SOCIETAL DIVIDERS

Differentiation on the Basis of Ascription

Earlier, in our discussion of the concept of group, it was said that a group is defined by its membership. Non-members are those who do not belong to the group, and they may, or may not, want to become members. In the case of societies, which are also a special type of group, members are clearly differentiated from non-members. Societies accept visits by non-members as transient populations. Thus, societies get stratified along this dimension of membership.

Those non-members who stay for long may look like members, but are not granted that status until they are ‘naturalized’. Even after their formal acceptance, a distinction is made in term of their time of arrival. The old and original residents are named ‘Aborigines’, ‘autochthones’, or ‘indigenous’. New arrivals in many old societies come either in the form of migrants and wanderers, or as invaders and alien rulers. This difference is expressed in terms of Insiders and Outsiders—the twin concepts elaborated by Robert K. Merton (1972).⁴ The original ‘monocultural’ societies have, in the process, become pluricultural with the presence of both insiders and outsiders. In a pluricultural context, however, these are not exclusive categories; depending on the context, an individual may become either an insider or an outsider (see Atal, 2001).

When the Europeans arrived in Asia after the Industrial Revolution in the West—as traders, Christian missionaries, and finally as colonial rulers—they were struck by the well-grown indigenous civilizations, and described the pattern of living together of many regional and ethnic groups as a mixed culture of plural society.

Here we get the first hint of differentiation within society, between those who originally belonged to it and those who came later. When several small societies inhabiting a subcontinent or a peninsula were brought under a single umbrella for the purpose of governance, that larger grouping became plural. That is why societies of the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia and Burma (now known as Myanmar) were described by J. S. Furnivall as Plural Societies (1948). Furnivall wrote in the context of Indonesia that ‘the first thing that strikes the visitor is the medley of peoples—European, Chinese, Indian and native’. The different groups, Furnivall wrote, ‘mix but do not combine’. Each group ‘holds by its own religion, its own culture and language, its ideas and ways’. The result was a ‘plural society, with different sections of the society living side by side but separately within the same political unit’. As individuals they meet, but only in the marketplace. It is only the political unit that is overarching. Many scholars, even from the Asian region, began using this concept of plural society without realizing that what the concept emphasized was diversity and lack of unity between the groups—a fact that was regarded as helpful for a policy of ‘divide and rule’. In all colonized societies, the colonial masters reinforced the diversity—religious minorities, tribal groups, and even lower castes within a religious group were encouraged to maintain. A distance from each other, but continue to owe allegiance to colonial rule.

It is interesting that in the post World War II era, a similar plurality grew in the countries of Europe. The New World has also seen a mix similar to that of the Asian region, the difference being that in the former there was a wholesale migration of Europeans as settlers, and as a numerically preponderant community. However, the United States was never described as a plural society. The new nomenclature that has come in after the experience of the developed ‘North’ is multiculturalism. The meaning of separatism inherent in the concept of pluralism is thus discarded in favour of a newly evolving multicultural milieu, with integration as the key word. The emergence of sandwich cultures in these societies hints towards a judicious assimilation of elements of the host and migrant cultures.

We have so far discussed the phenomenon of diversity of cultures providing a basis for the stratification of society.

The first distinction is made between the indigenous population and migrants.

Second, the migrants themselves can be distinguished in terms of their place of origin, time of arrival (early migrants versus recent migrants) and religion.

Third, distinctions also exist between migrant people of the same religion but belonging to different countries; similarly, different sects of the same religion—the Shias and the Sunnis amongst the Muslims, the Protestants and Catholics inter alia amongst Christians, and so on—also add to the multiplicity.

Fourth, a distinction can be made between those who temporarily stay in a society and those who have moved with a view to permanently settling down—expressing a willingness to become ‘naturalized’ in the host society.

All these distinctions are made on the basis of birth—ascriptive status. Considerations of race, religion or sect, and native country govern their status in the societal structure. These may divide the society either vertically or horizontally. For example, the group that invades and wins a country begins to occupy the top position in the political hierarchy, dividing the society into rulers and ruled (subjects). In terms of migration, the indigenous group may place itself at the core (when it enjoys a majority) with migrating groups at the periphery. It could be the other way round, as happened in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, where the aborigines were pushed back by the white migrants and created new societies, making the smaller societies of individual tribal groups a component of the new arrangement.

In the ascriptive criteria one can also include gender—a birth-based distinction between male and female that remains unchanged—and age—which changes the status of an occupant throughout his life. Both are demographic variables and serve as classificatory devices. But these are categories and not groups in the strict sociological sense.