Q) What is the term for the four-fold division of society into brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra
Answer: Varna
Q) What is the term for the hierarchy of caste?
Answer: Jati
Q) Who are the panchamas?
Answer: The “outcastes”, foreigners, slaves, conquered peoples and others
Q) What is the word for pure breed in Portuguese?
Answer: Casta
Q) What is the relationship between varna and jati?
Answer: Varna is a broad all-India aggregative classification, while jati is a regional or local sub-classification.
Q) What are the defining features of caste?
Answer: Caste is determined by birth.
Q) Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage.
Answer: Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing.
Q) Caste involves a system consisting of many castes arranged in a hierarchy of rank and status.
Answer: Castes also involve sub-divisions within themselves.
Q) What is the relationship between caste and occupation?
Answer: A person born into a caste could only practice the occupation associated with that caste.
Q) What were the effects of colonialism on caste?
Answer: The British administration began by trying to understand the complexities of caste in an effort to learn how to govern the country efficiently.
Q) What is the term for the untouchables?
Answer: Scheduled Castes
Q) What is the term for the tribes with a large population and were granted landrights by the partial land reforms effected after Independence?
Answer: Dominant caste
Q) What is the difference between sanskritisation and dominant caste?
Answer: Sanskritisation refers to a process whereby members of a (usually middle or lower) caste attempt to raise their own social status by adopting the ritual, domestic and social practices of a caste (or castes) of higher status. Dominant caste is a term used to refer to those castes which had a large population and were granted landrights by the partial land reforms effected after Independence.
Q) What has happened to caste in the contemporary period?
Answer: Caste has become more visible for the scheduled castes and tribes and the backward castes.
What is the difference between permanent and acquired traits?
Permanent traits include region, language, physical characteristics and ecological habitat. Acquired traits use two main criteria – mode of livelihood, and extent of incorporation into Hindu society – or a combination of the two.
Q) What is the most recent development in tribal identity?
Answer: The gradual emergence of an educated middle class among tribal communities.
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