The traditional structure of Indian society continues
to be up-to date and discussive topic among sociologists, anthropologists,
historians and politologists mostly due to aliveness of caste system in the
country today. The history of reflections about caste system going back to the
colonial era when westernized middle class Indians tried to understand the
place of Indian traditional social order in new modern one which takes the
inspiration from Western egalitarian and humanistic ideas. The article is
dealing with the history of ideas about caste system starting from Brahmo samaj
opinion on it and ending with views of prominent politicians of Northern India
Motilal Nehru, Bishan Narayan Dar, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Madan Mohan Malaviya and
Lala Lajpat Rai including Arya samaj position. The radical opinion about castes
of Brahmo samaj was not accepted by Arya samaj followers.While Brahmosamajists
demands elimination of castes in principle, Aryasamajists do not deny
varna-jati system but change the interpretation of it. Social actions of
Bengali and Punjabi organizations were not the same: the affords of social
reform in Arya samaj were limited by helping dalits and converting them to
vedic religion, while Brahmosamajists besides social work with untouchables
fought for equality among dvija castes. Using the methodological tool of
putting the position of some politicians or organizations on the “modernists –
traditionalists” scale, article describes the whole variety of opinions about
jati system among the politicians of the Punjab and North-Western provinces on the
second half of 19th – the beginning of 20th century. It is concluded that two
positions were dominant among the region’s elites – “critical-modernists” (B.
N. Dar and L. L. Rai) and “modernists” (M. Nehru and T. B. Sapru). The solidarity
among all politicians is seen on the question that caste system as it was at
that moment is incompatible with the modern way of India’s development.
