The notion of caste is often seen as a remnant of the past, which India’s modernisation and development would push aside. The practice of caste has persisted in contemporary times but one that is too often seen as an aberration, which, when taken care of, will lead to its eventual vanquishment from the “urban and modern landscapes of India’s national life” (p. 1). The Oxford Handbook of Caste, edited by Surinder Singh Jodhka and Jules Naudet (published by Oxford University Press) in 2023 is a compelling addition to the existing scholarship on caste, not merely because it is a collection of essays by scholars from various fields writing about the existence of caste in various arenas, but because it asks questions which promote further engagement and scholarship in the field.
The study of caste in a formal form is often traced back to the colonial administrators and orientalist scholarship, which had positioned caste as an aspect of the native religious tradition, unchanging, in contrast to the “the West, which was presented as a land of progress, science, and reason” (p.2). Thus, earlier scholarship on caste made it possible to argue that the Orient needed to be saved by the colonisers to usher in modernity. The writings of classical orientalists such as Hegel and radical thinkers like Marx also reflect these views, where the latter has argued that colonial rule would finally push India onwards from the Asiatic mode of production.
However, even after the introduction of a Western-liberal-inspired democratic setup, caste has persisted, and as Ambedkar had put it, “I am sure my force is not strong enough to kill his ghost. He lives, like a disembodied spirit and is appealed to, and I am afraid will yet live long” (Ambedkar, 2019, p. 16). The edited volume is divided into several sections which are all interconnected but look at different aspects of the impact of caste on society.
The first section, Conceptual Frames, charts the various ways in which caste has been drawn out in recent times and tries to trace the peculiar trajectory of the category of caste. Though the term is used to define the social order in South Asia, the term travelled to us with the Europeans replacing jati and varna, where both were combined and translated into one. The first chapter by Roland Lardinois, The Idea of Caste Through the Ages: Concept, Words, and Things is an effort to inform us about the journey of the term caste, as we know it today, from the Portuguese term casta during the Indo-Portuguese Movement of the 15th and the 16th century. Lardinois travels back further to the 6th and 5th century BCE, when “Buddhism challenged the Brahmanic world in its soteriological, social, and political dimensions” (p. 33).
The second section, titled History, State, and the Shaping of Caste, can be read in continuation from the previous one, particularly after Lardinios’ chapter, where it looks at the state’s historical role in shaping caste and the discourse surrounding it. In Caste and Kingship, Harald Tambs-Lyche, looks at how kingship engaged with the local social orderings of caste, critiquing the perspectives endorsed by the Orientalists, where caste was treated as rigid and unchanging. This was not always rooted in empirical evidence, such as evident in the text view understanding in the case of Louis Dumont.
Dilip M. Menon’s Transformations of Caste in Colonial India emphasises the plethora of changes which the colonial government introduced in context to caste, a major one of which was introducing a homogenous administration, eventually leading to the colonial census, thus encouraging people to form associations with those whom they had a similar status with. While the secular form of education enabled the Scheduled Castes to access formal educational institutions, they were also exposed to newer forms of discrimination and humiliation.
The third section, titled Caste and the Religious Realm, examines the intersection of caste with Hinduism, Hindu Sects, Sanskritization, Hindutva, and how it is practised among Muslims in North India and Pakistan. The common perspective of caste associates it with Hinduism, tracing it to ancient Hindu scriptures, overlooking that it is not rigid but has evolved through the ages with different sects within Hinduism. Further, it has also spilt over into practice by followers of religions which do not find mention of castes, such as Christianity and Islam, as well as those whose tenets rest on an anti-caste approach such as Buddhism and Sikhism. In Mathieu Claveyrolas’ opening chapter of this section titled Hinduism and Caste System, he argues that neither the practice of Caste nor Hinduism is static but varies from region to region. Though caste draws its ideological source from the Hindu texts, it has transgressed the boundaries and has forged a life of its own, where it is no longer dependent on Hinduism. Similarly, Raphaël Voix criticises a singular view of Hinduism by elaborating on the plurality of caste practices across diverse Hindu sects. Joel Lee takes the argument even further in the following chapter, Caste and Hindutva, looking at the origin of Hindu nationalism in the 19th century, which required building a political community similar to Christianity and Islam. Thus, there was an effort to turn the vertical hierarchy into horizontal ones, which would also assist in creating the idea of a Hindu majority nation, as argued elsewhere.
The fourth section, Local Power and The Political Process traces how the introduction of the liberal democracy with the conception of the Indian Republic has not led to the erasure of caste, as it was expected to, but rather how the institution of caste has adapted itself to caste-neutral political processes instead. Rajeshwari Deshpande, in Caste Associations and the Post-Mandal Politics of Caste, notes how even when liberal democracy is caste-neutral, the idea of caste is legitimised through caste associations, two paradoxical terms. During the twentieth century, these caste associations were formed by individuals from the upper-caste groups to navigate the modern spaces which were attributed to colonisation. Following that, Deshpande traces it through the period after independence when these associations helped local communities navigate democratic political processes and the third period during the 1990s after the Union Government implemented the Mandal Commission, where those on the margins started coming together to assert themselves and demand representation.
The fifth section, Community Profiles and Regional Trajectories, further fills the gap in academic literature undertaken by field view that challenges a book view understanding that sees caste as a pan-India system with no regional differentiation. While occupation is treated as an essential indicator of determining caste identity, this view essentially subscribes to the orientalist writings as individuals might not always engage in the caste occupation that are prescribed in the scriptures. In How to Write New Histories of Caste: A Dalit History of Chamars, Ramnarayan S. Rawat notes how the two most prominent castes in Uttar Pradesh are the Brahmans and the Chamars, and how while the latter has detailed ethnographic accounts, there is a lacuna when it comes to the former. While the Chamar community is believed to be engaged in working with leather, the 1881 Census noted that only 4% of them were involved in such activities, and Rawat argues that such discrepancies about popular notions of caste and ground reality exist even today. He notes how there is a plethora of academic literature on Chamars, Yadavs, and other communities but rarely any, if at all, on Brahmans. In the absence of academic literature on Brahman, “the theorization of caste has relied on Brahmanical/Hindu sources and analyses of anti-caste Dalit writings and practices, but not on the lived conditions and experiences of Brahmans” (p. 362). While Rawat interestingly points out the lack of academic literature on Brahmins, the following chapter, The Brahmins of Urban India by Haripriya Narasimhan, undertakes an ethnographic study, as the name suggests, of Brahmins in urban settings. Narasimhan investigates how one might perceive Brahmins in twenty-first-century urban India by considering recent ethnographic works. However, the most recent work looks at the Brahmins in the southern part of the country and notes that it is “difficult to write about Brahmins in urban India as a homogeneous community” (p. 376).
Further, Sarbani Bandhopadhyay in The Invisibility of Caste in Bengal and Surinder S. Jodhka in Caste in Punjab look at the peripheral states of India on either side. Bandopadhyay pertinently attempts to dispel the notion of West Bengal being casteless and investigates how caste has been sustained throughout the history of the State. The closing chapter of this section, titled Caste, Ethnicity, and the State in Nepal by David N. Gellner, investigates how caste has evolved very differently in Nepal due to the absence of colonial encounters and makes for an interesting point as to how caste was not a resultant of the British colonists or Europeans.
The sixth section looks at how caste affects those at the margins of the institution, the Scheduled Caste population, their experiences, and assertions. In The Mahas and Dalit Movement of Maharashtra, Harish Wankhede elaborates on the Mahar Dalits of Maharashtra and their anti-caste organising over the last century. He also takes note of a shift towards the right wing among some sections of the Mahars. The seventh and final section of the volume looks at the intersection of caste with various zones of social life, where it is unexpected to exert any influence, highlighting the malleability of caste to navigate various facets of life. A significant portion of economics might find it challenging to grapple with the relevance of caste in economic institutions, leading them to overlook it during their analysis. However, there has been a change, and a fair number of economists acknowledge the pervasive nature of caste, leading to the necessity of including it in their study. In Caste and Mobility, Divya Vaidlooks at social mobility and the varying patterns in the context of caste, where she seems particularly at contemporary, and not historical, times. She argues that even when education and migration are integral factors for social mobility, caste still exerts influence in different ways, where it affects those from the upper-caste groups while being an obstacle for those lower in the hierarchy. The closing chapter of this section and the book Radha Modi in Caste and the Diaspora investigates the relationship between the diasporic upper-caste and Dalits, where the same structure still prevails. However, it is easier to assert and oppose these practices in diasporic settings than in one’s homeland.
While the book has essays from prominent academics working on caste in different settings and from different disciplines, it can provide an exciting read for non-academics as well, given that it has presented extensive information in a comprehensible manner. Lastly, as the editors have said, the volume also provides enough opportunities to make use of this book as a foundation to build on this for further research and contribute to the growing academic literature on caste by filling the existing gaps.
***
Ankush Pal is doing a BA in Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.