Revision summary
Sripuram split caste, class, and power in a Tanjore village. Land reform and democracy made the structure disharmonic. The study corrected harmony functionalism and a fused sacred hierarchy. Limits are Brahmin-centred fieldwork, thin gender, and one-village scale. Use it as a method, not as all of India.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Andre Beteille’s Sripuram study in Tanjore treated one village as a laboratory of caste, class, and power. The analysis is strong because it broke the single sacred hierarchy. It is limited because one agraharam-centred village cannot be India.
Body
What Sripuram showed
- Brahmins, dominant peasants, and Adi-Dravida labour did not form one functional whole in M. N. Srinivas’s harmony sense.
- Land reform and the vote shifted class and power even when caste identity remained.
- Harmonic hierarchy, where inequality is morally accepted, gave way to a disharmonic structure: equality as public value, rank as practice.
Strengths
- It separated three dimensions that Ghurye’s civilisational caste and Dumont’s purity often fused.
- It kept fieldwork without pretending the village was a closed republic.
Critiques
- The agraharam lens can over-centre Brahmins and under-see women’s kinship, which Leela Dube later insisted on.
- A. R. Desai would still want a fuller colonial class history than one Tanjore snapshot.
- Generalising Tamil wet-rice agrarian change to dry or tribal India is unsafe.
- Power outside the village—parties, mills, the state—appears, but the monograph still pulls the eye inward.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD SR[Sripuram Tanjore] --> CC[Caste] SR --> CL[Class] SR --> PW[Power] DH[Disharmonic equality] --> SR LM[Scale gender] --> CR[Critique]
Conclusion
- Beteille’s Tanjore village is a critical classic: caste is not class is not power, and modern India is disharmonic. The critique is scale, gender thinness, and the temptation to let Sripuram stand for the nation.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Has caste system hindered democracy and adult franchise in India. Discuss.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q7(a)). View answer →
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Did Beteille deny Dumont?
He denied that purity ideology is the only ranking principle on the ground.
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Is Sripuram a dominant-caste village like Rampura?
It is a different agrarian mix. The lesson is analytical split, not a copy of Srinivas’s Mysore.
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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2015 · Q4(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Discuss Marxist approach to the analysis of Indian nationalism.
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Q5(d) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
How do Louis Dumont and André Beteille differ in their approaches in understanding caste system in India? Explain.
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Louis Dumont and André Beteille offer contrasting paradigms for studying the Indian caste system. Dumont applies a structuralist-ideological approach, viewing caste as a hierarchical system governed by the religious principle of purity and pollution, derived from classical texts. Conversely, Beteille adopts an empirical-sociological approach, focusing on village-level realities in Tamil Nadu to demonstrate how caste, class, and power often diverge, reflecting secular social stratification. While Dumont sees caste as an integrated whole of structural values, Beteille emphasizes structural pluralism and social mobility. Understanding both theorists is essential for analyzing the continuity and transformation of social inequality in contemporary India.
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What are the different forms of untouchability still practised in India? Discuss with suitable illustrations
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Q2(c) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
What, according to Andre Beteille, are the bases of agrarian class structure in India? Analyse
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Béteille based agrarian class on land property and labour, not on caste rank. Owners, tenants and agricultural labourers are the main classes in his Tanjore study. Caste, class and power are three interacting dimensions. Ownership, control and labour remain the operational bases. Corporate farming, reverse tenancy and public works modify the actors without cancelling the scheme.