However, the caste system still lurks in the minds of Indian citizens. According to Ambedkar, the annihilation of the caste system can be done by supporting these actions:. India has improved to some extent in this 21st century on several fronts.
However, there is still lots of room to grow. The Indian government has an effective plan of bringing people together from all walks of life. Yet, certain inherent ideological contradictions will stand in the way while solving this issue.
Regardless, that should not deter our hope in escaping the shackles of casteism. Blog - Latest News. The interaction between condition and caste on status representation is graphically presented in Figure 4.
The analyses were repeated for each of the other identities religious, national, regional, and low caste that were used as mediators while controlling for the other. The interaction between condition and caste on status representation is graphically presented in Figure 5.
Thus, we see that caste norm inconsistency leads to more high-caste identity which in turn results in lesser moral acceptability, however, only amongst high-caste individuals. Moral acceptability as a function of caste high vs. To test the effects of actual caste on the social consequences of the caste system, such as attitudes toward affirmative action as mediated through upper caste identity, a mediation analysis was conducted Process model 4, Hayes, as theoretically depicted in Figure 6.
Thus, high caste leads to opposition of affirmative action partially due to heightened upper caste identity. The analyses were repeated for each of the other identities while controlling for the other.
Theoretical model of the relationship between caste high vs. In this research, we apply a well-established theoretical framework incorporating social identity theory Tajfel and Turner, , the black sheep effect Marques et al. It is important to state that we are not claiming that this study answered all the nuances seen in exploring the caste system but has paved the way toward a better understanding of this concept. Overall, we found support for our argument that group membership to a particular caste has consequences in the way one perceives status amongst fellow members in the society.
More specifically, we validated that when high-caste individuals learn that their fellow in-group member engaged in norm-violating behavior then they devalue the status of that in-group member. Thus, for instance, when a high-caste member marries a low caste member, this high caste member will be devalued by his fellow in-groupers owing to norm-violation. Moreover, we find that this trend is particularly observed as a consequence of heightened high-caste identity.
Our results show that in a situation of norm violation, high caste identity predicts the way people make status representations. We argue that this norm violation induces identity threat, especially among high-caste individuals and as a result of the threat they heighten their high-caste identity, thereby engaging in status devaluation.
The stories in the study also depict an intentional aggressive, deviant behavior and in line with previous research Abrams et al. Classic studies by Branscombe et al. Moreover, we also claim that since high-caste members tend to see caste identity as inherited at birth and also tend to essentialise their caste Dube, ; Mahalingam, a high-caste identity will be more salient amongst the high-caste individuals than low caste-identity amongst the low-caste individuals.
Thus, high caste members would especially defend the identity threat to maintain positive social identity due to heightened identification with the group Marques and Paez, and would perceive the in-group deviant as less typical of the in-group Castano et al. As seen in the manipulation check, in general, most high-caste protagonist names were identified as belonging to the high caste and low-caste protagonist names as belonging to the low caste.
Moreover, the study incorporated a novel method to measure perception of status by means of a projective task using the vertical dimension, as this dimension has been shown to be used in reasoning to simulate power Schubert, and social status von Hecker et al. Therefore, when participants were depicting relations in such a way that a perpetrator was represented on the bottom of the vertical line and the victim on top, we believe the abstract concept of status and in-group derogation was clearly embodied.
It is important to understand that the reason a norm-violating social situation was chosen to induce identity threat was because in the Indian context caste norm violation is perhaps the most salient identity threat situation. Deshpande explains that caste has acquired hereditary characteristics in the Indian society which comes with certain norms that evolved from ancient scriptures.
Thus, when these norms are violated in the society, it is received with punitive costs. The threat used in this context violated the basic morality values of the caste and according to Branscombe et al. Thus, when the high caste moral code of being virtuous and non-aggressive was violated, highly identified high caste members strengthened their identity and showed in-group derogation by devaluing the status of the in-group deviant. This reasoning was further confirmed when high-caste individuals in the norm-inconsistent violating condition showed lower moral acceptability of the behavior when the perpetrator was a high-caste member.
Secondly, the results also show that only high-caste individuals seem to be affected by the norm violation identity threat in making status representations but not the low-caste individuals. In fact, the low-caste individuals seem to show no differences in the way they represent status and moreover they seem to do so in a status-congruent direction, that is, the perpetrator is always depicted as having high status and a victim is always depicted as having low status.
This could possibly be the case because historically low-caste individuals are the stigmatized low status groups Mahalingam, Therefore, they probably do not experience the same amount of identity threat in a norm-violation condition as the high-caste individuals. The low caste individuals, due to the belief that their caste was not acquired through birth Dube, and the lack of an established status, probably also showed lesser identification with their low-caste.
Thus, when a low- caste individual reads a story about a norm-violating low-caste member who is in fact a victim, there is no threat that is activated probably because they do not show high identification.
Furthermore, being portrayed as a victim does not threaten the image of the in-group of low caste individuals, thereby lowering the need to protect the in-group image. Another important outcome of this study was that only high-caste identity seemed to play an integral role in predicting status effects and moral acceptability.
As already explained by Judge and Bal , caste identity dominates over all other identities in the Indian context, probably because of the inherent characteristics the concept of caste entails. As seen in the correlations Table 2 , only high caste and low caste identities seem to negatively correlate with each other; understandably because those with greater high caste identities would have lesser low caste identities.
Interestingly, low-caste identity did not act as a significant mediator in predicting status relationships or understanding moral acceptability. Understandably because previous studies have shown that caste identity is essentialised and legitimized Dube, ; Mahalingam, particularly by high caste individuals; thus possessing high-caste identity could result in understanding and representing status differences more than having low-caste identity.
Our results also show that none of the other identities — national, regional or religious played an important role in predicting status distances or moral acceptability.
While India is a complex social structure with an interactive role of multiple identities, we have reasonable evidence to believe that perhaps in the context of status representation, hierarchies and caste-related social outcomes, other identities are not as salient, so perhaps people discard these identities when being involved in status-relevant situations. Thus, it seems like in the context of how individuals see status in the society, only high-caste identity seems to be activated while alternative identities might be discarded.
This is a very important finding because whilst studies have shown that caste identity is the most salient identity Gayer, , perhaps heightening other identities like regional or national identities could result in reducing caste-based status hierarchies or status representations. Interventions such as this could be seen in the work by Brewer and Gaertner where they speak of cross-categorization as a technique to overcome prejudice.
A typical example could be seen in the sporting context when athletes all over the country from different socioeconomic backgrounds and castes come together as a team to play for the country. The heightened in-group national identity perhaps diminishes existing caste based identities that could potentially create situations of prejudice amongst various players.
While there are many religious and regional conflicts we see that caste based discrimination is the most salient form when it involves differentiating groups of varied status. Finally, the results also confirm the social consequences of a caste-based system in terms of affirmative action.
As pointed out by Siddique , affirmative action policies were introduced to improve the quality of life of low-caste individuals. However, it was soon met with opposition from the high-caste community. Sometimes caste is not always related to class, so it is possible that someone of low caste could be of high class and therefore have sufficient means and opportunities at places of education and government jobs.
Thus, the present results confirmed that high-caste individuals would generally oppose affirmative action, whereby this link was partially mediated through high-caste identity. More importantly, again, none of the alternative identities played a role in determining attitudes toward affirmative action.
This is unsurprising because affirmative action was introduced as an outcome of revisiting the consequence of the caste system for low-caste individuals. Therefore, other identities do not seem to play a vital role in predicting these effects.
The present study, however, has some limitations especially with respect to sample size and the sampling technique convenience sampling. While only single-item measures were used for measuring identity, as a follow-up study caste-based identity should also be measured on its own using a questionnaire and relate this to the present findings. The present findings should also be extended to other norm-violating instances apart from the victim-perpetrator context.
Furthermore, it would be essential to re-run the study, this time manipulating the class of the protagonists using different professions without names , in order to rule out the influence of class in these processes.
It would also be essential to replicate these findings with a North Indian sample. A positive connotation attached to a norm-violation perhaps does not induce as much threat and therefore low-caste individuals remain unaffected by the two conditions.
This limitation is something that needs to be addressed in future studies. The present study tried to utilize basic social identity theories in explaining one outcome of a very complex social system, such as the Indian caste system.
It also touched upon the most dominant identity that is useful in predicting status differences in the Indian society. Considering the complexity of the Indian caste system, it was crucial to look into a small consequence of the caste system rather than the whole structure on its own.
This study also paves the way into the understanding of the black sheep effect as seen in status representation as supposed to general in-group derogation attitudes. It is fundamental to expand this study by examining other aspects of social identity threat in the Indian context, such as religion, to gain some more understanding of how multiple identities interact with each other in the functioning of the Indian society.
All participants signed the informed consent form and were told that they were free to withdraw from the study at any time. SS and UvH initially conceptualized the idea. SS and MS developed the idea and primarily designed the study. SS was mainly involved in data collection and data analyses. SS was involved in writing the paper draft of the paper. Both MS and UvH were involved in the revised versions of paper.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. We would like to thank Usha Sankaran from Chennai, India who volunteered to collect data for this study and helped coding the questionnaire responses on excel.
The publication costs are supported by Cardiff University. Abrams, D. Pro-norm and anti-norm deviance within and between groups. Ambedkar, B. Google Scholar. Biernat, M. Black sheep and expectancy violation: integrating two models of social judgment. Branscombe, N. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Ellemers, R. Spears, and B. Doosje Oxford, UK: Blackwell , 35— In-Group or out-group extremity: importance of the threatened social identity.
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Asia India's caste system: Weakened, but still influential Despite laws that aim to create equality, the caste system in India continues to have a strong impact on society. In recent times, Dalits have been campaigning for their rights. Narayanan overcame the constraints of caste.
However, these informal institutions have limitations of their own. The same networks that can be so effective in supporting the movement of groups of individuals across space and occupations can also restrict the mobility of individual members once they are established.
Mark Rosenzweig and I studied schooling choice goo. When the Indian economy restructured in the early s, shifting economic activity in Mumbai from manufacturing to services, these networks had been in place for over a century. We provide evidence, based on the schooling choices of the children, that these blue-collar networks turned out to be a hindrance in this economy, keeping their members in the traditional now less remunerative occupations and preventing them from taking advantage of the new opportunities that became available.
Caste networks can have other unintended consequences for mobility. In a recent paper goo. These networks are based on reciprocity. When a household suffers a negative income shock, it receives monetary transfers from caste members that allow it to consume at its customary level. In the future, it is expected to provide transfers to other households when they receive a negative shock.
A household with migrants will be less insured by its rural network for two reasons. First, it cannot credibly commit to reciprocate at the same level as households based entirely in the village because social sanctions against it will be less effective; it can always fall back on its new base in the city. The urban component of its income is also unobserved by the rural network. If the consequent loss in insurance is sufficiently large, then rural households could forego substantial gains in income from migration and keep all their members in the village.
We use this argument to explain why rural-urban migration is unusually low in India, despite the presence of large rural-urban wage gaps.
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