Social stratification In nepal

Term paper In sociology

Submitted to :
Gaurav Kc,Asst.professor
Kathmandu school of law

Submitted by:
Abiral chand
First year
Blue zone,03
 Acknowledgement
I,Abiral chand,hereby, declare that this essay paper entitled
“social stratification in nepal”submitted for the terminal
evaluation of BALLB first year,under the faculty of law,
Purbanchal University, Is my orginal work.
I would like to express my sincere gratitute to my teacher
Gaurav Kc and my institution for support for completion of this
report.
 Social stratification of Nepalese society
Social stratification refers to a society’s catagorization of its people into
groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race
,education ,occupation or social status. It is arranging people in society
into a hierarchy.
The term “stratification” is taken from the geologist who refers to
different layers of soil or rocks as ‘stratum’ that makes the earth’s
surface and so it true with nature of society1, If we see the eastern part
of world’s society there is presence of caste system and In western we
see class struture as a stratum.
The nepalese caste system was the traditional system of social
stratification of nepal.As cast system widely accpet the classical hindu
model consisting of four main catagories-Brahmins,kshatriyas,Vaishyas
and shudras.Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the
hindu God of creation. In the late vedic four varna were defined to
show the caste hierarchy. This division was mostly based on the division
of labour and occupation. This tradition is only seen in Hindu-aryan
societies.
In the time of unification of nepal, non-hindu native and nationalities
and tribes, were forcefully merged into hindu social structure,so the
traditionally non hindu groups and societies do not naturally follow the
custom and practices of caste system.
Junga bahadur rana in1845 made some caste based social stratification
in order to control and maintain the social order.
• Isogamy – Restriction in marriage with other caste

https://tyonote.com/social_stratification/#:~:text=The%20term%20'stratification'%20is%20taken,soil%2Frocks%2
0on%20the%20earth.
 • Hypergamy-Brahmins form hypergamy marriage get a lower and
different caste ranking.
• Commensality -copulation with lower caste and acceptance of rice
would result in caste lowering and boycotts
• Occupational restrictions-must follow prescibed occupations

The caste system comprises of structural class in which lower

castes/ethnicites are socio-economically and politically not similar like
of higher caste. Recent research has shown that when it comes to
nepali,people’s impression of social changes, “poverty , human
resources and region” explain more of the variation than ‘caste ,
ethnicity or religious belonging.’ Therefore people insight of their own
social conditon has more to do with the objective social class, than with
the association with caste.2
Gender
In nepal gender inequality in another social stratification which creates
disparities and inequalities between men and women.After the 2nd jana
andolan movement gender issue like woman’s voilence, proportional
respresentation of women in politic as well as bureaucracy,property
rights arise as matter of conern. Gender inequality has been ingrained
in Nepalese society,chhaupadi , the practise of forcing a women in
menstruation or having recently given birth to live apart from the
family until the bleeding ends, is still practise thoughout the western
part of nepal,within the nepalese family unit women cant live individual

2
Social Stratification Differences In Nepal And Bhutan. (2021, September 06). Edubirdie. Retrieved
May 2, 2022, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/social-stratification-differences-in-nepal-and-
bhutan/
, which incapacities victims of domestic abuse who might othewise
leave.

Social class
In the modern context, we can find that society is also divided into
social class which is normally determine by the individual status,income
,education and occupation.
According to dictionary of anthropology, “ the class refers to a group
within a society that is distinguished by its social and economical level
from anothor group.
We can see division of class In nepalese society, mostly high class,
middle and lower class.High class people have essay access to means
and resources. They have very good economic condition, can pursue
better health life , education , accommodation and so on. Middle class
people are those who can access to all basic necessities but they
struggle for opportunities. low classes people are deprived of facilities
because of capital .there representation is also less in desion making
process , politics, business and bureaucracy. Although classes are
mostly found in highly industrialized countries like europe,america But
nowdays countries like nepal, india are also part of it. Because of
eoconomical stratification in our society bad impact like inequalities ,
discrimination are seen by which only few people can have access to
the limited means and resources.
Ethnic based stratification
The ethnic group are social division of groups of people who share
common value , culture , custom and tradition. Each ethnic group have
their own aspiration towards their culture and trends.
Ethnicity is the center of politics in divided societies where by
manipulating the people, ethnic group identify as a racial attributes.
This create the tension between different ethnic group which leads to
socially stratification and also civic wars.