Families sustain caste while youth challenge it

Source: The post Families sustain caste while youth challenge it has been created, based on the article “How ‘honour’ killings in India are reinforced and legitimised” published in “The Hindu” on 18th August 2025. Families sustain caste while youth challenge it.

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 1- Salient features of Indian Society

Context: The article explains why caste persists in India despite change. Caste endures through family, community, and social structures. Backlash rises where equality advances. Tamil Nadu shows strong public resistance and hidden pride.Shifting youth priorities may weaken caste’s base over time.

How Caste Endures as a Social System

1. Household customs and boundaries: Caste survives through household rules. Families police interaction, marriage, and avoidance. These rules are passed down and defended within homes.
2. Early internalisation by children: Children learn limits before they can explain them. Boundaries become normal early in life and guide choices.
3. Community and institutional reinforcement: Communities and wider structures legitimise caste behaviour. This scaffolding keeps the system resilient.

Empowerment, Inter-Caste Unions, and Backlash

1. Social justice opens integration: Education and secure jobs for Dalits enable integration. Access to quality education and meaningful work changes status.
2. Equal footing and new relationships: Workplaces, colleges, and cities create daily contact. Romantic ties begin to cross caste lines, challenging inherited barriers.
3. Inter-caste marriages and regional patterns: States such as Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Kerala report more inter-caste marriages. IHDS-II puts the national rate at about 5%.
4. Honour killings where hierarchy is threatened: These unions, often involving Dalit men and dominant-caste women, confront hierarchy. Violence spikes where caste feels under siege. Low violence can mean an untouched status quo.

Tamil Nadu’s Caste Paradox

1. Strong civil society and public rejection: Democratic voices in Tamil Nadu condemn caste killings. The State has a vibrant civil society.
2. Anonymity-driven online glorification: Social media enables anonymous caste pride. Some accounts even defend killings. Anonymity lowers restraint.
3. Collective progress, individual conflict: Public culture is anti-caste. Private chats, groups, and posts still steer alliances and “honour.”
4. Liminal space and fear of loss: Tamil Nadu lives between tradition and change. Online pride shows fear of losing inherited power and anxiety.

Family as the Core Vehicle of Caste

1. Beyond parties and organisations: Parties and caste bodies reinforce divisions in public. They are not the root of caste.
2. Everyday practices transmit prejudice: Rituals, marriage plans, and expectations pass bias to children. Caste is learned as everyday common sense.
3. Transgenerational persistence amid modernity: Caste endures despite education, urbanisation, and new ideas. Home training outlasts exposure.

Changing Youth Priorities and Emerging Hope

1. Global shifts and new relationship models: In South Korea and Japan, marriage and fertility fall. Open partnerships, cohabitation, single living, and self-parenting rise as the family loses centrality.
2. Urban Indian adolescents and autonomy: Urban youths prioritise growth, well-being, and autonomy. Traditional obligations carry less weight.
3. Eroding caste’s main vehicle: As the family’s centrality weakens, caste loses its carrier. Change will be gradual, not sudden.
4. Acknowledging contradiction and moving forward: India stands at a crossroads. Engagement and digital counter-narratives can loosen caste’s grip. Recognising the paradox is the first step to reform. Tamil Nadu symbolises both contradiction and hope. Change begins with families and everyday choices.

Question for practice:

Examine how family structures and changing youth preferences influence the persistence and possible erosion of the caste system in India.