Forms of Ethnicity

UNIT 19 RACE AND SOCIETY

Contents

19.1 Introduction
19.2 The Historicity of Race as a Concept
19.2.1 The Humoral Model and the Beginning of Racial Classification

19.2.2 Linnaeus’s Classification of Racial Types

19.2.3 Polygenesis Vs Monogenesis

19.3 From Race to Clines: The Emergence of New Anthropological Insights

Rendering Race as a Social Construct with no Biological Basis
19.4 Race is a Hard Concept to Die: Analysing its Contemporary Existence
19.5 Race and Social Stratification
19.6 Understanding the Idea of Race in the context of Indian Sub-Continent
19.7 Contemporary India and Racism
19.8 Summary
References
Suggested Readings
Sample Questions
Learning Objectives
After going through this unit, the learner will be able to:
 Define and explain the concept of race;
 Describe the historical developments of race as a concept;
 Identify the difference between race and clines;
 Highlight the reasons behind the contemporary existence of race as a concept;
 Elucidate race as a form of social stratification; and
 Examine race in the context of the Indian sub-continent and its contemporary
relevance.

19.1 INTRODUCTION
In our day to day lives, through the electronic and print media, we hear and see more
about the representational dimension of race as a concept in the form of racism. We
not only read, listen and see about racism but to a fairly large extent, we also understand
the concept and form opinions about events depicting or carrying the concept. The
underlying conceptual currents that give meaning to a particular event labelled as ‘racial’
or ‘racist’ is the realisation of the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘they’, the difference
between in-group and out-group and the difference between superior and inferior. All
these dimensions are intrinsic to the concept of racism which is an extension of a more
basic concept called race. Such a concept has gained importance in the present geo- 93
Caste and Class political scenario because the concept of race can divide people on political lines. We
hear about the occurrences of racial violence in various cities across the globe. The
underlying cause of such violence is the collective recognition that people who look
different physically have certain cultural characteristics that make them inferior, less
intelligent and more violent than the others and in the present globalised world, people
belonging to different regions of the world are more frequently coming face-to-face
with each other and therefore the underlying stereotypes get violent expressions as
people think that they had to share scarce resources with people who do not belong to
their racial stock and are inferior to them in some respect. However, have we ever
tried to question our assumptions on race and racism that have far-reaching influence
on our socio-political and economic lives? Scholars have argued that race is a social
reality without any biological or scientific basis. Racial violence at best can be explained
based on various stereotypes that are held by us about people who look differently
and inhabit different and far-flung areas of the globe. Race and the ensuing racial violence
breeds on the notion of discrimination. This leads us to ask what we mean by the term
‘race’?
Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer (2010) in their encyclopaedia of social and cultural
anthropology have defined race as “a framework of ranked categories dividing up the
human population (pp-584).” This definition essentially contains two important
components related to the concept of race viz- a) that race leads to a division of the
human population into various groups and b) that these groups are ranked hierarchically
in the social order. This definition leads us to understand race as a fundamental basis
for ranking various groups in society based upon human physical variation. Race emerged
as a global concept that was applied to the entire human species. “Race consisted of a
small number of categories, most frequently just five, although sometimes with sub-
races and mixed-race types added to them. Race ranked these categories in terms of
assumed and imputed fixed quanta of cultural worth, intelligence, attractiveness and
other qualities (Barnard and Spencer, 2010; 584).” This suggests that racial categories
are ranked according to various traits and people belonging to that particular category
are assumed to be in possession of all such traits that are characteristic of that particular
category. This generates a system of inequality where different categories are ranked
and rendered unequal in relation to the other. Such racial categories were also seen as
real and natural. Each individual essentially belonged to one or the other race. It was
by virtue of taking birth into a particular family that an individual’s race got determined.
The entire social identity of the individual is constructed on such categorisations. This
also determines the behaviour of individuals towards one another in a social context
and their own concept of self and self-worth.
The concept of race invokes different kinds of meanings that range from considering
race as synonymous with nationality to considering it in terms of linguistic categories.
However, as Gisbert (1959) suggests, the most authentic meaning of race is physiological.
He defines race as “a collection of individuals sharing in common certain observable
physiological traits transmissible by biological inheritance (pp-263).” Such observable
physiological traits include skin colour, head shape, stature, eye colour, prognathism,
hair form, lip form etc. A combination of these features together constitutes a particular
racial category. Now a question needs to be asked that are these categories ‘pure’ in
their own respect? that is to say, is there any inter-mixing of traits between the so-
called racial categories? With Homo Sapiens being one single species can a particular
racial group ever remain pure without any kind of dilution or mixing from other groups?
94 Another question of significance can be asked that is there a possibility of the presence
of a pure race in the history of human existence? Answers to these questions have been Types of Classes

provided by Dunn and Dobzhansky in their book “Heredity, Race and Society” (1952)
as they observe that “Race mixture has been on during the whole of recorded history.
Incontrovertible evidence from studies on fossil human remains shows that even in
prehistory, at the very dawn of humanity, mixing of different stocks (at least occasionally)
took place. Mankind has always been, and still is, a mongrel lot (as in Gisbert, 1959;
264).” This discussion suggests that it is quite impossible to imagine ideal racial types.
Human beings do look different on physiological parameters but variation within a
particular ‘racial’ category can be more than between two categories. According to
Gisbert (1959), race as a biological and physiological concept can be understood in
the following manner:
1. People differ from each other with respect to certain physiological traits.
2. Some traits are widely held or are predominant in a certain group of people
for example people in the North-East region of India and tribes in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands.
3. These traits are hereditary in nature.
4. A group of people having particular kind of traits that are different from other
groups are called a race.

19.2 THE HISTORICITY OF RACE AS A CONCEPT

Race as a concept has undergone a dramatic change in the discipline of anthropology
(Caspari, 2010). Once held as a valid concept, the race is now seen as a myth. Most
anthropologists are of the view that race as a concept has lost its validity based on
evidence. However, before going into the critique of the concept of race we must try to
understand the emergence of the concept from a historical perspective in anthropology.
Paul F. Brown (2010) in his article on Race and Racism quotes a definition of race
from the English Oxford Dictionary where race is defined as “each of the major divisions
of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics; . . . a group of people sharing
the same culture, language, etc.; an ethnic group; a group of people or things with a
common feature; a distinct population within a species; a subspecies.” This definition,
Brown suggests, mixes physical characteristics with cultural and linguistic traits. This
intermixing of biological and cultural traits has a long history in Western thought and is
the root of racism. This also suggests that different races have different physical and
behavioural tendencies.

19.2.1 The Humoral Model and the Beginning of Racial Clas

sifications
The interconnection between the physical features and behaviour of people can be
traced back to the humoral model of human existence propounded by Hippocrates in
his book titled “Discourse on Airs, Waters and Places.” According to this model, all
living things have some essence that determines their physical features and behaviour.
“All living things have the four humours of yellow bile, blood, black bile, and phlegm; it
is the exact ratio of these humour in an organism that ultimately determines its physical
traits and temperament (Brown, 2010 in Brix, 2010; 66).” This model was applied to
human beings as well and accordingly, different categories of human beings were 95
Caste and Class identified based on the different humour that they possessed. The environment also
determines the kind of humour that a person will have. Physical and behavioural traits
that were determined by the presence of specific humour were also considered to be
transferable from one generation to the other.
Jean Bodin was the first European who for the first time made an association between
the humoral model with skin colour and temperament (Brown, 2010). The scheme
given by Bodin is as follows:
Sl.No. Humour Skin Colour Temperament
1. Phlegm White (Europeans) Reflective and Rational
2. Yellow Bile Yellow skinned (Asians) Cunning and Devious
3. Black Bile Blacks (Africans) Lethargic and Slow-witted
4. Blood Red skinned (Indians) Savage and Warlike
Source- Brown, 2010

This work officially established the relationship between skin colour and behaviour.

19.2.2 Linnaeus’s Classification of Racial Types

The concept of race and the association of human physical features with their behaviour
got further credibility with the classification of human beings into various categories by
Carolus Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy. He not only categorised human beings on
the basis of their physical features but also included behavioural dimensions that he
thought are associated with different physical types (Metcalf, 2005). Homo sapiens
according to Linnaeus were further sub-divided into several racial forms that looked
differently with different temperaments.

Sl. Categories of Physical Characteristics Social

No. H. Sapiens Behaviour
1. Wild Man Four-footed, Hairy Mute
2. American Copper-coloured, black hairs, Regulated by
wide nostrils, customs
3. European Fair, yellow hair, blue eyes Governed by
law
4. Asiatic Black hairs, dark eyes, covered Governed by
with loose garments opinion
5. African Black, black hair, flat nose Governed by
caprice
Source- Metcalf, 2005

The above table suggests that each physical category within the Homo Sapiens is
further associated with social behaviours. “Because of his reputation among the naturalists
of his day, Linnaeus gave scientific credibility to the idea that people could, indeed, be
divided up into races, and that these different races possessed different inherent and
unchangeable abilities and potentials (Brown, 2010; 67).”
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Following Linnaeus’s work, taxonomy caught up the imagination of other naturalists of Types of Classes
the day and this led to Blumenbach’s classification of people into five different types.
However, unlike Linnaeus Blumenbach’s classification was more objective as he
rejected the criterion of skin colour for racial classification and instead chose to be
more objective by selecting measurements on the human skull as more defining for
classification. He took dozens of measurements and observations on the human skulls
for classifying human beings into five racial types.

19.2.3 Polygenesis versus Monogenesis

This is probably one of the earliest debates in the discipline of anthropology. During the
early half of the 19th century Europe, scholars were divided into two camps- those
who believed in the theory of polygenesis and those who sided with monogenesis. The
scholars in the former camp were of the view that different human races are in fact
different species and have different origins or genesis. The latter theory however believed
that all human beings have a single origin. The theory of polygenesis led to the stratified
concept of race as the belief in different origins of various human types led to a kind of
ranking based on separate origins and a belief that different human types are actually
different species. The theory of monogenesis also supported the racial explanation of
human variation, however, in those times, monogenesis was seen as a more progressive
theory than polygenesis. Within the monogenesis paradigm, human beings are said to
have a single origin and they all will pass through the same stages to reach the epitome
of human evolution which some groups had already reached and thus consider them
superior to the rest. It is believed that all human types will ultimately evolve to become
superior as the ‘whites’ have already become (Brown, 2010 Barnard, 2004).
Race as a concept owes its origin to the basic human tendency of comparison. With
the development of navigation technology in 15th century Europe, travellers had the
opportunity to travel to distant places where they encountered people who looked
very different from the Europeans. This realisation of human physical variation was
accompanied by the realisation that cultures also differ. The issue that emerged out of
such realisations was to explain such variations. The first so-called ‘scientific’ explanation
of such variations that crystallised during the 19th century owing to its ‘scientism’ was
found in the theory of evolution. Evolutionism led to a stratified concept of race.
Evolutionism believed in progression from simple to complex. Earlier simple stages led
to more complex later stages. The association of skin colour with human behaviour
crystallised with encountering people with ‘black’ skin colour seen to be associated
with simple societies having simple technologies and subsistence economies. This led
to a belief that the ‘white’ Europeans were more advanced culturally and technologically
than the ‘black’ ‘primitives. White skin colour was therefore associated with superiority-
both culturally and technologically (Metcalf, 2005; Brown, 2010).
The association of superior behaviour with superior biology is the hallmark of the 19th
century Eugenics movement. Francis Galton, a pioneer of the eugenics movement,
held the belief that superior behaviour is determined by superior biology. He labelled
upper class British as ‘superior races’ and lower classes as ‘inferior races’. Such labelling
led to an association of biology with ‘social class (Brown, 2010).’
It was Franz Boas, who for the first time challenged the eugenics movement. He was
of the view that biology and behaviour are not related to each other. Behaviour according
to Boas was determined by culture. In the entire nature-nurture debate Boas leaned
heavily towards the nurture side. This was a big blow to eugenics and the concept of
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Caste and Class race. He tried to prove his points through empirical evidence and therefore conducted
a study on the Sicilian immigrants to the United States. He was of the view that if
behaviour is rooted in biology, then it will not change over a period of time. However,
in the case of the Sicilian immigrants, he found that after a gap of ten years there was a
marked change in the behaviour of the immigrants and the children of the immigrants
behaved more or less similar to the children in United States. This showed that behaviour
is linked to the environment and not biology. “The part of the study that was most
unexpected, even to Boas, was that even the biology was subject to change. The
cephalic index once thought to be a static identifier of race, also changed among the
Sicilian immigrants. Again, the most profound changes occurred among the children.
Even biology, it seemed, was subject to modification from the environment (Brown,
2010; 69).” The task of linking behaviour with culture was later taken up by Boas’s
student Margaret Mead who went to Samoa to study adolescent behaviour and tried
to link adolescent behaviour with the Samoan culture.

19.3 FROM RACE TO CLINES: THE EMERGENCE

OF NEW ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSIGHTS
RENDERING RACE AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
WITH NO BIOLOGICAL BASIS
Race as a concept emerged out of the anthropological curiosity to understand human
diversity. The entire human physical diversity was classified based on certain parameters
like skin colour, hair type, eye forms etc. into 4, 5 or 6 different types representing
different racial groups. This viewpoint is known as the ‘essentialist viewpoint’ of race.
It assumes that the entire human population can be divided into certain fixed types
based on certain physical features. For example, there are different skin colours like
black, white, yellow etc and the entire human population can be classified based on
their skin colour. The essentialist view suggests that the physical features are static, and
they do not change. This belief led to static racial classifications based on physical
traits (Brown, 2010).
However, during the 1950s Sherwood L. Washburn gave insights that changed the
way anthropologists looked at human diversity (Brown, 2010). Instead of being seen
as fixed, human physical diversity was seen as a product of the immediate environment.
Different ‘racial traits’ therefore were seen as adaptations to various environments.
This new insight of looking at diversity rendered the essentialist view non-scientific.
For example, according to the essentialist view skin colour can be divided into a few
types, but in reality, when different skin colours were classified, it was seen that there
exists a gradation of colours instead of just few types. This suggests that biological
variations do not represent types, but they represent clines. “Clines are gradual, usually
continuous changes in the representation of traits from one area of the world to another.
Skin colour is an excellent example of a cline. As we move from the tropical areas of
the world, where we find the darkest skin shades, to more northerly latitudes, skin
shades get progressively lighter and lighter. There are no breaks or jumps in skin shade
where one might reasonably draw a line (Brown, 2010; 72).”
Based on genetic studies, it has now been established that there are no groups or
human populations that are genetically exclusive. Worldwide comparison of DNA has
revealed that “the most salient feature about our species in terms of biological variability
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is our sameness. The differences are only minor adjustments to different environments Types of Classes
made by our ancestors as they moved around the globe (Brown, 2010; 72).”
It is therefore evident from the above discussion that race has been portrayed as a
biological reality with sociological implications, however, the empirical evidence rejects
the possibility of such an analysis of human variation. In reality, race as a concept used
to define human variation is a myth. It is therefore considered a social construct with no
biological validity.

19.4 RACE IS A HARD CONCEPT TO DIE:

ANALYSING ITS CONTEMPORARY
EXISTENCE
By just saying that race is a myth and is socially or culturally constructed we cannot
diminish the impact of the concept of race that it has in our social, economic and
political lives. Dr Alan Goodman, one of the leading authorities on the concept of race
defines it as “a lived experience (Brown, 2010).” This suggests that race is not merely
a social construct, but it influences our lives to a very great extent. It is a fact that
human diversity can no longer be classified on the basis of race, but this does not mean
that the concept itself is invalid. One has to understand that socially, the race has been
transformed to a level of lived reality. People’s lived experiences are different just
because they belong to a particular ‘racial type.’ It is a social fact as we all recognise
that people are being discriminated against because they have particular skin colour or
physical appearance. This suggests that we still correlate physical features with one’s
social behaviour and culture. An example can illustrate this point better. During the
2008 presidential elections in America, Obama was one of the contenders for the post
of president. He was then projected as an African American, however, people from
the African American community rejected this claim as they thought that Obama was
not “black enough.” By saying this they meant that he did not go through the experiences
that a ‘black’ person goes through in America because he was raised by a white family.
This suggests that being a person of a particular colour changes the experience that
one goes through, and this is socially recognised and influences people’s decision making.
This view is still held firmly in the larger society that people who look different are in
fact different culturally and behaviourally. However, as a student of anthropology
and from the discussions at the beginning of this unit you know that such connections
between biology and behaviour are vestiges of the past and hold no scientific basis.
But still, they are being largely held and influence our behaviour towards ‘the other
(Brown, 2010).’
“Despite a long history of challenges and increasingly compelling evidence against race,
the concept is surprisingly resistant. If people are not actively taught that races don’t
exist, the race concept re-emerges……It may be that, left to their own devices, humans
think racially because they think taxonomically (Caspari, 2010: 107).” This statement
suggests that race still exists because of the human tendency to classify things around
them in order to make sense of the mind-boggling diversity. Human beings tend to
reduce things into simple units that are easily understandable.
Rachel Caspari (2010) suggests that “It may be part of the human condition to construct
naïve taxonomies of the natural and social world, which predispose us to racial thinking
(pp-107).” It is the essentialist viewpoint that governs the creation of such human
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Caste and Class categories or types. Essentialists assume that there are ‘humankinds’ possessing
particular physical, social and cultural features.

19.5 RACE AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Variation is a biological and social reality. Human beings differ from each other on the
basis of physical appearance, achieved status and ascribed status. The difference is
ubiquitous, it is all-pervasive and is present everywhere. However, social differentiation
takes the form of social stratification only when the accessibility to and distribution of
resources become unequal between different groups of people. Some groups consider
themselves as superior to others and this becomes the basis for unequal distribution of
resources. The idea of superior and inferior groups is associated with unequal distribution
of power between the groups. Any system of stratification is based on the process of
ascription. This means that, in a stratification system, what a person will achieve later in
life will be dependent upon the conditions of his/her birth. A person’s race, caste and
class will influence his/her achievements in a system of stratification. In the context of
racial stratification, a person’s racial affinity will influence his/her achievements and
access to resources (Grusky, 2008).
As far as race is concerned, Rex (1970) has argued that “without the power or
stratification element there would be no race relation problems (as in Jayaraman, 1976).”
This observation suggests that race is basically a system of stratification. This means
that physical differences get transformed into prejudices and stereotypes attached to
some groups that ultimately affect their access to resources and power. There is thus
an unequal distribution of power and resources between ‘racial’ groups.
It has been argued that the idea of superior and inferior races is closely related with the
colonial expansion. This suggests that racial stratification and colonialism are associated
with each other. It was the belief in the superiority of the ‘white man’ that they considered
colonial expansion as their moral duty to bring civilisation and develop the ‘non-whites
(Grusky, 2008).’
Scholars have tried to understand racial stratification in terms of caste stratification
(Beteille, 1990). They have tried to see similarities between race and caste systems.
Lloyd Warner studied race in the United States and concluded that blacks and whites
should be defined more as castes rather than races (Beteille, 1990). The relationships
between blacks and whites have much in common with the caste system. Gunnar
Myrdal in his book, An American Dilemma, talked about the similarities between caste
and race and argued that both are socially constructed (Beteille, 1990). Studies of
racial stratification have been illuminated by studies of caste stratification. G.D. Berreman
is one such scholar who used his experiences in the United States and India to illuminate
caste and racial studies. Berreman argued that there is a sense of resentment among
the underprivileged in both caste and race systems. This resentment is largely due to
unequal treatment of the underprivileged in both cases. Their access to resources is
largely governed by their social status and position in both cases (Beteille, 1990).
Andre Beteille (1990) has argued that access to women in both systems is governed
by the position of men in the hierarchy. In the caste system, the upper caste men had
access to the lower caste women but the same was not true for lower caste men.
Similarly, black women were accessible to both black and white men, but white women
were only accessible to white men.
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It has been argued that racial stratification and inequality persist between black and Types of Classes
white Americans when we analyse the distribution of wealth between the two groups.
This however is not very simple to decipher as when we see the incomes of both the
groups then black Americans are visible as many of them have generated huge incomes
through media, films, games etc. This does not reveal any pattern, and everything
seems to be fine and projects an image of changing America where there is no
discrimination based on income generation and opportunities are available to everyone.
However, things change when we analyse the total wealth of both groups. Studies
have shown that most of the wealthy Americans are whites. This distinction between
income and wealth helps us to understand that even today in the 21st century; the
control over the resources and their distribution is skewed based on a very racial axis
(Grusky, 2008).
The prevalence and continuation of racial stratification have also led to serious
consequences for the mental health of people. It has been observed that the
‘subordinate’, discriminated and ‘inferior’ racial groups scored less on the domains of
self-esteem and self-efficacy. There is an internalisation of the feeling of ‘inferiority’ as
a consequence of continued racial inequality (Grusky, 2008).

19.6 UNDERSTANDING THE IDEA OF RACE IN THE

CONTEXT OF INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT
This discussion now brings us to understand the idea of race in the context of the
Indian sub-continent. As discussed earlier, there are similarities between the Indian
caste system and the system of racial stratification, the story of understanding and
analysing race in the context of India is very interesting and revealing.
Besides being a social construct, race denotes affinity. Race is used as a yardstick to
determine one’s close allies. It is used to establish in-groups and out-groups. It
determines a boundary between the ‘us’ and ‘them.’ The case of the Indian sub-continent
vis-à-vis race is very interesting. Ever since the development of navigation technology
in the 15th century, people from Europe had been travelling to far-off places and
encountered people who looked very different from them. The Europeans were very
keenly interested in understanding themselves. This led them to undertake ethnological
studies across the globe or their colonies. In India, the British Orientalists aimed to
understand the Indian population in the context of the British. This idea had a biblical
source as the Bible talked about the lineage of nations as to how different nations came
into existence. At this time (eighteenth and early nineteenth century) the words nation
and race were used interchangeably. In order to understand the Indian civilisation,
British scholars turned to Sanskrit. It was through the study of language that the British
tried to relate themselves to the Indian population. This was the Indo-manic phase
from the point of view of the British. Trautmann (2014) wrote- “What is striking is
precisely that language and physical form are presumed to run together, and their
association was simply not imagined to be problematic. Max Muller was not really
saying something new when he insisted on the blood kinship of the British and the
Indians on the evidence of language, he was simply putting it more strikingly and with
greater rhetorical skill and daring than others: language proves, he argued, that the
same blood flows in the veins of the English soldiers as flows in the veins of the dark
Bengalese (pp-98).” The basis of such an assertion was the strong similarity that Sir
William Jones found among Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Gothic, Celtic and Old Persian
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Caste and Class languages. Since Sanskrit was associated with the Aryans, thus this was the Aryan
brethren theme propounded by the British.
This thinking about India and Indian people changed during the mid-nineteenth century
with the emergence of ‘race science.’ This science discredited the relation between
language and blood and promoted the relation between blood and complexion. This
led to the emergence of a new idea of the Aryan that is based not on the language but
on skin colour. “Racial whiteness, not language, now governs the new idea of the
Aryan (Trautmann, 2014; 99).” This new idea of the Aryan attacked the earlier Sanskritist
view and led to the emergence of the ‘Racial Theory of Indian Civilisation.’ “This is the
theory that Indian civilisation was formed by a big bang, caused by the conquest of
light-skinned, Aryan, civilized invaders over dark-skinned savage aboriginal Indians,
and the formation of the caste system which bound the two in a single society, at once
mixed and segregated (Trautmann, 2014; 100).”
This theory has been based on the racial interpretation of the Rigveda. It has been
argued by scholars that there are instances in Rigveda that suggest that the enemy of
the Aryans were ‘nose-less’ people. Aryan gods on the other hand were depicted as
having big and beautiful noses. It has also been argued that scholars like H.H. Risley
have actually multiplied the importance and reference to the nose in the Rigveda which
was actually not the case. Further readings of Rigveda suggest that such references to
physical features like the nose were limited and were neither extensive nor frequent in
the text. It is suggested further that Vedic text talks about the enemies of the Aryans as
people of black skin colour named Dasa or Dasyu. Besides this, the entire Varna
model of the caste system is supposed to be based on colour as the original meaning of
Varna means colour. It is also assumed to be true that the Veda talks about two varnas
(i.e., colour)- the Arya Varna and Dasa Varna. Besides these scholars have suggested
that there is evidence that suggest an emphasis on colour. For example, Trautmann
(2014) quotes Madhav Deshpande’s work titled Sanskrit and Prakrit: Sociolinguistic
Issues in which Deshpande has quoted works like Mahabhasya in which it is mentioned
that a Brahmin is always fair in colour and no dark person can be called a Brahmin.
Similarly, other texts have talked about the regional distribution of people of different
colours across the Indian sub-continent. For example, Rajashekhara’s Kavya-Mimamsa
gave a geographical distribution of people in India based on colour and said that people
of north India are fair, those in east India are dusky, people in south India are dark in
colour, people of the west are yellowish-white and people in middle India are a mixture
of fair, dusky and dark. Besides these, there has always been a preference for brides
of fair complexion right from the time of the Vasistha Dharma Sutra to the contemporary
Indian matrimonial columns. These examples to some extent support the racial theory
of Indian civilisation (Trautmann, 2014).
However, Trautmann argues against this and says that the racial theory of Indian
civilisation is a result of over-reading the Rigvedic text and other such texts mentioning
skin colour. He is of the view that race is not only limited to colour, it also denotes
hierarchy between people of different colours. When we see Arya and Dasyu dichotomy
in terms of their civilisational achievements then we find that people inhabiting the Indian
sub-continent before the Aryans “were already greatly advanced, in many respects
more so than the people of the Veda (Trautmann, 2014; 104).”
However, a counterargument can be put forward by saying that when we assume and
establish that the racial system is socially constructed then we must also accept the fact
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that prejudices must have been built on skin colour irrespective of the evidence that Types of Classes
suggests otherwise.

19.7 CONTEMPORARY INDIA AND RACISM

In this era of globalisation, people are travelling across the world for various purposes
like work, studies, etc. This contact has led to a need for defining relations between
people of different regions and countries. Unfortunately, such relations are defined on
the axis of racism. We keep hearing the news about Indians beings attacked in Australia
or people from the African countries being attacked in India. Within India, we tend to
see people from different regions differently. Most of the people from North-Eastern
states are being treated discriminately. Here, as discussed earlier in the unit, the physical
features are associated with certain kinds of behaviours. “Well-dressed women from
the Northeast are exposed to a certain form of sexism and masochism: the preconceived
notion is that they are promiscuous women, who will condone any form of male attention
(Sinha, 2014; 80).”
More recently in April 2017, there was an incident in Greater Noida in India where
people from Nigeria were beaten by a mob accusing them to be drug peddlers. This
mob violence happened even after the accused were arrested (EPW editorial, 2017).
In the year 2016, a similar incident of racial violence happened where an African
national was killed by a mob in Delhi. This led to a boycott of “Africa Day” by diplomats
of 54 African nations. Such incidents of racial hatred and discrimination have been
understood in the context of terms like ‘front page racism’ and ‘footnote racism.’ The
racial violence at Greater Noida is an example of front-page racism where such acts
become front-page news items. On the contrary, there are discriminatory practices at
the level of daily lived experiences, as is evident from the example of women from the
North-East. This is an example of footnote racism. As part of their daily lived
experiences, the African nationals also face discrimination. Footnote racism includes-
“the way people look at you, the way they avoid you, what they say about you, the
stereotyping that denies you basic civility and services. It is this that both northeasterners
and African nationals in India constantly confront, making their daily existence unpleasant
and fraught (EPW editorial, 2017; 7).”
Activity 3.7
Try to find out more examples of front-page racism and footnote racism.

19.8 SUMMARY
Race can be defined as a framework of ranked categories dividing up the human
population. The concept of race invokes different kinds of meanings that range from
considering race as synonymous with nationality to considering it in terms of linguistic
categories. However, as Gisbert (1959) suggests, that the most authentic meaning of
race is physiological. He defines race as “a collection of individuals sharing in common
certain observable physiological traits transmissible by biological inheritance (pp-263).”
Such observable physiological traits include skin colour, head shape, stature, eye colour,
prognathism, hair form, lip form etc. A combination of these features together constitutes
a particular racial category. Race as a concept has undergone a dramatic change in the
discipline of anthropology (Caspari, 2010). Once held as a valid concept, the race is
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Caste and Class now seen as a myth. Most anthropologists are of the view that race as a concept has
lost its validity based on evidence. Race as a concept emerged out of the anthropological
curiosity to understand human diversity. It assumes that the entire human population
can be divided into certain fixed types based on certain physical features. For example,
there are different skin colours like black, white, yellow etc and the entire human
population can be classified based on their skin colour. Based on genetic studies, it has
now been established that there are no groups or human populations that are genetically
exclusive. In reality, race as a concept used to define human variation is a myth. It is
therefore considered a social construct with no biological validity. The concept of race
to understand human variation is a reductionist approach to understanding diversity.
As far as race is concerned, Rex (1970) has argued that “without the power or
stratification element there would be no race relation problems.” This observation
suggests that race is basically a system of stratification. Scholars have also tried to
understand racial stratification in terms of caste stratification. The prevalence and
continuation of racial stratification has also led to serious consequences for the mental
health of people. In the Indian context, the concept of race is seen in the backdrop of
the racial theory of Indian civilisation. Such an understanding of the Indian civilisation
has survived for long now and has coloured the way in which we look at human diversity.
References
Barnard A. 2004. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge. Cambridge
University Press.
Barnard A. and Spencer J., 2010. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and
Cultural Anthropology. Oxon. Routledge.
Beteille A. 1990. Race, Caste and Gender. Man. Vol. 25. No. 3. pp- 489-504.
Brown P.F. 2010. Race and Racism. In Brix H.J. (ed.) 21st Century Anthropology:
A Reference Handbook. California. Sage.
Caspari R. 2010. Deconstructing Race: Racial Thinking, Geographic Variation, and
Implications for Biological Anthropology. In Larsen C.S. (ed.) A Companion to
Biological Anthropology. Sussex. Wiley Blackwell.
Dunn L.C. and Dobzhansky H. 1952. Heredity, Race and Society. New York. The
New American Library.
Editorial. 2017. A Nation in Denial. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. LII. No. 14.
pp- 7-8.
Gisbert P. 1959. Fundamentals of Sociology. Madras. Orient Longman Pvt. Ltd.
Grusky D.B. 2008. Social Stratification: Class, Race and Gender in Sociological
Perspective. Colourado. Westview Press.
Jayaraman R. 1976. Racial Inequality in Industrial Society and Theories of Social
Stratification. Sociological Bulletin. Vol. 25. No.1. pp- 63-73
Metcalf P. 2005. Anthropology: The Basics. Oxon. Routledge.
Rex B. 1970. An Analysis of Social Power. In Tumin M. Readings in Social
Stratification. New Jersey. Prentice Hall.
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Sinha N. 2014. Race and Space. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. XLIX. No. Types of Classes
46. pp- 79-80.
Trautmann T.R. 2014. Constructing the Racial Theory of Indian Civilisation. In Trautmann
T.R. (ed.) The Aryan Debate. New Delhi. Oxford University Press.
Suggested Readings
Brown P.F. 2010. Race and Racism. In Brix H.J. (ed.) 21st Century Anthropology:
A Reference Handbook. California. Sage.
Caspari R. 2010. Deconstructing Race: Racial Thinking, Geographic Variation, and
Implications for Biological Anthropology. In Larsen C.S. (ed.) A Companion to
Biological Anthropology. Sussex. Wiley Blackwell.
Sample Questions
1. What do you mean by the term race?
2. Race is a myth. Discuss.
3. How is the concept of race understood in the Indian context?
4. Discuss race as a form of social stratification.
5. Comment upon the contemporary existence of race.
6. Race is a social construct. Discuss.
7. Trace the historical development of race as a concept.

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