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Closed Castes


di Domenico Fucigna

With the valorisation of normality, the tendency to represent present social conditions as being permanently established is strengthening. One of the symptoms is the concept of ‘personal fortune’, which the aristocratic model recognises in its communication: the myth of the man who adds excellence of mind to an enormous wealth, which is not necessarily hereditary (and today no longer achievable).

A conviction is starting to spread that the possibility of changing one’s own status and thereby entering a new and higher social class is fading, given the belief that the system today is becoming increasingly closed. These widespread feelings carry with them two prevalent attitudes: from one side a resigned but placid acceptation, as well as re-orientation and research of new values; on the other side a reaction against and flight from the unknown.

And now for a brief glossary of the ancient Indian castes, taking these as a starting point, we will try to define the new castes, recognising those to which we ourselves belong. We will suggest, liberally and without comment, several parallels. And a question: are castes still open in the West?

They have existed in India for 2500 years, they no longer have a legal value, but they are still very much considered in everyday life. They can be categorised in 4 main groups.

The modern day castes

Brahmins (priests/intellectuals: commentators and proctors of sacred texts, teachers with the task of passing on tradition)



The modern day castes






Kshatryia (chief warriors: upper-class soldiers)



The modern day castes






Vaishya (tradesmen, farmers and shepherds)



The modern day castes





Shudra (craftsmen, domestics, workers)



The modern day castes



At the bottom of this hierarchy the outcastes can be found (known as Pariahs or Candala or the Untouchables). These are people who perform work deemed to be religiously impure and contact with these people is also considered an impure action. It is necessary to consider that each group is divided internally into many sub-castes totalling several thousands. The relationships between members of different caste groups are regulated in a very precise and ritualised way (for example who you eat with, from whom you accept food, who you smoke with etc). The caste system is based on the religious tradition of Veda texts of which Brahmins are the guards and commentators. There are three characteristics of this system of stratification:

1.    The caste is a closed stratum: The social relationship is a definite closed state (of which the caste is a type, but not the only one) like that relationship which excludes, limits or conditions, to a variable size and degree, the participation in mutual social involvement which is peculiar to members of the same relationship. In this sense the castes are closed forms of social relationships both to the outside (that is to say the members of a caste are the only ones able to perform occupational and religious activities for example, connected to this caste), and to the inside (in the sense that members of the same caste are not equal amongst themselves in accessing the monopolised possibilities from being closed off to the outside world, but they are differentiated amongst themselves, up to the point of rigorously constraining every member to fixed possibilities and tasks, also in an inherited way). You are born into a caste and are bound to it even when it comes to choosing your marriage partner.

2.    Inherited occupational specialisation. Every caste is bound to one or more jobs, passed on hereditarily.

3.    The hierarchy defines the distance in grades of purity (fundamentally religious-ritual). The Brahmins are as pure as the sacred cows. The caste with the most numbers within the Pariah group involves those who work with leather, and whose task is to work with the hide of sacred dead cows.