This article attempts to pioneer a better theoretical understanding of the social institution of caste. It argues that caste, in contrast to more conventional perspectives, is not a monolithic institution, but rather a compromise between economic, biological and ideational aspects of human existence. In its most abstract and basic form, caste systematically connects competing rationales—economic interdependence with biological separation—by a specific form of rationalisation. However, within the process of modernisation, the economic element is increasingly losing its importance, while the biological aspect of caste survives only in connection with a reduced, non-systematic form of rationalisation.
In its theoretical design, this model offers an opportunity to understand caste quite differently from that presented by conventional definitions. By breaking this institution into its essential ingredients, it is receptive to the inherent breaks and frictions of caste and hence, can account for the changes that caste is going through. Applied to the existing theories of caste and empirical research, it can provide the theoretical tools for a meta-analysis of all interpretations of caste and a guideline for empirical research on caste in modernity.
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