Published Paper Details:

The present paper concerns how the institution of Caste directs and decides the socio-economic and ritualistic life of its members. A notable trait of the caste system is the imprint it makes not only on the economic and social lives of the people belonging to different castes but also on their psyche. For every Caste, be they upper or middle or the low and former untouchable castes, the belief that "their caste is such that they have to be guided by its norms" used to be almost common to all castes. There are castes which are considered ritually "divine", but by earnings/economic status and asset ownership, they turn out to be "vulnerable, poor and marginalised". The winds of modernisation and globalisation have deepened the latter (economic conditions), and the former (ritual value) has been commercialised. This paradoxical situation, as applicable to the Potter caste, is discussed in this paper, using empirical data elicited for a broader study on the potter community of Karnataka (locally known as the Kumbaras) in perspective. The paper draws heavily from ethnographic and qualitative information based on the respondents' perceptions and opinions about their Caste and its precarious economic condition in the New Millennium.