Raghu from a marginalised community gains a high ranking governmental…

Raghu from a marginalised community gains a high ranking governmental job and moves to an urban city. Despite his professional success, he finds that his social interactions in his home village are still governed by his birth status. This illustrates that caste system is primarily a/an:

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 2

The correct answer is Option (2) → Ascribed Status

Option (1) Achieved Status — Incorrect. An achieved status is a position a person earns by choice and effort. Raghu’s government job is achieved, but the question asks what still governs his interactions in the village, and that is something his effort could not change.

Option (2) Ascribed Status — Correct. A person’s social position is ascribed: children assume the social positions of their parents, and within the caste system birth dictates a person’s place. However high Raghu rises at work, his village still treats him by the caste he was born into.

Option (3) Informal class system — Incorrect. Class rests on a person’s economic position – income, occupation, property – and can change. Raghu’s class position rose with his new job, yet his standing in the village did not move, which shows that caste works by birth, not by class.

Option (4) Permanent Traits — Incorrect. ‘Permanent traits’ is the classification of tribes by region, language, physical characteristics and ecological habitat. It describes tribal communities, not a person’s caste status.

NCERT (2025-26): “Social Inequality … Three key principles help explain social stratification:

1. Social stratification is a characteristic of society, not simply a function of individual differences. Social stratification is a society-wide system that unequally distributes social resources among categories of people. In the most technologically primitive societies – hunting and gathering societies, for instance – little was produced so only rudimentary social stratification could exist. In more technologically advanced societies where people produce a surplus over and above their basic needs, however, social resources are unequally distributed to various social categories regardless of people’s innate individual abilities.
2. Social stratification persists over generations. It is closely linked to the family and to the inheritance of social resources from one generation to the next. A person’s social position is ascribed. That is, children assume the social positions of their parents. Within the caste system, birth dictates occupational opportunities. The ascribed aspect of social inequality is reinforced by the practice of endogamy. That is, marriage is usually restricted to members of the same caste, ruling out the potential for blurring caste lines through inter-caste marriage.”

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 2

The correct answer is Option (2) → Ascribed Status

NCERT (2025-26): “Social Inequality … Three key principles help explain social stratification:

1. Social stratification is a characteristic of society, not simply a function of individual differences. Social stratification is a society-wide system that unequally distributes social resources among categories of people. In the most technologically primitive societies – hunting and gathering societies, for instance – little was produced so only rudimentary social stratification could exist. In more technologically advanced societies where people produce a surplus over and above their basic needs, however, social resources are unequally distributed to various social categories regardless of people’s innate individual abilities.
2. Social stratification persists over generations. It is closely linked to the family and to the inheritance of social resources from one generation to the next. A person’s social position is ascribed. That is, children assume the social positions of their parents. Within the caste system, birth dictates occupational opportunities. The ascribed aspect of social inequality is reinforced by the practice of endogamy. That is, marriage is usually restricted to members of the same caste, ruling out the potential for blurring caste lines through inter-caste marriage.”