Which of the following principles are applied to maintain caste based…

Which of the following principles are applied to maintain caste based restrictions?

(A) Birth
(B) Marriage
(C) Food Sharing
(D) Occupation

Choose the correct answer from the options given below :

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 4

The correct answer is Option (4) → (B), (C) and (D) only

Note: The given answer is as per the official NTA Answer Key. However, there seems to be an ambiguity in the question. The most commonly cited defining features of caste include birth, marriage, food-sharing and occupation, and most of these prescriptions involve restrictions. Read as asking only for the rules that restrict a person’s conduct, the question leaves out birth, which decides membership of a caste rather than restricting conduct; going strictly by the book, all four, which is Option (3), can also be taken as correct, as explained below.

(A) Birth Should be Correct, but has been taken as Incorrect as per the NTA answer key. Caste is determined by birth: a child is ‘born into’ the caste of its parents, and can never change or leave it by choice. Birth is the first of the defining features and decides which restrictions apply to a person.

(B) Marriage Correct. Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage. Caste groups are ‘endogamous’: marriage is restricted to members of the group.

(C) Food Sharing Correct. Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing: what may or may not be eaten, and with whom food may be shared.

(D) Occupation Correct. Castes were traditionally linked to occupations. A person born into a caste could practise only its occupation, and members of other castes could not enter it.

NCERT (2025-26): “3.1 Caste and the Caste System … The most commonly cited defining features of caste are the following:

1. Caste is determined by birth – a child is ‘born into’ the caste of its parents. Caste is never a matter of choice. One can never change one’s caste, leave it, or choose not to join it, although there are instances where a person may be expelled from their caste.

2. Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage. Caste groups are ‘endogamous’, i.e. marriage is restricted to members of the group.
3. Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing. What kinds of food may or may not be eaten is prescribed and who one may share food with is also specified.
4. Caste involves a system consisting of many castes arranged in a hierarchy of rank and status. In theory, every person has a caste, and every caste has a specified place in the hierarchy of all castes. While the hierarchical position of many castes, particularly in the middle ranks, may vary from region to region, there is always a hierarchy.
5. Castes also involve sub-divisions within themselves, i.e., castes almost always have sub-castes and sometimes sub-castes may also have sub-castes. This is referred to as a segmental organisation.
6. Castes were traditionally linked to occupations. A person born into a caste could only practice the occupation associated with that caste, so that occupations were hereditary, i.e. passed on from generation to generation.…”

“On the other hand, a particular occupation could only be pursued by the caste associated with it – members of other castes could not enter the occupation. These features are the prescribed rules found in ancient scriptural texts. Since these prescriptions were not always practiced, we cannot say to what extent these rules actually determined the empirical reality of caste – its concrete meaning for the people living at that time. As you can see, most of the prescriptions involved prohibitions or restrictions of various sorts.…”