Caste, prejudice and the individual

Prejudice, tension and conflict between communal, religious and national groups is a burning problem in the world today. In India, rivalries be tween different caste groups add significantly to the internal conflict resulting from the religious, linguistic and regional divisions of the nation. As such, caste and casteism deserve thorough study and analysis. Anthropologists and sociologists, both from India and abroad, have written volumes about the nature of the caste system. However, there are very few social psychological studies attempting to explore the nature of intercaste relations, attitudes and prejudices. The present book aims at a systematic investigation in this field.

The study is confined to college students the leaders of the next generation. It explores the opinions, attitudes, and self-concepts of the indi vidual as conditioned by his member ship of the subcaste and caste groups. The observations are examined and interpreted in the light of social psychological theories of prejudice, and in the context of sociological and anthropological studies of the changing structure of contemporary Hindu society.

The socio-psychological orientation of the study makes it a uniquely worthwhile document for the academician, the politician and the layman. interested in knowing the extent to which the caste system influences individual action and socio-political trends.