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Social science literature on caste tends to view it as a peculiar institution of the Hindus, emanating from their past tradition and religious beliefs/scriptures. This view also presumes that the processes of urbanization and industrialization, unleashing the process of modernization, will end caste, eventually producing a shift from a closed system of social hierarchy to an open system of social stratification based on individual achievement, merit and hard work. Drawing from a large volume of recent writings the author argues in this article that this approach to the understanding of caste is based on an assumption of Indian exceptionalism. Such an orientalist view of caste also denies the possibility of deploying the framework of caste for understanding caste-like ascriptive hierarchies that exist in many other (if not all) societies. Some of the recent theorizations of caste could perhaps provide useful conceptual tools for developing a comparative understanding of social inequalities.

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Caste has invariably been seen in unitary terms, as a pan-Indian reality without any significant variations in its structure or ideology. While it was sanctioned through some Hindu scriptural sources, other Indian religious communities, 100, were believed to support the idea of hierarchy and practice caste in everyday life, albeit to a lesser degree. Despite scholarly criticisms of such theories and the many changes that caste has undergone over time, this view of caste has largely prevailed. This happens partly because the idea of caste has become embedded in the idea of India as a nation: caste is taken as proof of India's cultural continuity and a stable past . Taking a cue from a recent case of conflict between Ad-Dharmis and Jats in a village of Punjab over the question of representation in the management of a religious shrine, the article looks at caste in relation to Sikhism and in the regional context of contemporary Indian Punjab. I have tried to argue that, as in the case of other structures of social relations, caste identities too undergo change, and that they have never functioned as 'pure ideological systems'. For a region-specific understanding of caste, we need to 'disentangle it from Hinduism and look at caste from an historical perspective. It is within such a framework that we can possibly understand the question of caste today. I conclude by arguing that while caste is nearly dead in contemporary Punjab, as an ideology, it survives and thrives as a source of identity.

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