Why another book on caste? Hasn’t enough research been conducted on the subject; and doesn’t writing on or about caste help keep it alive?
The continued significance of caste in India’s public life is said to be because of the reservation policy or because of electoral politics, with caste being viewed as a convenient mode of securing a stable vote bank. Contested Hierarchies, Persisting Influence shows, however, that caste survives beyond electoral politics and quotas.
Caste-based divisions continue to matter not only in the village, but also in modern-day urban life, business, institutions of higher education, and many other spheres of contemporary social practice.
The chapters in this book, written by some of the leading scholars of Indian society and based on hard empirical evidence, present complex dynamics of the interplay of caste with electoral politics, its change and persistence, and its continued significance in various regional and historical contexts.
The rich ethnographic studies show how caste survives as a resource of social and cultural capital, and as a relationship that is always defined by power, hierarchy and inequality. The authors state that caste influences and determines people’s access to nourishment, shelter, property, and personal and financial security.
This book provides a rounded assessment of the subject that presents the complexities of caste practices in twenty-first century India.