Breaking down the question

The question sets up a contrast between two organising principles of caste. Hierarchy refers to the vertical ranking of castes on a scale of ritual purity and pollution, most influentially theorised by Louis Dumont. Difference refers to the horizontal coexistence of castes as distinct, bounded communities of roughly equal standing that assert identity rather than rank.

The phrase in the present day is the hinge of the answer. The examiner wants a judgement about which principle better captures contemporary intercaste relations, given democracy, reservations and competitive politics. A strong answer argues a case rather than sitting on the fence.

For the descriptive foundation, draw on the note on the features of caste system.

How to approach it

Define both principles crisply and attach a theorist to each. Then argue that while hierarchy has not vanished, the balance has shifted toward difference, supporting the claim with contemporary evidence and closing with a qualified verdict.

  • Hierarchy — Dumont's purity-pollution scale; still visible in ritual and marriage.
  • Difference — Gupta's argument that castes assert discrete identities.
  • The shift — democracy, reservation and mobilisation convert rank into competing blocs.
  • Verdict — difference is more significant today, though hierarchy persists in intimate domains.

Model answer

Intercaste relations can be read through two principles. The principle of hierarchy, elaborated by Louis Dumont in Homo Hierarchicus, ranks castes vertically on a single scale of ritual purity and pollution, with the Brahmin at the apex. The principle of difference, emphasised by Dipankar Gupta, sees castes as horizontally arranged, discrete communities, each asserting a distinct and self-valued identity rather than accepting a fixed rung.

Hierarchy has certainly not disappeared. Endogamy, notions of pollution surrounding food and touch, and the persistence of untouchability show that ritual ranking still shapes intimate and ceremonial life. In many villages the older idiom of high and low continues to govern access to temples, wells and priesthood.

Yet in the present day the principle of difference has become more significant in the public sphere. Dumont's assumption of a single agreed scale never held, since each caste tends to rank itself higher than others place it. Under democracy this contestation intensifies. Reservations, the census and electoral arithmetic encourage castes to organise as horizontal solidarities pressing collective claims. Srinivas's horizontal solidarity and the wider substantialisation of caste describe this shift — caste becoming a bounded ethnic-style identity rather than an interdependent rank.

Competitive politics reinforces difference. Caste associations, reservation demands and vote-bank mobilisation treat castes as parallel interest groups bargaining for resources, not as ordered links in a ritual chain. The rise of hitherto lower castes to political power inverts old rankings and makes the language of dignity and identity — of being different and equal — more salient than the language of purity.

The two principles are therefore not mutually exclusive but differently weighted across domains. Hierarchy governs the private world of marriage and ritual, while difference dominates the public world of politics, welfare and assertion. On balance, in contemporary intercaste relations the principle of difference is the more significant, precisely because democracy has converted a vertical order into competing horizontal identities, even as ritual hierarchy survives in attenuated form.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners reward a clear argument. The strongest scripts define hierarchy and difference, attach Dumont and Gupta respectively, and then take a defensible position rather than merely listing both.

Distinguishing domains — hierarchy in marriage and ritual, difference in politics and identity — shows analytical maturity. Contemporary evidence such as reservation politics and caste mobilisation answers the present day demand. A hedged but definite verdict, plus British spelling and tight structure, secures the higher band.