India:Social stratification

Definition:- It can be defined as stratified inequalities between the different groups of people. It refers to the existence of social groups ranked above one another like soil layers. It’s a stable structure of inequalities between groups which persist across generations. It depends upon social inequality or social differentiation but they aren’t same. The roots of inequality may lie in the economic relationships, in status relationships or in relationships of potential economic domination.

            Social structures where economic relationships is primary, termed as class societies by sociologists and the individual unequal group is called class. Social stratification can be broadly classified into open and closed system: -

a)      Open System: - People can change their status with relative ease. Example: - Economic class.

b)     Closed system: - An individual status is foxed at birth and that individual can do nothing to change his/her status. Example – slavery, Estate system (in France), Hindu caste system etc.

Social mobility determines the movement of person or a group up and down in the ranking order of the social stratification system. Educational qualifications, sports, entertainment industry provide route to a small number of people to move up in the social ladder. Estate system and slavery are things of historical past. However, the pyramidal structure of socio-economic order allows a limited range of social mobility upwards.

      In a city caste-class inter-relationships are so complicated that class- caste relationship can’t be explained to layman by making the study of urban society.

Social stratification on the basis of economic class’s stratification of the Indian society

Historically, British rule and their new types of economic policies (for instance their land reform measures) created direct and indirect forces modifying and undermining the traditional caste system. They laid the foundation of new class like: -

a)      Capitalists;

b)     English educated middle class. Example: - Lawyers, doctors etc.

c)      Zamindars;

d)     Agricultural labourers;

e)      Money lenders;

f)       Tenants and sub-tenants;

g)      Upper, middle and lower strata peasants;

      These classes are unknown in the pre-British Indian society. This new class formation resulted in inter-caste economic consolidation. Example: - Dravida movement in south India.

Contemporary Indian class stratification based on means of production and non-Ownership as well as income, status etc.

a) Upper-upper class (0.72% of the total Indian society). They coincide with Marx’s bourgeoisie. Example: - family members of the top business house in India like Tata and Reliance etc.

b) Upper class:- these include rich farmers, medium-sized industrialists,big Conctractors and Realtors.

c) Middle class: - they include bureaucrats, politicians, managers, Chief Executive Officers (C.E.O.) etc.

d) Lower middle class: - Artisans, craftsman, shopkeeper, clerks etc.

e) Working class : -

They are further sub-divided into following categories:-

1)      skilled manual workers. Example: Bus drivers.

2)      Unskilled manual workers. Example: Potters

3)      Semi-skilled manual workers. Example: Doctor’s compounders.

f) Poor: - Landless labourers, domestic servants etc.

Here, in poet-British Indian society some old classes got eliminated and and new classes emerged. Inter-class and Intra-class relations have assumed new dimensions.

Rural Indian class taxonomy:-

This is based on land ownership, types of relationships and patterns of productive organization.

a)Communist party’s classification:-

1) Landlords (feudal lords like the post of Zamindar created by British and capitalists)

2) Rich peasants:- those who mainly employ agricultural labourers and participate themselves in agriculture.

3) Middle peasants:- They own or lease land and use family labour force and hired labour during the peek agricultural season .

4) poor peasants:- their main income is from the leased land or personally owned land.

5) Agricultural labourer or rural peasants.

b) T. K. Oomen’s classification:-

1)  Landlords:-  they era non-cultivating peasants employing hired labour force or leasing out land. They perform a supervisory function in the whole cultivating process.

2) Rich farmers:- They are engaged in supervision with sale motive of profit maximization with hired labour.

3) Middle peasants:- They cultivate their own land and use hired labour when needed.

4) Poor peasants:- They hold uneconomic landholdings and work as part-time agricultural labourers or sharecroppers.

5) Landless labourers.

 In an agrarian society land provides a principle basis of the social stratification. In the pro-British Indian feudal economy, no private ownership of land existed. Hence, there was no class of landed feudal nobility.

In post-independence India, government policies has resulted in partial change in the agrarian class and social structure.

Marxist scholars aw polarization of the agrarian class relations since, Green revolution. This is because they argued that there has been increasing inequality between rich and poor farmers, “de-peasantization” and proletarianization of marginal farmers etc.

It must be pointed out the conflicts in the agrarian society has occurred over demand of high wage and not over land. Moreover, no such conflicts have occurred in regions covered by the Green Revolution but in backward areas.

A number of studies have revealed a broad relation between caste in hierarchy of the hindu social order and the respective status of it’s members (like position, political power, economic rank etc.).

In the contemporary times class interests are reflected through caste. Classes have become a distinct social reality. Class and caste are not distinct but composite part of the villager’s identity. Thus, class and caste are both real and empiric.

Caste is a system of social stratification ahs been characterized by both rigidity and fluidity, co-operation and competition, holism and individualism, organic and sedimentary divisions, interdependence and autonomy.

In the caste system ritual right is one thing  and actual status related to wealth and power is another.

‘Jajmani’ ( Hindu religion) system reflects relations – like dominance, subordination and exploitation. Class has become distinct social reality. Class is a complex phenomenon like caste. Caste is playing an important role in access to jobs, admissions in educational institutions etc. caste function as classes because they function as interest groups. Thus, classes operate within the framework of caste.

The cleavages existing in between the castes are the main hindrance to organizing the poor against the controllers of wealth. John Harris in his study found that solidarity of Harijan labourers and Harijan land owners overrides their economic disparities inspite of inter-caste exploitation