(a) Critically examine G.S. Ghurye's Indological approach to the understanding of Indian society. (20 marks) (b) Elaborate on…

(a) Ghurye's Indological approach: a critical examination

G.S. Ghurye (1893-1983) headed the Bombay sociology department (1924-59) and founded the Indian Sociological Society (1951) and Sociological Bulletin (1952). The Indological approach understands Indian society through Sanskrit texts and Hindu tradition, read with history and the diffusionist method.

• Textual sources: Vedic literature, Dharmashastras, epics and Orientalist scholarship are used to trace institutions across time.
• Caste: Caste and Race in India (1932), from his Cambridge doctorate under W.H.R. Rivers and A.C. Haddon, listed six features: segmental division, hierarchy, restrictions on feeding and social intercourse, civil and religious disabilities and privileges, lack of choice of occupation, and restrictions on marriage (endogamy). He accepted Risley's racial thesis only in part, holding that racial purity survived mainly in northern India through endogamy.
• Culture and assimilation: he saw Hindu culture as the integrating thread and called tribes "backward Hindus" (The Aborigines "So-Called" and Their Future, 1943), favouring their assimilation against Elwin's protectionism.

Merits:

• He institutionalised Indian sociology and turned it from colonial to Indian concerns.
• He gave caste historical depth and an all-India frame.

Criticisms:

• Textual and Brahmanical bias: texts show how Brahmins prescribed order, not how caste worked in practice. His student M.N. Srinivas turned to the "field-view" of village fieldwork.
• Hindu-centrism: Indian tradition is equated with Hindu tradition, and the contributions of Islam and Christianity are slighted; tribal, Dalit and women's experience stay marginal.
• Static view: little attention to class, power, conflict and the political mobilisation of caste. Another student, A.R. Desai, offered a Marxist reading in Social Background of Indian Nationalism (1948).
• Dated theory: the racial explanation of caste is now widely rejected.

Later approaches, from Srinivas's field-view to Marxist readings, developed partly as correctives to Ghurye, so his work remains a foundation to be corrected by field and subaltern perspectives.

(b) Changing nature of the caste system

Caste is changing in form rather than disappearing.

• Ritual and occupation: Srinivas's Sanskritisation and Westernisation show castes seeking higher status, while the decline of jajmani-type hereditary service ties loosens the link between caste and occupation.
• Power: Srinivas's dominant caste shows landed, numerous castes holding local power regardless of ritual rank, and Béteille's Sripuram study (Caste, Class and Power, 1965) showed caste, class and power drifting apart.
• Political caste: Rudolph and Rudolph (The Modernity of Tradition, 1967) treated caste associations as modern interest groups, and Rajni Kothari (Caste in Indian Politics, 1970) showed politics being caste-based and caste being politicised. Implementation of Mandal recommendations (1990) and Indra Sawhney (1992), which upheld the 27 per cent OBC quota with a 50 per cent ceiling and the creamy layer, made caste a language of rights. Dalit assertion appears in the Dalit Panthers (1972) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (1984).
• Economy: Dalit entrepreneurship, for example the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2005), and urban labour markets show mobility beyond hereditary callings.
• Law: Article 17 abolished untouchability; the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 criminalise its practice; in Shakti Vahini (2018) the Supreme Court condemned khap and caste-based honour violence.
• Persistence: IHDS surveys (2004-05, 2011-12) found only about 5 per cent of marriages crossing caste lines, and IHDS-II found 27 per cent of households admitting untouchability in some form.
• Reconfiguration: Dipankar Gupta (Interrogating Caste, 2000) argues that caste now works more as discrete difference between competing groups than as a ranked hierarchy. The Union Cabinet's April 2025 decision to enumerate caste in the next Census shows its continuing policy weight.

Caste has thus moved from a ritual hierarchy towards a political and social identity, while endogamy and discrimination persist.

(c) Problems of religious minorities and measures to solve them

Six communities are notified as minorities under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 (Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Jains), about 19 per cent of the population in Census 2011.

Problems:

• Socio-economic backwardness: the Sachar Committee (2006) found Muslims behind in education, public jobs and credit, close to SCs and STs on several indicators.
• Insecurity: communal violence, lynching and hate speech.
• Under-representation in legislatures, police and services, and stereotyping in jobs and housing.

Measures:

• Enforce the law: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 196 (promoting enmity; IPC 153A), 299 (outraging religious feelings; IPC 295A) and 103(2) (group killing on grounds such as community), with the Supreme Court's Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) directions on mob violence.
• Equal opportunity: an equal opportunity commission and data bank (Sachar), the PM's New 15-Point Programme (2006), scholarships, skills and credit.
• Safeguards: Articles 29-30 on cultural and educational rights, and better representation in police and services.