6.3 Caste and Class (the unit's core comparison)

Caste — the anthropological anatomy (Dumont and its critics):• L. Dumont (Homo Hierarchicus, 1966): caste's essence is the opposition of pure and impure — hierarchy as the religiously warranted principle (the Brahmin at the pure pole, the untouchable at the other), with separation (marriage/commensality rules) and interdependence (the hereditary occupational division — the jajmani village web) as its mechanism; the modern West's ideology is equality — hence its blind spot for hierarchy.• The critics: Dirks (Castes of Mind) — caste as much colonial artefact (the census and the courts froze a fluid order) as religion; Quigley, the Nepal scholars — caste as political economy too (land and labour under the ritual canopy); and the Ambedkarite tradition's moral verdict (Sociology Unit 7.6's ledger).• Nepal's caste order (the specific exam content): the Muluki Ain 1854's five-foldhierarchy (Nepali History Unit 5's table) as the state's legal construction — the hill model's caste blocks (the chhochho tagadhari castes; the matwali alcohol-drinkers; the pani nachalne untouchables), the tarai's own ladder, and the Newar internal hierarchy (Buddhist Vajracharya priests to pode sweepers — a whole civilisation stratified within one city system); the 1963 code's abolition of legal untouchability, the 2011/2015 statutory and constitutional attacks (Caste-based Discrimination Act 2068) — and the persistence documented in Units 7–8 of Sociology (water taps, temples, marriage violence). Class — and…