Caste and race in India

CASTE IS the most dominant single
spect of Indian society, and no study
of Indian society can be complete
without getting into the ramifications
of the Hindu caste system. Caste and
Race in India, since its first publication
in History of Civilization series, edited
by C. K. Ogden in 1932, has remained
a basic work for students of Indian
sociology and anthropology, and has
been acclaimed by teachers and re-
viewers as a sociological classic.
The chapters retained from the earlier
edition discuss the features of the caste
system, nature of caste groups, caste
during the Vedic, post-Vedic and Sutra
period, and under the British rule.
Other topics that come in for treatment
are elements of caste outside India and
the relationship betweeen caste and
race.
There is a separate chapter on
the history and present position of the
scheduled castes whichis so com-
pendious that it includes even an ac-
count of the offences under the Un-
touchability (Offences) Act in recent
times.
The present edition is an expanded
version with five new chapters, com-
prehensive enough for a separate
volume. Answering his critics, the
author elaborates his arguments on the
evolution of sub-castes and examines
caste, sub-caste and kin in its proper
perspective in two chapters.
The relationship between caste and
politics, which he had briefly dealt with
in the 1932 edition, is developed into
two chapters in the present edition,
with a provocative and thorough-going
analysis of caste and politics in Tamil
Nadu from early times to the present
day.
The concluding chapter is an incisive
analysis of contemporary Imdia: the
author apprehends that India will
develop into a plural soclety and not
a casteless one which was the dream
of the architects of her Constitution