Caste Reservation and Identity Politics : A Sociological Analysis

Caste Reservation and Identity Politics : A Sociological Analysis Neeti Kumari* Dr. Nawal Kishore Singh** Caste and class are viewed as the most significant dimensions of social stratification. They are considered as closely interrelated, almost in-separable, basic processes of social life. It is one thing that caste is viewed as a sole model for analysing Indian society or class is used for analysing caste and power, but it is quite different in real life as caste and class are not only highly differentiated internally, complexities of their expression and articulation signify the vast ramifications of structured social inequality. Debate on caste and class has covered wide-ranging issues related to indicators of status, levels of equality and inequality, cultural and structural interaction, occupational mobility, etc. Conceptual schemes to analyse these issues highlight structural versus cultural, closed versus open, organic versus segmentary, interactional versus attributional and corporate versus individual dimensions regarding the nature of caste and class in India as systems of social stratification. A discussion on the main points of this debate may be warranted before a gist of the essays included in the volume is provided. The notion of caste referring to it as a rigid, unchanging, archaic and oriental system though found functionally as inevitable and useful or as antithetical to the system based on class relations are deeply contradictory in terms. A rigid and unchanging system can only be dysfunctional. Caste has been considered dysfunctional up till now, but it has also been looked upon as a dynamic institution. A dysfunctional system is not necessarily a static system. The caste-class divide was never as rigid as reported in various writings, and hence Indian society was also not as rigidly structured as depicted in several accounts of the caste system. *Research Scholar (Sociology), B. R. A. Bihar University, Muzaffarpur **Deptt. of Sociology, A. B. S. College, Lalganj (Vaishali), B. R. A. Bihar University, Muzaffarpur