Revision summary
Hierarchy still ranks bodies through honour, endogamy, and atrocity. Difference organises caste as political identity and rights. Srinivas’s dominant caste already split ritual rank from local power. Beteille’s disharmony names equality as value beside ranked practice. Public life leans to difference; intimacy still leans to hierarchy.
Model answer
Introduction
Present-day inter-caste relations run on both hierarchy and difference. Hierarchy is still the older grammar of rank and honour. Difference has become more public as identity, reservation, and vote, yet it has not erased who may eat, marry, or be touched.
Body
Hierarchy still organises everyday rank
- Louis Dumont’s purity–impurity axis still appears in temple access, water, and marriage, even when offices speak equality.
- Andre Beteille called this disharmony: the Constitution values equality while ranked honour continues.
- Atrocity, honour crime, and segregated labour show that hierarchy is not a museum piece.
Difference as a competing principle
- M. N. Srinivas’s dominant caste already showed that local power is not the same as priestly rank, so difference of resources cuts the ladder.
- Caste associations, OBC politics, and Dalit assertion treat jati as a named difference that claims rights, not only as a rung below.
- Urban work and class can muddle who sits above whom, even while endogamy keeps groups discrete.
Which is more significant
- Hierarchy remains more significant in intimacy: food, marriage, and the body.
- Difference is more significant in public politics: the vote, the list, and the movement.
- The present is not a choice of one. It is hierarchy in the household and difference in the street.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD H[Hierarchy purity honour] --> INT[Marriage food body] D[Difference identity vote] --> PUB[Reservation movements] H --> NOW[Present inter-caste] D --> NOW
Conclusion
Difference now organises political claims, but hierarchy still organises honour and exclusion. Inter-caste relations today are a disharmonic mix: groups speak as equals in law and as ranked bodies in life.
Quick related
Students also ask
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What are the distinct features of islam as practised in India, and how have they changed over time ?
Next question in the 2017 paper (Q1). View answer →
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Has reservation replaced hierarchy?
It politicises difference. It does not by itself end ranked marriage or honour violence.
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Is difference the same as equality?
No. Difference can be a claim to rights, or a new ranking of blocs.
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2021 · Q2(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Is Indian society moving from "Hierarchy" towards "differentiation" ? Illustrate your answer with suitable examples
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2017 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Write a critique of the structural and functional perspective used by M.N. Srinivas in the understanding of Indian society
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Srinivas studied India as an observed village structure, not a book of sacred rules. Function explained how custom held groups together. Desai’s class reading and Beteille’s disharmony expose the harmony bias. The village monograph cannot stand for mill, city, and tribe. Keep the field tools; refuse the closed-system claim.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2017 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
What are the distinct features of islam as practised in India, and how have they changed over time ?
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Indian Islam is regional, often shrine-centred, and internally ranked. Minority status after Partition made community a political fact. Reform and print pushed scriptural uniformity against custom. Caste-like divisions and dargah practice persist. Change is toward a firmer boundary, not toward one identical piety.
Q1(d) · UPSC Mains 2017 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
How have the struggles against untouchability changed their forms and perspective from Gandhian to Ambedkarite positions?
Caste System
Gandhi treated untouchability as a moral sin to be cured by service and temple entry. He kept a reformed village and varna ideal. Ambedkar treated it as caste structure needing annihilation, rights, and exit options. Forms moved from satyagraha to parties, conversion, and the Constitution. Contemporary Dalit politics is largely Ambedkarite in perspective.
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