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The major cities in modern times—Bombay (Mumbai),
Madras (Chennai), Calcutta (Kolkata), New Delhi, and
Bangalore—were essentially residential creations of the
British administrators.
Architecturally, professionally, and in other ways, they are
therefore the most Westernized cities in India today. In
these cities and their suburbs, there is now a developed
class system overlying and in many respects displacing the
more traditional caste system.
As a consequence, there are many modern cases of intercaste
marriage in all the cities, although this practice remains
almost unthinkable to the great majority of Indians.
There are many symbols of class differentiation because each
caste tends to have its own persisting subculture.
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People's location in this stratification system thus can be
gauged accurately according to the way they dress, their
personal names, the way they speak a local dialect, the
deities they worship, who they are willing to eat with
publicly, the location of their housing, and especially
their occupations. The combination of all these subcultural
features can be a sure sign of where individuals and their
families are situated in the caste hierarchy. |
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