Book Review of Recasting Caste: From the Sacred to the Profane

This article interrogates the articulations on the concept of caste(s) by digging its origin, pathways and the good fortune it enjoyed since its birth with a brief appraisal of Dumontian notion of caste. The paper also makes an attempt to show how the stereotype of anthropological ‘other’ as an integral part of colonial epistemological and ontological thinking provided the basis for analysing caste as ‘other’ which became the be-all and end-all category for explaining Indian social reality and, which again in its turn have orientalized Indian sociological imagination subsumed under Social Anthropology and Indology. The paper shows how caste and sub-caste have no direct correspondence with Varna or Jati. And, finally, Dumont’s views on caste and hierarchy in India are unsubstantiated as Dumont turns speculative into empirical and empirical into speculative in the distinguished company of Anthropological/Orientalist tradition of Hegel, Marx and Weber. The need of the hour is to critically look at the dependence on caste for explaining reality in India. The paper calls for a more appropriate and reflexive classifications based on theoretical-methodological rigor and in-depth study of Indian society without resorting to Eurocentric and Colonial biases.

In almost all the cases, the entire gamut of writings, research papers and various other kinds of essays on the caste-system, begin with some sentences or phrases that have been so overused as to be rendered into cliché, and since even after getting thoroughly worn out these clichés present the reality to a certain extent, as such I would also use a few similar sentences to begin with.

Bryan S. Turner (ed.) The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2017

This entry discusses the transformation of caste in the Indian context. The entry starts with a discussion of the Indological and anthropological accounts of caste and then examines whether “caste” is essentially unique to Hinduism. Furthermore, the entry discusses the possibility of mobility within the ritual hierarchy of caste. In the final section, the entry shows how caste, once described by the Christian missionaries and the colonial state as an irrational traditional institution, has transformed into a modern entity and become a vital instrument of democratic mobilization in contemporary India.

South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2017

Anthropologists do not usually demand ... exacting standards and will settle to regard as adequate whatever can yield promising explanations at any given time. But if we can be more liberal in our judgments of adequacy, we should also be more conscientious in appraising our kit of conceptual tools. All too often concepts come burdened with the connotations and implications of the past contexts that gave rise to them. Hence a periodic review of our stock of ideas is neither an exercise in antiquarian nostalgia, nor a ritual occasion for rattling the bones of our ancestors. It should be, rather, a critical evaluation of the ways we pose and answer questions, and of the limitations we might bring to that task.

Review of Development and Change

The abolition of caste as demanded during pre-independence period had led to a predicament whereby the need to delegitimize caste was in conflict with the commitment to redress the disabilities of caste. The unbridgeable divergence between these two perspectives had made annihilation of caste seem more like a disabling dream than an empowering utopia. The central predicament in caste was the virtual invisibility of the upper caste and hyper visibility of the lower caste that had split society into two unequal and implacably opposed sections. One for which caste appeared to be the only available resource to improve life-chances in a game, where the playing field was far from level, while for the other camp; caste had already yielded all it could. Contemporary complexities of lower caste and their demands for social justice need to be addressed and close attention to be paid. To its taken for granted side, namely naturalization of upper caste as the legitimate inheritors of modernity. The paper retraces sociological, political, constitutional and judicial perspectives and the emergence and rise of the notion of castelessness. It is an immense privilege to be here today to participate in the collective task of honouring the life and work of Malcolm Satyanathan Adiseshaiah, a pioneer in the field of development economics and specially educational planning. Honours and awards have the entirely appropriate effect of humbling the recipient. So, even as I offer my heartfelt thanks to the Malcolm and Elizabeth Adisheshaiah Trust and its Jury for this honour, I am also mindful of the great responsibility it places upon me. I did not know Professor Adiseshaiah and can only claim a tenuous connection to him through one of his students at the Madras Christian College in the 1940s, the late Professor K.N. Raj, who was among my own teachers at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram in the early 1980s. Given the Caste and Castelessness in the Indian Republic: Towards a Biography of the 'General Category'* Satish Deshpande** * Malcolm Adiseshiah Memorial lecture delivered on 21 November 2012 at Chennai.

Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 7: 51-86. , 2013

Caste as a system of social stratification was an encompassing system in the past. There was reciprocal system of exchange goods and services. With time, occupation and mode of generation of livelihood of various caste groups changed, and the traditional form of jajmani system fizzled out. This paper provides an account of changing perspectives of caste relations in social science writing and political discourse. The discourse of caste has been shifted from ritual hierarchy and social discrimination to an instrument to mobilize people for economic and political gain.

This course explores how caste was politicized over the course of colonial and post-colonial periods in India. It focuses on the emergence and development of various movements opposed to caste-based inequality and injustice, as well as the ongoing search for social justice. The course reviews scholarly debates about understanding this form of identification and social hierarchy, and examines the complex ways in which caste articulates with other social phenomena, like gender, class, religion, and nationality. It lays emphasis on the writings and work of key anti-caste thinkers and activists, in particular, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the preeminent leader of the Dalits, and a key figure in drafting the Constitution of India. Based on close readings of various kinds of primary sources, as well as an engagement with secondary literature in history, political science, sociology, anthropology and literary studies, the course follows the story of the struggle to “annihilate” caste.