Louis Dumont was a pioneer and a renowned personality in the fields of sociology and anthropology in the world. Dumont was born in Thessaloniki (Greece) in 1911. He was a disciple of the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss at the Institute of Ethnology of the Museum of Man (Musée de l’Homme) in Paris (1936-1939), and later joined the Museum for Arts and Popular Traditions where he became assistant, then associate researcher (1937-1951). His first book, La Tarasque (1951) is an ethnographic study of a folk festival in southern France. He was an imprisoned in Germany as a result of World War II (1940-1945). During this period, he started learning Sanskrit with the German Indologist and Jain scholar Walther Schubring. Post-war period, he visited South India and conducted fieldwork among the Kallar in Tamil Nadu. In 1957, he published a monograph on A South Indian Sub-caste: Social Organization and Religion of the Pramalai Kallar (1986, English edition), which significantly transformed the paradigm of the sociology of India. Dumont did not give importance to the concept of the village organization and focused on the caste (or the sub-caste), emphasising the hierarchical social organisation which encompassed a territory wider than a village to study Indian society. Dumont followed Indological and structuralist approach to study the caste system in India. His book Homo Hierarchicus (1970, English edition) is one of the most widely discussed work on the subject. He stated that, people were ascribed an unequal status from birth and ranked in social hierarchy in accordance to principle of purity and pollution attached to each caste.
After coming back from India, Dumont became lecturer at the University of Oxford. In 1955, Dumont was elected professor at the then sixth section of the Ecole pratique des hautes études at Paris where he gave lectures on the sociology of India and then comparative sociology. In 1957, in collaboration with the British
anthropologist David Pocock, Dumont founded a new academic journal, Contributions to Indian Sociology, published at Oxford and Paris, which is regarded as important journal on sociology. In this journal, Dumont published several studies on topics such as village community, caste, marriage and kinship. He had keen interest in study of Hinduism, caste, kinship in ancient India, and social-political movements in modern India. He died in Paris in 1998. His contribution to field of social anthropology could be categorised as:
1 Study of the Caste system in India
He has utilized the Indological and structuralist approach to the study of caste system and village social structure in India. Dumont observes caste ideology in Indology, and in the assumption of the unity of Indian civilization. The concept of hierarchy has an important place in Dumont’s study of caste system. The Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (1966) is a complete, theoretical work that helps us to examine available ethnographic data on caste. It talks about the concept of hierarchy to differentiate Indian society from ‘modern’ societies whose follow social principle of equality. Dumont suggested that ‘traditional’ societies are characterized by conception of the collective nature of man and prevalence of social rather than individual goals, and thus by ritual hierarchy, based on the idea of purity and pollution. On the other hand, ‘Modern’ societies are characterized by individual goals and benefits and hence by egalitarian society’.
For him, caste is group of relationships governed by economic, political and kinship milieu, sustained by certain beliefs and customs. Dumont identifies ‘hierarchy’ as the essential value underlying the caste system, supported by Hinduism. While other interactional theorists laid emphasis upon ritual hierarchy and secular hierarchy, Dumont talks about only ritual hierarchy.
He begins with Bougie’s work on the caste system. There are three basic attributes of caste:
- (a) Hierarchy
- (b) Separation
- (c) Division of labour
Thus, he describes mainly three features of Indian caste system:
- India is composed of many small territories and castes;
- Every caste is limited to particular and definite geographic area.
- Marrying outside one’s own caste is not possible in the caste system
Dumont stated that the Jajmani system is a ritual expression rather than an economic arrangement. According to him, this system is governed by a specific set of ideas which impose limits upon economic power. The principle of hierarchy which delineates who is dominant and dominated, justifies the position of these groups. This principle opposes economic activities. Thus jajmani system is the religious expression of interdependence, where interdependence itself is derived from religion. Regarding commensal transactions, purity of the consumer, consuming place and the occasion is significant. According to Dumont, commensal regulations emphasize hierarchy rather separation. Dumont, in his Homo Hierarchicus, has built up a model of Indian civilization, which is based on a non-competitive ritual hierarchical system.
Dumont’s approach in relation caste system in India was highly criticized. The features of caste system as suggested by Dumont seem to be unchanging. Dumont’s work basically relies upon traditional Indian texts. Consequently, the features of the caste system, as projected by Dumont, seem to be unchanging. In reality, the caste system has transformed in various aspects during a period of time. Moreover, he emphasized the integrative function of caste system relating to its ‘stagnancy’.
Dumont makes a distinction between ‘power’ and ‘status’. However other authors consider it to be wrong conception. Dumont didn’t pay attention towards the number of protest movements, which emerged in Indian history questioning the ideology of the caste division itself, through his emphasis on values. The concept of purity and impurity opposition emphasized by Dumont is also not universal. In certain tribal societies ‘status’ is not vested in purity but in ‘sacredness’.