Question

“In traditional India caste system operated within a religious framework. Belief systems of purity and pollution were central to its practice. Today it often functions as political pressure groups.”

Illustrate the process of secularisation of caste.

Answer 1

• Politics is a competitive enterprise; its purpose is the acquisition of power for the realisation of certain goals, and its process is one of identifying and manipulating existing and emerging allegiances in order to mobilise and consolidate positions.
• The important thing is organisation and articulation of support, and where politics is mass-based, the point is to articulate support through the organisations in which the masses are to be found.
• It follows that where the caste structure provides one of the principal organisational clusters along which the bulk of the population is found to live, politics must strive to organise through such a structure.
• Politicians mobilise caste groupings and identities in order to organise their power.