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A Critical Understanding of Louis Dumont
A Critical Understanding of Louis Dumont
Author Manasvin Rajagopalan
Title A Critical Understanding of Louis Dumont’s Hierarchy, Status and Power: The Caste
System and its Implications
NAME OF AUTHOR Louis Dumont
NAME OF ESSAY Hierarchy, Status and Power: The Caste System and its Implications
SOURCE
Social Stratification, ed. Dipankar Gupta, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1991
ORIGINAL SOURCE
Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications, Oxford University Press,
New Delhi, 1988
Introduction
Excerpted from his book “Homo Hierarchicus”, Louis Dumont’s essay is an insight into the
Caste System, that tries to provide an alternative to the European or Western perspective on the
issue of caste as being mere “Social Stratification” similar to that of the Western class system by
invoking the minute distinctions between ideas of jaati and varna. It is an essay that uses
extensive research into various texts including but not limited to the Shruti texts and
commentaries derived from them such as the Brahmanas to investigate and interpret the idea of
the caste system as being more than anomalous and deviant from the normative social structure
as envisaged by Western observers who projected their notions and conceptions about society
and its values upon the Hindu hierarchical system.
Summation
Dumont begins by presenting two positions taken by individuals when approaching the idea of
Castebased division. The first is that of the ignorant or militant mind, wherein the Caste System
is seen as something that opposes the fundamental rights and freedoms of man and impedes the
progress of Hindus in economic terms; leading to the inference that it must be abolished or must
disappear. The second is that of the Westerner in India, who chooses not to recommend or
attempt abolishment of the system, either because he/she is cognisant of the merits generated by
this system or because such a thing appears too impracticable.
Most people, infers the author, are incapable of moving beyond the generic understanding of
caste as being an aberration and understand it through the eyes of those who see the system as
more deviant and anomalous than institutional in nature. Dumont proposes rather, that instead of
using a comparisonal perspective where Western values are used to judge nonWestern structures
and institutions, the West could focus on learning about itself through the reverse perspective of
the Unity of Man that runs as an undercurrent through anthropology. He invokes the idea that on
a fundamental level, the caste system teaches us about hierarchy, which is the antithesis of
predominant Western values of egalitarianism. He criticises the reader who chooses to limit
himself/herself within a history that begins with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and derides
it as being contrary to the idea of being “modern”. In furtherance of his stance, the author also
critiques the methodology adopted by several sociologists and says that labelling the Caste
System as being an extreme form of “social stratification” is detrimental and regressive to any
sort of understanding of that institution because the origin and the end of any suppositions and
inferences is the same.
Dumont then proceeds to an understanding or analysis of the ideology of the caste system, which
is something that he believes has been overlooked in the past by scholars. He surmises that while
any statements concerning caste begin within indigenous nomenclature and theory as jaati,
individuals introduce a comparisonal element with Western society. He also mentions three
arbitrary judgements made in the understanding of jati, namely that caste and social class are of
the same nature as phenomena, that hierarchy is incomprehensible and finally, that groups in the
Indian (Hindu) system are individuated and connected on the basis of subordination to this
incomprehensible hierarchy.
Dumont extols the reader to then look at the Hindus across the ages and understand their
systematic worldview. He says that Hindu tradition establishes a clear demarcation between
power and hierarchical status and continues the argument by saying that certain liberties taken by
readers are par for the course in order to understand caste and thus, he is in subtlety reinforcing
specific categorisations that can be applied using the “modern” Western methodology towards
understanding social structures and phenomena.
At this point in the essay, the author is decisively laying the foundations for his ideas by
suggesting a more “wholeoriented understanding” as opposed to anything else. To this end, he
suggests that ideology and empirical data are often at opposite points or subordinated to one or
other. Illustrating this through his example of a universal fact, he says that if the fact is reflected
only in data and completely, the system of ideas and values or ideology behind the fact, would
cease to be of influence in determining the orientation of any action and finding and would
ultimately cease to be. Simplifying it, one can say that Dumont is making the argument that
ideology is the impetus that moves the gears of empirical action and that one without the other is
incomplete.
Dumont then moves onto saying that looking at the reader’s current view or rather the Western
view of hierarchy, it is a supposition of the latter that the caste system is a linear order from
highest to lowest in a noncyclical fashion. Each caste is lower than its predecessor and all castes
are bound by two extreme points of reference. A simple objection would be of the
indistinguishability of the middle castes in relation to each other. Instead, to counter this apparent
problem, Dumont asks one to look at the principles of the caste system rather than the structure
and imagine the former as being ordered with underlying oppositions.
Illustrating this approach, the author invokes Hegel and says that the latter saw the principle of
the system as being bound by difference and was in fact bringing up the question of
differentiation of function which is internal to the structure in origin and culminates in the
universal. He also recognises that Bouglé affirms the same in his work and while noting the
limitations of the indirect knowledge sources used by the latter to build theory, commends
Bouglé for reducing things to their principles without diluting their essential elements.
According to Bouglé, the Caste System is composed of hereditary groups which are
distinguished and connected to each other in the following ways:
1) by gradation of status or hierarchy
2) by detailed rules that ensure their separation
3) by the interdependence of a division of labour
In doing this, the author brings to the fore his most important argument that of the conflict
between the pure and the impure. According to the author, the three statements proposed by
Bouglé are based upon the fundamental principle that there is purity and impurity to delineate
castes and any distinctions thereof. In the author’s words “the whole is founded on the necessary
and hierarchical existence of the two opposites”. It is based on this idea that the author manages
to bring the caste system into the realm of structural understanding. He stresses the importance of
examining Indian society rather than just Hindu society and recognise the presence of caste
across religious affiliations despite both Islam and Christianity being opposed in principle to the
idea of such hierarchy. The levels of ideological presence are of great interest to the author who
believes that they can provide information on the persistence of cultural and social structures
such as the caste system.
Dumont carries on by speaking of the dichotomous existence accorded to the two extremes of
Hindu society i.e. Brahmins and Untouchables. He speaks of them as being in a conflict of the
pure and impure before moving to the discourse on defining hierarchy and if such definitions can
be applied to the Hindu system. Here, he explicitly says that hierarchy is a reference of the
relation of parts to the whole within a system, demonstrating his structuralist leanings. He
however rejects the notion of hierarchy in the Caste System being based on either power or
authority. To explain this point further, Dumont invokes the idea of the varna.
Cautioning against rendering the two as being one and the same, he says that the caste system
(referred to as jaati) is based on purity and impurity, whereas the varna system is based on social
functions. Thus, there is the BrahminKshatriyaVaishyaShudra division in the latter which is
based on their respective societal role. The Brahmin and the Kshatriya have dominion over all
whereas the Vaishya is lower in that he is master of merely animals and the Shudra of nothing.
Yet the creation of a fifth, unspoken class is apparent for the Untouchables are both part of and
excluded from the system and as such are accorded a unique extreme position. Interestingly, the
author also surmises that the jaati system is more hereditary in origin with birth given more
importance than the function that is paramount in the varna system.
Dumont also examines the relationship between Brahmin and Kshatriya and speaks of the
parallel relational paths between the two. While theoretically the Brahmin is higher in status, he
is subordinate in reality to the power of the Kshatriya, usually in terms of patronage and financial
remuneration. The Brahmin and the Kshatriya share a relationship of reciprocity where the
Kshatriya gains legitimacy through the Brahmin and viceversa. Dumont then remarks that it is
difficult to trace a Kshatriya in terms of caste because the socalled Kshatriya Rajputs are merely
functionaries of similar duties within the varna system. Caste supposes the preeminence of
community as opposed to varna which simply categorises everyone based on their relation to the
two extremes in terms of duties and functions. The opposition between pure and impure is
religious rather than anything else, for power becomes inferior to status.
Unfortunately, Dumont says, contemporary scholarship regards hierarchy only from the outside
and as such makes it mere “social stratification” rather than anything else. The extremes are
negated within society and the middle ranks are given greater importance. Dumont however
emphatically essentialises the extremes as being points of reference and says that to understand
the caste system one must understand it as the whole of that which is being encompassed by the
two limits and includes them rather than as independent elements that are distinct and merely
bounded by the two extreme societal categories. The Brahmin provides the basis for the
conception, as Lingat puts it, of the laws and stipulations of Dharma, which then gets
implemented or embodied within the Kshatriya who rules over the people. The tendency to look
at the world through the Western perspective as being onesidedly oriented towards power as the
deciding factor in hierarchical behaviour is in fact complementary to the other perspective
wherein one moves out of the duality of religion and politicoeconomic integration.
Analysis and Critique
There are several ideas which are put forth by Dumont but fundamental to them is his conception
of ideology and its relation to the formation of caste categorisations. While he is emphatic that
ideology cannot be separated from the structural components of caste, Dumont fails to explain
his conception of ideology itself, leading the reader to perceive and interpret the term as per
his/her own apriori knowledge. Secondly, Dumont downplays the Western perspective and in
essence the Scientific Method as well, by promoting his and other similar frameworks which are
less “ethnocentric” while destabilising his explanations with rhetoric that seems to be confined to
substantiating only his position. He does not provide sound arguments that disprove in entirety
the Western scientific method and in fact, makes the objectivity of any anthropological or
sociological foray into the caste system highly suspect due to the use of indigenous cultural tools
in a peculiar form of reverseOrientalism. While Dumont is correct to differentiate between the
ideas of jati and varna, he does not explain in clear, concise terms the defining relationship
between the two extremes, focussing on understanding the two upper castes and neglecting, in
this reader’s opinion, the subaltern perspective. In doing so, he legitimises an unequal
representation of society by moving it from the masses to a niche, thereby defeating his own
approach that emphasises the importance of the Shudra and the Untouchable. His insistence that
the varnajati dichotomy is one based on two parallel relations i.e. that of purity and that of
function, also seems far to simplistic to understand the entirety of the caste thematic and
problematic in India.
In conclusion, while Dumont provides an erudite, verbose and academic perspective on the caste
system and affirms the necessity to examine indigenous epistemic systems and their approach to
caste, he is unable, in this reader’s opinion, to definitively substantiate the claims he is making
about Hindu, and ultimately in the metanarrative Indian society.