To understand the place of Goan tailors in Goa's social hierarchy, one has to understand the caste system which is primarily a placing of individuals according to their occupations. Thus kings were kshatriyas, priests were brahmins, commoners like traders and farmers were vaishyas and the remaining occupations were dumped into one group called S community. In this category were farmers (who tilled land which did not belong to them) cooks, carpenters masons, toddy tappers, fishermen,and at the bottom of this group were unskilled labourers, barbers, dobhis and mahars. However with the advent of Industrial Revolution new categories of occupations came into existence ( which obviously were not foreseen by our scintillating intellectuals of the agrarian age ) like tailors, machine maintenance workers, electricians, plumbers, hotel related jobs like cooks, bakers, waiters, roomboys, etc. not to mention higher professionals like doctors, engineers, bankers etc.. All these post industrial jobs which could not be clearly fitted into old categories were grabbed by members of all castes and predominantly by members of S community. Hence the exact place of tailors in our social hierarchy is well nigh impossible to be ascertained though it can be safely said that tailoring is one of the cleanest occupation. intellectuals of agrarian age
