Caste and class in India

Caste and class as topics of research may
cover almost entire gamut of sociological
inquiry. The book, Caste and Class in India, is
an outcome of a very well organized and
academically fruitful exercise under the
auspices of the TDSS, Pune. The papers
included in the volume, covering nine states,
highlight the complex dynamics of the nexus
between caste and class. Caste as seen from
the class point of view and class as seen from
the caste point of view make it explicit that
the two inhere each other historically as well
as in contemporary India as inseparable
aspects of India's social formation. However,
the dynamics of the nexus have varied from
region to region. This is how West Bengal
presents a different scenario compared to
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. What is today in the
form of casteism in Bihar is not found
elsewhere in the country. Rajasthan, despite
its feudal legacy, has witnessed remarkable
socio-economic and political changes in the
post-independence period, and this is much
less evident in the case of Bihar or Uttar
Pradesh.
A lot of anti-Brahmin movements in the
southern states and Maharashtra before
independence created a great deal of socio-
political awakening among the masses. The
movements organized by the left parties after
1947 have further added to the persisting
anti-Brahmin and anti-landlord thinking
among the dalits. Despite all these
antithetical tendencies, caste persists, and in
some cases even the upper caste leaders of
the left parties have been found as the
biggest landlords in Kerala and some other
parts of India. Caste seems to have its decline
and revival at the same time, and this is
possible because caste is appropriated by a
select group of people to their economic and
political advantages. The volume highlights on
these and several other aspects of caste-class
and class-caste nexus from historical as well
as contemporary perspective. It would help
teachers, researchers, students and policy-
makers immensely by providing a panoramic
view of the interpenetrating but not mutually
reducible phenomenon of caste and class in
India