Paper short abstract:

Instead of asking whether the Latin Catholics of Kerala can be labelled a caste, the paper extracts hierarchical structures among the Latin Catholics and argues that hierarchy is valued in the community, as in Indian caste society in general.

Paper long abstract:

The Latin Catholics of Kerala, who were converted by Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century, are accorded a certain position in the local Hindu caste hierarchy and stand in hierarchical relation to other Christian communities, such as the Syrian Christians. Internally, they are divided into two hierarchically ordered groups, the so-called Five Hundreds and Seven Hundreds, who belong to different parishes and dioceses, are said to come from different caste backgrounds and, in the past and partly today, restrict intermarriage.

Can we call the community of the Latin Catholics a caste, though they obviously lack ideas of purity and pollution? Do we find caste-like structures among the Latin Catholics, but no castes - and what would be the difference?

In his controversially discussed Homo Hierarchicus, Louis Dumont also raises these questions. While he deals with them in rather general terms, others address them on the basis of more detailed ethnographic studies of specific Christian communities.

In contrast these works, I would like to leave these mainly definitional questions aside and attempt to extract hierarchical structures as such within the Latin Catholic community. I argue that hierarchy, independent of whether the Latin Catholics can or should be labelled a caste, is valued in the community, as in Indian caste society in general and that, while the relevance of caste may diminish today, hierarchy persists.