Revision summary
Caste and gender are the two fundamental discrimination axes in India. Caste grades touch, marriage, and work; gender grades property and the body. Law and politics have changed their public legitimacy. Endogamy, atrocity, unpaid care, and violence persist. Class, faith, and tribe matter, often through these two axes.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
The two fundamental axes of social discrimination in India are caste, including its untouchability pole, and gender as organised by kinship. Class, religion, and tribe cut across them. They are changing in form more than they are ending as structures.
Body
Axis one: caste
- Graded inequality, endogamy, and disability, as Ambedkar and G. S. Ghurye’s feature lists both underline in different ways.
- M. N. Srinivas showed local dominance can outweigh ritual rank, yet labour and marriage still discriminate.
- Change: law, vote, and a reserved middle class. Persistence: atrocity, segregated work, and marriage ads.
Axis two: gender
- Seed and Earth, property, and honour make women a discriminated sex-class inside every caste.
- Public violence and unpaid care are the everyday form.
- Change: schooling, law, and some office. Persistence: sex ratio, domestic violence, and proxy politics.
Why these two are fundamental
- They organise who may marry, inherit, and be touched, which class alone does not explain.
- Religion and ethnicity matter, as do Adivasi land losses. They often work through caste-like ranking and gendered honour.
Are they changing?
- Andre Beteille’s disharmonic structure: equality is the official axis, discrimination the practical one.
- Yogendra Singh: recombination, not disappearance.
- A. R. Desai: class change without a full end to ascriptive labour.
- Urban anonymity and markets muddle everyday rank; they do not dissolve the two axes.
Interaction
- Dalit women show the intersection: two axes at once, not an average of both.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD CA[Caste endogamy labour] --> D[Discrimination] GE[Gender property honour] --> D CH[Law vote school] --> MD[Change of form] D[D] --> MD[MD]
Conclusion
Caste and gender are the two fundamental axes of Indian discrimination because they structure intimacy, labour, and honour. They are changing: more public equality, more identity politics, more law. They are not finished: endogamy and patriarchy still sort life chances.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Anti-Brahmanical movements during the colonial period
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q1(d)). View answer →
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Why not class as a fundamental axis?
Class is real and organises surplus. In India it is still scheduled through caste and gender in marriage and dirty work.
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Has urban life ended the axes?
It muddles some public rank. Marriage and inheritance still carry them.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2019 · Q4(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
How do you understand the 'minority' question ? Examine the violence and discrimination against the religious minorities in India -
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Do you think that 'demonetization' has accelerated the economic growth in India? How do you understand the in formalization of labour, underemployment and gender discrimination in this context?
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