Caste
Among Hindus, hereditary groups ranked high or low, with rules about marriage, food and contact between them, which British plague officers in 1897 had to reckon with.
The Plague Act and the House Searches, Bombay 1897
R. Nathan, comp., The Plague in India, 1896, 1897 (Simla: Government Central Printing Office, 1898) · 1898 (events of October 1896–April 1897)
Added to this, both Hindus and Muhammadans view with the greatest dislike any intrusion into their homes, and especially any possible interference with the privacy of their women. Among Hindus, again, the caste system and its elaborate rules prevent the intimate association, and especially the feeding in common, of the superior and inferior castes. These habits of mind and dictates of religious and social custom greatly increase the difficulty of enforcing the precautions essential to check the virulence of an epidemic disease, such as plague. Both in the City of Bombay and elsewhere the authorities who bore the responsibility of the operations kept these matters constantly in view and the precautionary measures were always devised so as to interfere to the least possible degree with the feelings and the customs of the people for the protection of whom they were devised.
Added to this, both Hindus and Muhammadans view with the greatest dislike any intrusion into their homes, and especially any possible interference with the privacy of their women. Among Hindus, again, the caste system and its elaborate rules prevent the intimate association, and especially the feeding in common, of the superior and inferior castes. These habits of mind and dictates of religious and social custom greatly increase the difficulty of enforcing the precautions essential to check the virulence of an epidemic disease, such as plague. Both in the City of Bombay and elsewhere the authorities who bore the responsibility of the operations kept these matters constantly in view and the precautionary measures were always devised so as to interfere to the least possible degree with the feelings and the customs of the people for the protection of whom they were devised.