Caste Status Group Aggregate and Class- An Inquiry into the Social Stratification in Rural West Bengal (An Old and Rare Book)

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I think that this work is original. This originality is shaped up through long-term field-work in a specific area of research and by substantial thorough going of the books and papers written on Indian castes and other communities. My training in anthropology was initiated under Late Prof. T. C. Das, former Head of the Department of Anthropology, the University of Calcutta. He taught me to disapprove the social facts written in books and papers as a precondition of field-work. Social fact has to be judged being free from bias without any 'imposed meaning to it. I tried to start my work in the area and got new but useful insight for grasping the notion of stratification of the rural people. This study is original and a solitary effort for at least five reasons: (i) for the first time the caste is made understandable with status group aggregate and class in terms of stratification. The study of stratification has long been under the domain of research of the sociologists; and anthropologists have seldom handled with this aspect of society; (ii) the status group aggregates are the collectivities of certain castes, and other communities may be considered as status group aggregate each for fair uniformity in the style of life of its members though they are divided into clan groups or various subdivisions. The study of status group aggregates have been neglected in Indian anthropology so far in terms of stratification; (iii) the stratification concept and its dimensions have been studied by the sociologists limiting their interests toward industrial society. The stratification of rural agrarian society is neglected by the anthropologists and even the sociologists have put no adequate importonce to it; (iv) the traditional Indian society with special interest to its caste system was studied. In many occasion the changing urban society of India was emphasised though none of the studies was exclusively relevant to stratification. Moreover, none emphasised the comparison between stratification patterns which exist in industrial society and agrarian society.

The villages of India are the underdeveloped rural parts of the subcontinent. The cultural tradition of India is primarily dressed by the villagers, More than eighty percent people of this subcontinent live in villages. Diversity in the life-styles of the village people is discernible in different geogra phical regions. These differences are guided by certain variables ecological setting or economic resources, village size, communicability, proximity of the village to the urban area, composition of the residents and the like. However, I do not want to review these different variables which influence the lives of Indian villagers as a whole. I want to confine myself in exhibiting the existing stratification pattern in general and in concrete from the examples of two villages of West Bengal one from the district of Midnapur and another from the district of Burdwan; these villages are named here as Kotaigarh and Benapur respectively.

The people of the villages aforesaid, are distinguished into number of Jatis (castes), and into Adivasis (tribes) and Sampradayas (religious groups). Again these Jatis in both the villages are placed by the villagers into higher and lower ranks on the basis of some differentiated characteristics. Thus there is a hierarchy of strata in each village (Sengupta, 1969, pp. 64-77). Kotaigarh and Benapur are predominantly Hindu villages. The hierarchical structure is also regulated by the Hindu religious doctrine. Even the Adivasis and the other Sampradaya like the Musalmanas (Muslims) are placed hierarchically by the Hindus. The Adivasis and the Musalmana Sampradaya are pushed into the lower ranks of the hierarchy. Nevertheless, the peoples of Kotaigarh and Benapur occupy their position in the villages either as members of a caste or a tribe or a religious group.

that different castes are grouped into number of status group aggregates (Sengupta, 1970, pp. 61-78). Ве- sides, affiliation of the villagers into number of 'agricultural categories' or 'classes' at a time is also noted in the villages when their participation in agricultural system is considered (Sengupta, 1973, pp. 47-56).