Multiple Reference

in Indian Caste Systems

McKIM MARRIOTT

Modern Urban Stratification

Themoderm Indian urban or metropolitan typeofstratification. pres-
ents several special features. First, it is an open, unbounded system in
which any person or group coming from outside may take a position.
Damle (1968) tells us that new arivals in the city, or newly formed
urban groups, or even merely aspirant groups in rural areas may all
include themselves conceptually within a metropolitan system of strati-
fication. Urban stratification thus seems universalistic as well as infi-
nitely expansible. 'Reference behaviour-for example, the imitative
identification of an individual or group with another to whose status it
aspires-may occur in the Indian metropolitan type of stratification
with pehaps no more frustration than would be met in the social class
system of the urban West.
Second, high or low positions in the metropolitan type of system are
measured largely according to the qualities (behaviour and attributes)
exhibited currently by a given individual or group, set
eral urban scale of higher and lower
the against gen-
qualities. Many Indian cities, like
Bombay, seem to have been dominated culturally by a generically
high-caste, middle-class style of life. The Pamckalsis mentioned by
Damle provide an example of measurement by such a standard in the
city of Bombay: by removing meat from their diet, altering their mar-
riage rules, and raising their educational level, members of the
Excerpted from McKim Marriot, 'Multiple Reference in Indian Caste Systems', in J.
Silverberg, ed., Social Mobility and the Caste System in India: An Interdisciplinary Syvpo
sium, Mouton, Hague, 1968.
50
Multiple Reference in Indian Caste System
ramckalsi grouppersuaded the urban audience to accept them ing
as having

demonstrable
demonstral
rank cquivalent to that of the urban Brahmans. Currently urban type of
rank
in the of
traits must be most new participants
emphasized by society of
many
newcomers,
the
stratification, for in a metropolitan been
established locally or

which have whose very

particular hereditary identities meaningful.
Castes whose
Castes very

regionally in earlier times are rarely localities

localities cannot be
c a n n o t be

their original
of rank in tes as-
of castes
h u n d r e d s of castes
as

names imply clear positions

positions
ofan hundreds
heterogeneous
be judged by
placed precisely among the each must
distant regions: urban class styles.
mbled in the cities from far more general
to the be ranked
are

units to
ts members
approximation
the

Third, in the urban type of stratification,

representatives
of ritually
corporate

as The defer.
increasingly
regarded not of
individuals.

individuals or groups his educational

rather as Ambedkar for
Castes, but B.R. caste as a
accorded to
the individual intended for
the Mahar
ence is not
achievements
to
Ambedkar per.
and occupational deference paid
though the stand.
ritual corporation,
even
contribute to a raising of the average
includes
urban eyes which
in individuals
sonally may collection of occurred:
as a
of Mahars taken
i n d i v i d u a l i s m of
the city actually
ing of this was not generally
Ambedkar. A test Brahman caste
with a lady of
Ambedkar's marriage Mahar caste is
superior to the cor
that the corporate had been
taken to prove would have been if we
question, as it
Brahman caste in
individu-
as such.
Instead, the
porate castes
with a rural ranking of the irrelevance of
caste
dealing here of this mariage proves
alistic interpretation What Damle tells us of
scene.
the metropolitan do without that
as corporation on permits us in fact to
metropolis
stratification in the
new in dealing
which is indispensable
of corporate analysis
separate level which are known to
us.

Hindu systems ofstratification of

with all rural noncorporate
metropolitan type
and
Can this open, qualitative, Indian cities of recent dec
characterize only the greatest
stratification earlier centuries?
characterize also the Indian cities of
ades, or can it
shared
in ritual rank which is
refers to the el ment of identity
The term 'corporate ritual transac
caste and whiçh is implicit
in each caste member's
by all members of a The tem as used here does
not refer to the caste as a
members of other castes,
fions with is a modem
concrete group or set of persons.
Stein argues that 'corporate mobility
the effective political or
unknown to medieval South India, he refers to
phenomenon to achieve their
common
concrete group or set of persons
ganization of an extensive evidence for such
caste goals by adopting some explicit
behavioural policy, The lack off
India dues not, of course, deny
consciously organized group efforts in medieval South whole corporate caste 1s
the powerful if implicit assumption that the ritual rank of the
its members to
affected and possibly altered by the ritual deference given and received by
and from members of other castes
 McKim Marriott
51
Knowledge of earlier Indian rban social systems is slight, yet fragmen-
taryinformation and logic suggest that at least commercial cities may
have exhibited similar tendencies for millennia. Anonymity, individ-
ual mobility, and the reduction of communal controls would at any time
ave tended to favour the metropolitan type of stratification.

Rural Stratification

All these typical

features of urban stratification contrasts with the
fea-
nares of stratification in rural village communities. Rural systems of
etratification are, in the first place, closed rather than open. They are
composed of known and limited sets of castes, groups, and individuals
which can admit and place newcomers only when the identities of the
newcomers can be fully established and linked with units in the
pre-
existing local order. Here arise most acutely the difficulties of applying
reference group theory, as Damle tells us, since subjective identifica-
tion with and imitation of a group other than one's own, if it trans-
gresses hereditarily established local identities, can never lead to
actual absorption. Reference behaviour in villages would then gener-
ally be 'dysfunctional' for the behaving unit, in Merton's sense (Mer-
ton 1957).
A second contrasting feature of rural stratification as depicted in
these papers and others is that the ranks of units tend to be assigned not
by comparative ratings of the qualities, behaviour, or symboiic attrib-
utes of the units, but rather by the outcomes of mutual confrontations.
Rural stratification has been called typicaliy international' rather than
attributional' (Marriott 1959: 92-107). Thus the Holeru Untouchables
studied by Edward Harper could not raise their local caste
standing
merely by abandoning the dietary attribute of beef. Similarly,
achieving a higher local rank through the merely symbolic aspects of
their Cauhan movement seems dubious to Noniyas themselves,
according to William L. Rowe. Assertions have sometimes been made
that a shift towards more "Sanskritic' attributes has
gained a higher local
rank for rural groups, such as some of the Kodagus of rural Coorg, but
such assertions are as yet unattested by local evidence. What does
undeniably affect people's estimates of rank in rural systems of stratifi-
cation is the giving and receiving of pollution, especially through
TOod and services. Kodagus in Coorg. villages occupy high positions as
Teeders and ritual masters of other castes and as sponsors of templee
uals in which other castes provide the lower services (Srinivas 1952
38-45, 185-99). The Noniya Cauhan myth also exemplifies this rural:
52
Multiple Reference in Indian Caste Systems
way of thought: the fall
their acceptance of food of the ancestral Rajputs is attribut to uted to
from an Untouchable. In the same
In the ame way,
reformers of the Holeru correctly point out that the Holeru caste
ste is lolo. 1s
cally low because some of its members directly subordinate the castecaste
by accepting dead cattle and other pollutions from the houses of their
of their
indenture-holders. The adoption of a sacred thread, or a lotty name
Or even a vegetarian diet by some members of the caste may not alter
the kind of pollution received by other Holerus from members
or altering
of
inetfective for altering
higher castes. Such gestures thus may remain
the rank ascribed to the caste locally.
The third and perhaps most fundamental contrast between met
obvious contrast between a
type
ropolitan and rural stratification is the
in which corporate ranking are of
little or no importance on the one
are of the essence. By rural
hand and a type in which corporate rankings
caste does with the single mem
logic, what the single member of one is suffi.
ber of another caste by way of giving or receiving pollution
either of the two castes in
cient to upgrade or degrade the whole or
unanimous action on the
relation to the other. The great concern for
as the Holerus and Noniyas is a con-
part of rural leaders of such castes
as to the corporate nature of
sequence of this rural structural assumption
caste rank. Without the feature of corporateness in rank, a caste
would be little different from any other collection of individuals shar
ing some element of identity such group having a distinctive
as a
ethnic or national background. A noncorporate group may often be
regarded correctly as having the sum or average rank of its parts, that
is, of its component individuals' ranks. Thus those leaders who at
tempt to raise the rank of an urban, noncorporate 'caste group will
typically concem themselves not with uniform action to avoid
subordination in intercaste relations, but with helping the group's
heroes, and with raising the average level of income and the qualitative
style of life of the group's members. Theirconcem would be incomect
for the village but is correct for the metropolis. If urbanite-led move
ments for raising the ranks of certain caste groups have often been inel-
fective in rural areas, the reason for their failure may lie in their
stress upon qualitative or attributional changes by individuals where
only changes in corporate ritual interaction would be locally relevant

Irdivdual Prestige
To emphasize the importance of
corporate caste considerations in run
stratification is not to deny the importance of a distinct
phenomenon
 McKim Marriott
individual prestige rural as well as urban 53
in
component, but
only one communities. Caste rank
is an important component an individual's
of
in the rural type of
prestige stratification
dividuals and groups in (Marriott 1052 869-14).
cities, individual members
ges may further gain or lose in rank
castes in villages of ranked
attributes and behaviour, but according to their
individu

especially
and power. Recognized rural indices ording according to their
wealth
of prestige
elegance of
ceremonial erformances and include the
nclude
the numbers of other
who can be mustered to persons
participate in them. Striving for individual
restige, and on the opPOSite side, declining in prestige through
wealth and power-these do not distinguish the urban from oss
the type of stratification discussed above. Individual effort to
dse above the standing of one's caste appears to be a common and per
sis feature of Indian society, as important among the individu-
alistic 'renouncers of medieval Tirupati studied by Stein as among the
ambitious twentieth-century villagers studied now by Rowe and
Harper
Individuals stand to gain in one component of their prestige if their
castes can rise as corporations. But for far too long, observers of Hindu
society have assumed that individual striving is always and wholly
absorbed in group efforts toward caste mobility. Actually the ambi-
tions of an individual villager or a ural family may conflict with the
ambitions of the caste, as in the poignant Holeru example: if these low-
caste rural labourers refuse to perform their traditional, caste-defiling
services for Brahman landowners, they must give up their individu-
It was the initial in-
ally profitable and prestige-helping indentures.
an individual Holeru to gain
comefrom his indenture which permitted villagers generally.
prestige among his caste-fellows, perhaps among for members of his caste
and now certainly a better average standing his indentured status,
If he keeps
inthecity-dominated larger society. economic power andlong
theindividual Holeru may gain immediate in relation to
security, but be forced into caste-polluting services
lefm
a lower caste rank locally
is Brahman master, thus retaining of individual Noniyas who had
ambitions
Onthe other hand, the of providing localserv
livelihood independent
uale means of to the corporate
movement
added impetus
ccem tohave given Where there are
extemal

caste outward and upward. as the

eSOurcesWhole need not suffer
losses of prestige
increased in-
of income, individuals eource of increased
l source
caste strives to climb out from under. A local promote agree
sources to
Comefrom land may do as well as extemal
nent between individual and caste interesis
54
Multiple Reference in Indian Caste
Zones of Reference Systems
The two
contrasting types of stratification systems-the closed, interac
uonally ranked corporate caste systems of interac
one hand, and the rural communities onon the
ties ,

open, attributional, noncorporate rankings

ngs ofof ing
ind
Viduals and groups in cities on the other hand-are by no means suft
cient to account for the and
many intermediate, overlapping,
conflicting reference phenomena reported in the present and in
in prev pparentiy
apparenti,
ous studies. One insufficiency of these initial types is obvious whe
previ
argue above that reference behaviour cannot relevanty occur within
ypical rural, local caste system. Apparently against my argument
the papers of Rowe and Harper, as well as many other cases, indicate
that rural caste groups do in fact often identify themselves as belonging
properly to higher and more attractive categories than those to which
they are ordinarily assigned according to their local relations of
pollution-giving and pollution-receiving.
The Noniyas provide one clear case in point and represent the
policies of many other rural groups: by identifying themselves as be.
longing to a category called 'Cauhan' they claim not an existing local
rank which is higher than that of their caste at present, but rather
membership in a social category which is nonexistent as a caste grOup
hierarchies of the localities where Noniyas live. Cauhan' is the
name of a clan (kula) of the mythical Fire race (Agni Vamsa) of the
Rajput cluster of castes, and the designation 'Rajput is one taken
regionally by the dominant Thakur caste groups to symbolize their
pretended descent from members of the classical Kshatriya varna.
The Noniyas Claim to be Cauhans is thus a claim for high rank ina
regional and in a grand civilizational scheme of categories. Their claim
refers only indirectly and by roundabout implications to the local lad-
der of caste groups. The claim of rural
Kodagus to be classical "Ugras
is a similar case is point (Srinivas 1952:
Ifwe are to think clearly now about the
33-4).lo
mobility of castes, we cannot
neglect the consipicuous lesson of these cases: a local caste group may
perceive itself as living and striving in at least three successively larger
zones, each of wbich has its different ordering of
categories.
These three zones are: (1) the zone of the village community and its
directly connected part of the countryside, (2) the zone of the
nized cultural or linguistic region and (3) the zone of the wholereco8
civili-
zation.
(1) In the village zone, the relevant categories are caste ranks, Caste
ranks are established most directly by the local degrees of relative ritual
 McKim Marriot
dominance exercise among the particular local 55
groups which repre
sent their castes as corporate bodies. The relative rank
sent of a caste
omewhat from village to village, and
vary
v instances of such may
ation may be known to residents of each
village; vari
rank a caste conceived as being properly
is
of a caste con nevertheless, the
variants tend to be argued out in each
uniform, so that known
locality as cases are
court to the interpretation of a general law applied in a
The zone of regional scope is likely to encompass
dngamous castes. Regional conceptions of ranking usuallywhole en-

notions as to the relative standings of clusters of separate, but include

amed or occupied whole castes, often grouped further within
similarly
larger
eategories of rank, such as the lord and servant categories of northem
india, the water-bearing and nonwater-bearing categories of Bengal,
the light people and dark people of Gujarat, etc.
(3) In the civilizational zone there are the familiar categories of uni-
versal scopesomewhat ambiguously ranked classical styles of life which
necessarily have no exact reference to castes. These are the four var
nas, Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra.
I callthe ranking of these styles of life 'ambiguous' because they do
not stand one above another representing different degrees of any
unitary quality. The ideals of the Brahman and Kshatriya varnas, for
example, are in several ways mutually divergent and incompatible. The
commonly understood Brahman 1deal stresses intellectual refinement,
ascetic standards of consumption and nonviolence, while the Kshatriya
for violence, luxu-
idealstresses, on the other hand, strength, readiness
riousconsumption, including meat-eating, etc. A caste cannot smoothly
Brahman-like by first becoming
work its way upwards, becoming more becom-
Kshatriya. It cannot evolve into a Kshatriya by first
theperfect values are again op-
inga good Vaishya, for Vaishya Kshatriya
and
conservation of wealth, purity
posed,the Vaishya ideal emphasizing the Vaishya and Kshatriya
etc. Finally,
inreligion, a vegetarian diet,
servile values of the Sudra.
That small sec-
1dealstogether oppose the
"Brahman neces
Kodagus which chose to identify itself as
uonof the of the same caste
who
chose as
Sanlycut itself off from the majority Patidars of
behaviour to the Kshatriya scale.
ugras to refer their a Kshatriya
claim. to a
shifted a whole from
ntral Gujarat have
as it were,
'downward, as
to alter their diet,
Vaishya claim, and have had 62-3). The
varnas thus appear to
ac and Shroff 1959: rather than as a
fun y (Shah related models,
function as competing. dialectically
56
Multiple References in Indian Caste Systems
Single scale of
1deal, they may precedence. When rural castes
f
choose the same
var
varna
sometimes be ranged in degrees rankof rank accord
according to
that one ideal, but generally theecivilizational
their realization of
civilizational varng
Scheme offers a variety of aristocratic postures which parallel
are paralle
which are llel or
anomalous situatio
roughly equal in value. Only in those rather anomalous situationg
wnere Brahmans became soldiers, landlords, or kings, o r wnereomises
war

have inevitable compromise

ors became philosophers or asceties
even suggested a unitary system of values.
lo these three, approximately
territorial zones locality, region
categories of rank must be adde
and civilization-with their distinct
hierarchies of catego.
still other, only pa:tially enclosing
sometimes
affiliation (e.g. born versus
on religious
nes, such as those based
diet and in other ritual
on sectarian values in
converted' Sikhs), or
newer national and
cosmopolitan hierarchy
conduct. Finally there is the
most evident in cities
by Damle's discussion and
ofvalues implied secular dominance
achievement, independence,
education, individual
it is gaining increasing sway over
Based in the metropolitan areas,
the rural areas.
members of a local caste group in a
A given piece of behaviour by
of these several superimposed or
village or town may allude to any and may have different
cross-cutting zonal hierarchies of values,
dramas of social mobility enacted
meanings in each of them. In the
to be talking past one
upon the village stage, if the actors often seem
another, it is no doubt, often because they are playing roles in differ
aim their perfomances towards different, some
ent scripts. They
times distant audiences of diverse tastes.
Before we can judge the effectiveness, or the functionality and
specify for
dysfunctionality' of a given piece of behaviour, we must
which of these several zonal or other audiences the action is intention
ally performed. The Noniya Cauhan movement, like similar move
ments by Bhars, Chamars, Lohars, and Ahirs, in the same area (Cohn
1955:72-6), may be irrelevant to Senpurvillager's conceptions of their
own ritual ranking of castes, since the movement may effect no altera-
tion in the local patterns regarding intercaste transfer of food and serv
ices. Or such movements, if strongly organized,
may go so far as to
take one or more castes out of the existing interactional hierarchy, and
may ultimately threaten the continuance of the local system. On the
other hand, the same movements may have both relevance and
system
maintaining effects considered in relation to the sectarian, civilizZa*
tional, or national moral systems to which they make
ence. These movements may
symbolic refer
then be regarded as 'anticipatory' to tne
 McKim Marriott 57
-ation of
ialization of certain
certain caste members, if not in ways of behaviour
iate to traditional village society, then perhaps in ways useful
as groups or as individuals in the social life of
those person the
cities
to to which so many rural people are now en route. What the ambi
to

tiouscastes lose at home through their new contempt for local cus
they
may ultimately gain in the books of the state and nation,
may ulti
tom
olitically and economically as well as in the positive evaluation of
their style
of life.
Considering the pains and inherent contradictions of referring one's
behaviourto nonlocal scales and models, we may reasonably ask why
such behaviour occurs, and why it occurs now at an apparently accel-
erating pace? Rowe and Harper both illuminate an essential dynamic:
the
the
discrepancy between the low local ritual rank of a caste and its
hicher economic or political standing either outside or inside the com-
munity. Wealthy Noniya highway contractors were the first to become
Cauhans' while the Holerus wooed by the Congress Party were leaders
of the agitation for caste reform. Ihe extermal stimuli in these cases are
ike those notedbyBailey for the state monopoly-holding Boad Distill.
ers orthe politically patronized Pan Untouchables ("Boad Outcastes)
ofBisipara in Orissa (Bailey 1957: 186-98, 211-27). In each case, dis-
crepancies between local and external rank in the initial situation
were evidently felt as more painful than the difficulties that would en-
sure from attempting mobility. If opportunities for greater achieve
ment or influence by low-caste people outside the village increase,
then extemal reference behaviour must also tend to increase.
Inherently, of course, broader references to more famous models
have a grander sound. Inherently, too, the broader the scope of the ref-
erence, the less capable it may prove of precise application at local
levels. One may speculate that a part of the seeing flexibility and
changeability of caste participation in the rituals of the Tirupati temple
examined by Stein may be due to the disjunction between such vague
scriptural varna categories as 'twice-born' and 'Sudra' on the one hand
and the diversity of South Indian regional caste groups on the other.
Broader, more external reference also helps a rural caste group to es-
cape denial of its claims locally. For this reason, if for no other, refer
ences to the civilization-wide varna categories would seem favoured
over claims of more local, regional, or sectarian scope. Certain small
Kingdoms of Kerala, like the Kandyan kingdom in Ceylon, seem to
nave had means for establishing ranks and adjudicating claims by
nole castes throughout a small region. But regular procedures for
mizing claims are typically lacking from the higher levels of
 58 Caste Systems
Indian
References in
Aultiple Maratha
ruler Sivaji
Sivaji wistshe
wi

Hinduism. When the

s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n

recognized
t u r y

as
'Kshatriya', he
he soug
o
have bi
to have
himself (and thus his caste) Maharashtrian priest, residen
vour from a certain
learned
superior
that jurisdiction, so t
con
tention could be allayed
Banaras. This priest hadultimately ference.
no formally to the extent
Claims
Marathas
that
reterming8
Ma to

deference.
rring to
referri Claims to.

onquerors could
general
gional categories, such as the claims
command Marathas'
of Kinbis to be Marathas
ceed on.
Marathas to be "Rajputs', seem typically claims
to OcCur
byand
preponderant
to succe powe

its claims
erant pow
by prepondera poweg
can support
when aspir group
wnen the aspirant
t h e m s e l v e s fora
in the relevant zone of
reference organized
when they first
first organ power. The
The Noniyas of Senapur, held preponderant
rank, in no way clans through th
advance in caste
scale of Rajput
to the regional been passed ov
extemal reference well have
'Cauhan' descent might
verbal claim of without
conflict
berween
Noniya
and
without political testing,
local visible gesture of don
Thakurs. But the Noniyas
and the local Dobhi local Thakurs prerogative
thread which had been the
ning the sacred Thakurs, who evident
reprisalsby the
subjectedthem toimmediate it seems, as the
Thakurs themselve
insulted. (Only later,
felt aped and c i v i l i z a t i o n a l "twice-bom

the crucial value of their own

began to doubt for theim
Noniyas recruited greater political support
claim, and as
was thread-wearing byNoniyas and other low-caste
movement,
tolerated by the Thakurs.) The externality of reference-
groups finally
weak rural low-caste groups thus
on the part of poor and politically
out of the=
a desire to move symbolically
may be dictated not only by
but also by a desire, while
confining village into larger, freer worlds,
so doing, to avoid the immediate local application of negative sanc-

tions.
note that changes in the favoured scope of inter
Historically we can
caste reference behaviour have in these examples as elsewhere
tended to accompany changes in the modes of communication. Claims
of less extreme scope, often modified by sectarian membership, seem
to have been common during the centuries preceding British domi-
nation, although the absolute number of such claims may have bee
fewer. As printing and increased education
helped to dissemina
knowledge of a simplified and redefined classical Indian culture mo
widely, references the civilizational varna categories became
to ore
frequent. The recent developments of
media, and of a national search for mass education, radio, an been
international respect,
accompanied by more frequent rural orientation
achievement and class values towards occupau cupational

of metropolitan type. Since tne

new
 McKim Marriott
national hierarchy built upon such values 59
ratherthan corporate castes as its counts individuals
imaginedudience of the nation
units, behaviour and groups
directed towards the
the localized mobility of castes as represente a diminution of
such. interest in
The shift of symboli reference towards
ement
of all
movement of all Indian stratification wider zones, and
the
tan type are by no means systems towards the
reversals and
subject to
complete, of course. Indeed, both metropoli-
are
counter-references, movements
hanites look back to memories of clearer
as even
cosmopolitan
caste hierarchies in the vil
lages of their origins.

Conclusion
The main import of these remarks is to stress the
need for a number of
new analytic notions in order to
understand what any given effort at
caste mobility is abOut. 1 think that we must at the
outset be aware of
the contrast between closed, interactional, rural
systems of
tion on the one hand and open, attributional, urban systems on the
stratifica
other hand. Since orientations to the city or village are states of mind,
rural or urban residents may refer their behaviour to either or both
kinds of contrasting systems
We need further distinguish the ranking and movement of castes as
witl: ritual dominance and from the
corporations concen ed pollution
ranking and movement of individuals or groups concermed with wealth,
to either or both kinds of
power, or prestige, for a given act may relate
units in mutually affiming or mutually denying ways. of castes, we must
Finally, to understand the ranking and mobilityto which of the sev-
and specify
determine the felt locus of each caste audiences-local, regional, sec-
relevant hierarchies and
eral possibly behaviour is referred by itself and
civilizational, or national-its
tarian, worlds in our minds can
we hope to

Otners. Only with these multiple but

move not among social positions,
only
Comprehend that castes
also among réalms of thought.