Dr. G. S. Ghurye (1893-1983):

Govind Sadashiv Ghurye is known as the ‘Father of Indian Sociology’ because he had been engaged in building up, the entire first generation of Indian Sociologists in the post-Independence period. He formed the ‘Indian Sociological Society’ in 1952 and started the journal ‘Sociological Bulletin.’ Ghurye’s writings have an enormous diversity of themes and perspectives.

Ghurye’s broad area of interest was the general process of evolution of culture in different civilizations in general, and in Indian civilization in particular. His seminal work on caste is widely read.

Ghurye’s analysis of Indian Tribes: Ghurye’s work on tribes was general as well as specific. In his work on Scheduled Tribes, he dealt with the historical, administrative, and social dimensions of Indian tribes. He also wrote on specific tribes such as the Mahadev Kolis in Maharashtra.

Views of Ghurye on ‘Caste in India’: His book, ‘Caste and Race in India’ which was published in 1932 is a classic and significant contribution of Ghurye to Indian Sociology. It combines historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives to understand the caste and kinship system in India. Ghurye studied the caste system from a historical, comparative, and integrative perspective. Ghurye regards endogamy as a principal feature of caste.

Caste and Kinship:

We first take up Ghurye’s Caste and Race in India (1932), which cognitively combined historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives to understand the caste and kinship system in India. He tried to analyze caste system through textual evidence using ancient texts on the one hand and also from both structural and cultural perspectives on the other hand.

Ghurye studied the caste system from a historical, comparative, and integrative perspective. Later on, he did a comparative study of kinship in Indo-European cultures.

In his study of caste and kinship, Ghurye emphasizes two important points:

1. The kin and caste networks in India had parallels in some other societies also.

2. The kinship and caste in India served in the past as integrative frameworks.

The evolution of society was based on the integration of diverse, racial or ethnic groups through these networks.

The relationship between caste and kinship is very close because:

(i) exogamy in our society is largely based on kinship, either real or imaginary, and

(ii) the effective unit of caste, sub-caste is largely constituted of kinsmen.

To Ghurye, there are three types of marriage restrictions in our society, which shape the relationship between caste and kinship. These are endogamy, exogamy, and hypergamy. Exogamy can be divided into two parts:

(i) spinda or prohibited degrees of kin, and

(ii) sept or gotra exogamy.

The gotra and Charna were kin categories of Indo-European cultures which systematized the rank and status of the people. These categories were derived from rishis (saints) of the past. These rishis were the real or eponymous founder of the gotra and Charna.

In India, the descent has not always been traced to the blood tie. The lineages were often based on spiritual descent from sages of the past. Outside the kinship, one might notice the guru-shishya (teacher-student) relationship, which is also based on spiritual descent. A disciple is proud to trace his descent from a master.

Likewise, caste and sub-caste integrated people into a ranked order based on norms of purity-pollution. The rules of endogamy and commensality marked off castes from each other. This was an integrative instrument, which organized them into a totality or collectivity.

The Hindu religion provided the conceptual and ritual­istic guidelines for this integration. The Brahmins of India played a key role in legitimizing the caste ranks and orders through their interpretation of Dharamashastras, which were the compendia of sacred codes.