Outlinethe positions of Herbert Risley and G.S. Ghurye on the relationshipbetween race and caste in India.

HerbertRisley believed that human beings could be divided into separateraces on the basis of their physical characteristics. His mainargument was that caste originated in race because the differentcastes belonged to different racial types. He believed that thehigher castes originated from Indo-Aryans while the lower castesoriginated from non-Aryan races. Risley was of the opinion that theconditions in India were suitable for studying racial evolution asinter-caste marriages was strictly prohibited in India.

Ghurye wasof a different view. He believed that Risley’s argument waspartially correct and the argument of upper castes being Aryan andlower castes being non-Aryan was true only for north India. Hefurther said that the prohibition of intermixing of different casteswas only limited to the northern India, and people in other areas hadbeen mixing for a long time. According to him, racial purity waspreserved only in North India while other parts adopted the practiceof endogamy only after variations had occurred in racial groups.