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Book review: Dipankar Gupta's

'Interrogating Caste'
GOPA SABHARWAL | July 24, 2000 | 00:00

Interrogating Caste
By Dipankar Gupta
Penguin
Price: Rs 250

Interrogating caste is meant to be a book-length essay putting forward Professor Dipankar Gupta's thesis
on discrete castes. It is not an easy book to read, neither is the thesis that it propounds an easy one to
comprehend.

It will draw attention, however, for its claim to formulate an alternative theory of caste in India. This thesis
does merit consideration.

At the centre of the book is one basic question: is there a single universally accepted caste hierarchy that
unites all those who belong to the caste system? Gupta's response to this question is in the negative and he
believes that to argue otherwise would be a gross misreading of facts.

He believes instead that there are many competing hierarchies within the caste system as set out in the
chapter titled "Brahman, Baniya, Raja".

The reason he can do this is because he shifts his focus of viewing castes away from the top - or as one united
system - to the various rungs of the system by looking at the perspectives of individual castes.

The caste system is defined by him as "a form of differentiation

wherein the constituent units of the system justify endogamy on the
basis of putative biological differences which are semaphored by the
ritualisation of multiple social practices" (page 141). Hierarchies
that may then develop are an expression of politico-economic power

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Book review: Dipankar Gupta's 'Interrogating Caste': India Today http://indiatoday.intoday.in/articlePrint.jsp?aid=246218

and may change with alterations therein.

Gupta also argues that notions of purity and pollution are relatively
recent additions in the history of the caste system. They emerged
Dipankar Gupta's theory is new but not quite
mainly to separate the untouchables from the rest and became caste iron
operative at various planes of the caste system much later.

He denies these concepts any universal role as being diacritical markers of jati difference. His argument is
clear: "Castes exist first as discrete categories. Hierarchies come later."

Individual castes, Gupta believes, are discrete entities with well-developed views and ideologies. Castes that
are lower down the scale do not accept the degrading status accorded to them by what he calls the
"sacerdotal" view of caste.

He cites myths of origins, caste revolts and movements of caste mobility in support of this contention of
discreteness. There is also a chapter on caste arithmetic in politics designed to show that caste alliances
emanate from secular and political factors and not from primordial loyalties, thus questioning popular
assertions on the issue.

In setting out this thesis Gupta addresses the work of Louis Dumont on the encompassing role of caste
hierarchy, Marx's writings on infrastructure and superstructure, weaving in the ideas of Levi-Strauss on
culture and super culture, before looking at theories of stratification and differentiation and ending with a
historical look at caste and the jati/varna dichotomy. This last links the varna and jati systems to the
"Asiatic" and "Feudal" modes of production.

Gupta ends the book with a chapter focusing on "de-exoticising the other". The appeal here is to readers to
view castes with empathy as opposed to sympathy, to be guided not by the exotic value of castes or their
"otherness" but to concentrate instead on the fundamental equality of humankind. This is best done using
some "Sociological Imagination" as defined by C.W. Mills and refined by Gupta.

Having described the thesis put forth, it must be said that there are certain things that render the
understanding of this theory rather difficult. First, the fact that the book was not written as one whole. It
contains pieces written at different times for different purposes, thus introducing issues that are not integral
to the main exercise, such as the discussion on preferential policies or race relations in America.

More important, caste is central to Indian sociology and to the study of Indian society. Therefore the
parameters of a debate as important as this one cannot be selectively set out, neglecting work on the subject
by acknowledged specialists like M.N. Srinivas to concentrate only on the theory of Dumont. The last word
on the topic hasn't been said.

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