Flesh, booze and (contested) lineages: Kayasthas, caste and colonial ethnography 1870-1930

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper tracks the various contestations over north Indian Kayasthas’ twice-born (dvija) status between 1870 and 1930. Originating in disputes over property inheritance, Kayasthas’ largely ambiguous caste status became a subject of contestation in colonial ethnography, popular scholarship and caste reform movements. In two generations after 1870, north Indian Kayasthas had to newly assert (and prove) their varna ‘origins’ through contesting colonial taxonomy and an accompanying Brahmanical superstructure. This article locates the broader contours of debate over what constituted Kayasthas’ twice-born status, and how arguments over non-vegetarianism and alcohol were bound up with constructing a newly-rigid varna identity. Kayasthas were forced to respond to the larger pressures of colonial ethnography and ‘lineage scholarship’ which affected various ‘reform’ movements that linked temperance, vegetarianism and proper ritual to construct a caste status that was commensurate with their occupational worth.