ABSTRACT
Caste permeates the whole of Hindu life, and although Taya Zinkin has maintained that caste is not class, not colour, not occupation, and not exclusively Hindu or Indian, there is a sense in which caste is involved in class, colour and occupation; and although there are undoubtedly institutions analogous to caste elsewhere, the Indian system is unique. The caste system has repeatedly come in for attack both from egalitarians outside India as well as from reformers within. Caste may certainly have served a unifying purpose in the past, but it has come to the parting of the ways in a rapidly expanding society, which is becoming increasingly mobile, industrialized and technological. The untouchables are now officially referred to as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Constitution explicitly prescribes protection and a variety of safeguards for these castes and tribes, and ‘other backward classes’, in order to promote both their educational and their economic interests.
