I’m curious about the exact method by which caste is inherited in Indian society – although I’m sure there are variations from ethnicity to ethnicity. Let’s say you are born to a Vaisya family, then you’re Vaisya too, right? Simple enough. But suppose a Vaisya couple wanted to adopt a baby. Would their adopted child be considered a Vaisya? What if the child’s biological parent’s caste is unknown? Would a low-caste origin just be assumed?
What’s to stop someone from changing their name, moving to a new area, and “reinventing” themselves as a member of a higher caste?
Yes, caste (which is technically “jati”, much more specialized and specific than just one of the four “varnas”, i.e., Brahmana or Kshatriya or Vaisya or Shudra (not counting “dalit”, formerly called “untouchable” or some such, and other tribes and groups outside the varna system)—where was I? Start over.)
“Varna” is indeed inherited, and so is “jati” or caste, which is a subgroup within “varna”. The child born to parents of a specific “jati” within the Vaisya “varna” will be a Vaisya of that same jati. And AFAIK, adoption also gives the child the jati status of the adopted parents.
Not a thing, if they can get away with it, and in fact back in pre-modern times that was one of the main ways the caste system kept a little social mobility. Lots of people used to change their caste status on moving to a new area. And though I’m sure it’s somewhat more difficult now what with better communications systems and all, I wouldn’t be surprised if many people still manage it.
As for “reinventing” yourself, social ties- like family- are a lot more important than here. It’s pretty standard for a new bride to move in with her husband’s parents upon marriange and for sons to live out their lives in the family home. The idea of moving to a different city than your parents and visiting on holidays isn’t unhead of, but it is somewhat unusual. It’s also not unusual for your family and social group to have connections all over and gossip spreads extremely quickly, so it may be hard to find a place where you are totally unknown. When you show up in a new town, chances are the friend of a friend of a distant aunt is going to spot you and be on the phone with everyone she knows.
For example, my friend left home at a young age with twenty rupees in his pocket and a fake train ticket. He is a master dialect mimic, and often it was his ability to make people think he was native to the area he is in that got him by.
But one day he went to rent an apartment outside of Delhi. I went with him when he went to sign the papers. Somehow his landlord learned he was from Bihar (a state with a bad reputation) and refused to rent him the house. When my friend argued back that that shouldn’t matter, the landlord demanded to know his last name. My friend told him, and the landlord replied that people of that name tend to have bad relationships with their parents and demanded to talk to my friend’s father on the phone. As it happens, my friend did have a bad relationship with his father. His pleas that he was the one renting the house, not his father, fell on deaf ears. He didn’t get the place. I’m sure my understanding of the situation is nowhere near complete, but I am pretty sure that caste was involved.
Yes, certain surnames do tend to be typical of certain castes and/or varnas.
And yes, Biharis do tend to get stereotyped as lawless thugs (as the parallel GQ thread on non-US stereotypes recently mentioned!). I never heard of a particular caste being associated with bad family relationships, but it doesn’t surprise me: there are lots of weird caste prejudices floating around, applying both up and down the status ladder.