Hierarchy and Egalitarianism

Caste, Class and Power in Sinhalese Peasant Society

Tamara Gunasekera

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000324457
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

A comprehensive analysis of stratification in rural Sri Lanka, taking into account the hierarchies of class, status and power.

1
Introduction

This book is a study of stratification and social change in a Sinhalese peasant society. Treating caste, class and power not only as important ways of structuring relations between people but also as prominent ideologies, the book examines the complex interplay of these hierarchies both within and between the social and cultural realms over a period of almost one hundred years. In order to do so, comparison is made between the social structure and ideology of inequality prevailing at two distinct points in time: the contemporary period and the period spanning the turn of the century.

The contemporary period refers to the late 1970s and early 1980s, a time before the eruption of violent conflict in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless this study's analysis of the politicization of everyday life in rural Sri Lanka does contribute to an understanding of the sense of frustration felt by those excluded in the process.

The way in which local political processes and the agrarian hierarchy are here analysed will, I hope, demonstrate the importance of avoiding a caste bias in the understanding of power and class. Not least among the advantages of avoiding caste bias is that South Asian studies need not then retain the status of a geographical special case. For instance, changes in the community-region relationship in Sri Lanka, which are taking place through the growth of patronage politics and the party politicization of local power structures, bear certain interesting similarities to the situation in parts of rural Europe.¹ But although the impact of democracy and party politics on local power structures in South Asia has been the subject of extensive writings, the caste bias in the analysis of power has been difficult to eliminate. Changes in the composition of local-level power elites is often interpreted as a shift of power from rich, numerically small, high-caste groups, to larger castes (composed of relatively wealthy peasants) which occupy an intermediate position in the caste hierarchy. In other words one 'dominant caste'² is seen to replace another. As the analysis of power in this study will show, discussion of power in terms of the imprecise and misleading 'dominant caste' concept³ obscures the fundamental changes that are taking place in developing democracies like Sri Lanka.

Over the past century divisiveness has come to permeate group relationships in the peasant community I studied. Despite, or even because of redistributive policies and the emphasis on egalitarianism of national governments, disunity and antagonism created by class and caste have become marked features of contemporary life. In post-independence years there has been an attenuation in the salience of local inequalities - the economic dependence of the poor on the rich has decreased as have the privileges and obligations based on caste status. Paradoxically, however, these changes have not fostered a sense of unity but have on the contrary exacerbated class and caste tensions.

The analysis of stratification in this book challenges the familiar argument that class is replacing caste in South Asia. The structure of inequality has indeed undergone change, but in Sri Lanka it is not taking the form of an emerging class hierarchy replacing a decaying caste hierarchy. One of the central arguments of this book is that the decline in caste discrimination and the presence of class antagonism in a given society do not necessarily imply the decay of caste, the rise of class consciousness or a rejection of hierarchy.

More significant than those in caste and class have been the changes that have taken place in the sphere of power. It is here that one of the most fundamental changes in post-independence Sri Lanka has taken place. Democracy and party competition have led to the demise of village leadership. This fact has significant implications for the future of rural development based on popular participation, a significance which is often overlooked because observers fail to distinguish between the concepts of power and leadership. The new rural power elite, the basis of whose power lies not in caste or wealth but rather in political connection, cannot assume the role of leaders. The inability to foster collective action in communities divided by caste, class and party allegiance is in large part responsible for the moribund nature of many rural development organizations in Sri Lanka,

A resurgence of village leadership in the future seems unlikely. For not only are contemporary power holders not leaders, but in recent decades the cultural conceptions of inequality, influenced by external factors, have made people increasingly unwilling to act out the role of follower. Principal among these external influences has been the democratic and socialist ideology espoused by national governments since independence. Exposure to this egalitarian ideology has entailed a rejection of hierarchy in the dimension of power at the local level. However, this has not been matched by an equivalent rejection of the hierarchies of caste and class. As this study shows, despite declining caste discrimination and rising class antagonism, notions of hierarchy may coexist with those of equality in ways which render liberal hopes of a caste-free society or Marxist hopes of peasant revolution little short of wishful thinking.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study of stratification eschews the use of models which assign primacy to one or other type of inequality in a given society. It uses instead a more complex model which incorporates without preferential emphasis the three basic dimensions of stratification. The three-dimensional model of stratification used in this study, which borrows from Weber's work⁴ and more directly from Runciman's development of it,⁵ is based on the theoretical premise that inequalities of class, status and power are conceptually distinct. As such there is no justification for the a priori assignment of causal priority to any one type of inequality. The model thus makes an analytical distinction between the hierarchies of class, status and power which leads to the separate analysis of each hierarchy. The analytical separation of the hierarchies of inequality does not reject the possibility of interplay between class, status and power, but on the contrary facilitates examination of the relationship between them. The three-dimensional model takes the relationship between the hierarchies to be not logical or necessary but rather contingent. It ensures that the interaction between class, status and power is empirically verified rather than theoretically assumed.

Caste, class and power are significant for rural Sinhalese not just in the realm of action and behaviour but also in that of ideas and cultural conceptions. But to treat either behaviour or ideas as a causally prior form of social reality is unwarranted. This study attaches importance to making an analytical distinction between ideas and behaviour and thus may be said broadly to follow Schneider's⁶ approach to the relationship between the social and cultural realms of reality. Distinguishing social from cultural analysis enables us to examine the degree to which ideas and behaviour are dependent, interdependent or independent of each other. Hence the social structure of stratification (hierarchical groups and the interaction between strata) is differentiated from, and analysed separately from, the cultural realm of stratification (systems of ideas and meanings). Moreover the three-dimensional model is applied not just to the social realm but also to the cultural (i.e. the ideologies⁷ of caste, class and power are analysed separately) making possible the examination of the interplay between caste, class and power both within and between the different realms of social reality.

DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS

The term stratification as used in this study is not synonymous with inequality. Certain types of inequality stratify society while others merely differentiate it. Stratification involves the notion of hierarchy and the ability to locate individuals in different groups or strata ranked one above the other. By contrast there exist in any given society a number of human attributes which, though possessed by people in unequal degrees, serve only to differentiate rather than stratify the society in the above sense. For instance, 'education does not by definition stratify society, it only differentiates it. Polymaths do not constitute a high ranking stratum in the way that the rich, or the social aristocracy, or the holders of governmental office do.'⁸ The same is true of attributes such as piety, helpfulness, generosity, etc, which in most societies bestow upon their possessors a degree of admiration, but do not stratify society into high and low strata, and hence logically find no place in an analysis of stratification. Class, status and power, however, are types of inequality which create cleavages in society, divide people into ranked strata, and structure the relations between people belonging to the various strata. Along with Weber and Runciman, I shall therefore take class, status and power to constitute the three basic dimensions of stratification.

Class

Class in this study is defined in relation to control over valuable assets.

In this definition the 'value' of an asset is not used synonymously with its cash or market value. Rather an asset is deemed to be valuable only to the extent that it contributes to the material well-being of the person who has control over it. Thus, for instance, in a situation where poorly-developed trade and markets result in the uncertainty of the supply of a good considered necessary for material well-being, control over that good (or the means to obtain it) would be more significant for the demarcation of class categories than another good which had a higher market value but was not considered necessary for material well-being. In other words, receipt of a large cash income may not be a good index of class position if it cannot readily secure goods which locally are considered 'essential'. The term 'control' in this definition need not be synonymous with ownership. Legal title of ownership does not necessarily confer rights to the full income-yielding potential of the asset in question. In the case of some types of land mortgage, for example, apart from the initial loan, the owner receives no regular stream of income from his asset.

Classes can be identified along a continuum of differential control over valuable assets by the extent to which members of a group thus depicted interact in a consistent way with members of other groups. Determination of the 'cutting points' of class thus becomes a matter for empirical investigation.

Groups will be termed classes whether or not this interaction is a result of consciousness of class position and of a desire to act upon common class interest. Hence this is an objective definition of class which does not entail the notion of 'class consciousness'. Nor is it strictly a iMarxist one. It is a more generalized definition which allows that the Marxist formulation of relationship to the means of production may, in a given place and time, be the most useful way of demarcating groups possessing differential degrees of wealth. But it is a definition in which denies that this is necessarily at all times and in all places the appropriate formula for identifying such groups.

Status

The term status is ill-defined and ambiguous as a result of the wide range of its application both in popular usage and in the literature of stratification. In this study I restrict its scope to a particular meaning. Status is used here as synonymous with social honour and prestige and conceptually distinct from power and class. As Runciman points out, there is a self-evident conceptual distinction between status, power and class. For example, when people desire status they clearly wish for something distinct from control over men (power) or resources (class), though control over these things may be, in a given society, a precondition for the achievement of higher status. Thus, although in a particular society a relation may exist between these it is a contingent and not a necessary one.⁹

Castes as Status Groups

No clear definition of caste has emerged from the literature despite the proliferation of theoretical writings on the subject. The religious justification of the caste system in India has led some anthropologists to perceive it primarily as an ideology.¹⁰ Others, though not denying the religious aspect, see it as a system of social stratification. The absence of a uniform definition of caste is also evidenced in the long-standing debate about the appropriateness of using the term caste outside India. In this study the term caste is not used as if it were only applicable to India, as Dumont would have it; nor is it confined exclusively to the South Asian region as Leach, Ryan and Yalman insist it should be.¹¹ A structural rather than cultural definition of caste is proposed here but it differs significantly from those propounded by Barth and Berreman.¹² In their loose, catch-all notion of caste, a person's caste rank reflects his status, power and economic position, such that within a single caste there is a 'status summation'. But this definition of caste is inadequate. If 'status summation' is taken to be the characteristic structural feature of the caste system, one would be hard put to locate caste systems even in the classic caste context of India. For not only is perfect congruency between the hierarchies of caste, class and power extremely rare in contemporary India, but, as historical studies are increasingly making evident, it was also rare in Indian society at the turn of the century.¹³

The definition of caste employed in this study is more focused and specific than customary definitions. Castes are defined as groups possessing differential degrees of social honour and prestige. These groups place restrictions on marriage with individuals in other such groups, and membership in them is hereditary, depending on one or both parents being members of a given caste. In societies where caste is present, therefore, social honour and prestige or status accrue to an individual by virtue of his birth in a particular caste. Thus, in such societies, the status hierarchy consists of the caste hierarchy.

nower

The notion of power has been a proverbially problematic one for the social sciences in general. In this study, power will be defined as the ability to influence the actions of others and/or the ability to bring about an intended state of affairs. According to this definition, power holders are not limited to those who,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• List of maps
• Note on the Transliteration of Sinhalese Words
• Glossary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Research Setting
• Part I: Stratification During the Baseline Period
• Part II: Contemporary Stratification
• Epilogue
• Appendices I to VI
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index