INTRODUCTION

Recent approaches to caste have been largely of two major and opposing kinds. On the one hand there are those approaches that treat the ideology of caste, and native ideas about caste, as central to an understanding of it; on the other hand there are those that are Marxist, or at least Marxistic (by which I mean inclined to economic determinism), which view the ideology and native ideas about caste as ‘mystifications’ of a dramatically exploitative economic order (see e.g. Meillassoux 1973; Mencher 1974).

I shall have little to say to or about the latter kind of approach for a number of reasons. First, if an ideology fits and reflects an economic order it is claimed that this proves the dominance of the latter, while if it fails to fit, the notion of mystification can be invoked to prove the same thing. There are thus no possible counter-examples to such a theory, and consequently it can have no empirical content. Secondly, while specialized ideologies may indeed be Malinowskian charters or Marxist mystifications and thus largely peripheral to an understanding of how a social system actually works, I cannot see how one can possibly relegate the entire structure of native concepts to the same peripheral status (cf. Harris 1968). While there undoubtedly are material forces that tend to shape human intents and beliefs, it would be impossible for a social theory to proceed profitably without according those conceptual structures their central importance as the templates of social action.