, on an identity of economic and political interest. us when the peasants in Marwar revolted against the landlords the latter could not unite with their own kinsmen and caste men. Is was because, while they shared common kin and caste ties, their economic and political interests were not identical. Sociological approach, which sees the basis of inequality in the caste system in the dichotomy of ‘Pure and Impure’ has proved sterile, since it fails to explain the inequalities within the same caste and even the same kin groups, which had their bases in unequal control over land and unequal distribution of political power. Conventional sociologists studying Indian society have shown immense concern with kin and caste. At the risk of simplification one may say that conventional sociology tends to maintain that Indian social reality acquires a unique complexion because of a unique, i.e., deterministic, role played by kin and caste—and particularly the latter—in Indian social structure.