Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India

How does culture matter for development? Do certain societies have cultures which condemn them to poverty? Led by Arjun Appadurai, Mary Douglas, and Amartya Sen, the anthropologists and economists in this volume contend that culture is central to development, and that cultural processes are neither inherently good nor bad and never static. Rather, they are contested and evolving, and can be a source of profound social and economic transformation through their influence on aspirations and collective action; yet they can also be exploitative, exclusionary, and can lead to inequality. Culture and Public Action includes case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, which examine the role of culture in community-based development, ethnic conflict, famine relief, gender discrimination, and HIV-AIDS policy. The editors conclude by proposing how a "cultural lens" can better inform future research and public policy on development. Accessible, balanced, and engaging, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the relationship between culture and economics, and the design and implementation of development policy. For further information on the book and related essays, please visit: http://www.cultureandpublicaction.org For orders from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, please e-mail Permanent Black at perblack@ndb.vsnl.net.in.

Culture and Public Action

What is the difference between migration and diaspora? Are acculturation and ethnonationalism intrinsic dynamics of diasporas? These and other paradigmatic, if implicit, questions have received rel...

Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse

This paper uses village and household survey data from South India to examine how political geography and politician identity impacts on public good provision. We provide evidence that the nature of this relationship varies by type of public good. For high spillover public goods residential proximity to elected representative matters. In contrast, for low spillover public goods sharing the politician’ s group identity is what matters. (JEL: D78, H40)

/pdf/the-politics-of-public-good-provision-evidence-from-indian-1dkw2mufit.pdf

The politics of public good provision: evidence from indian local governments

Policies of economic liberalisation have been accompanied by discourses on the rise of the new middle class in India. The newness of this Indian middle class is marked by changing consumption practices and lifestyles. The visibility of the urban middle classes sets into motion a politics of forgetting with regard to social groups that are marginalised by India's policies of liberalisation. The politics of forgetting refers to a political-discursive process in which specific marginalised social groups are rendered invisible within the dominant national political culture. Such dynamics unfold through the spatial reconfiguration of class inequalities. Both middle-class groups and the state engage in a politics of forgetting that displaces the poor and working classes from such spaces. The result is the production of an exclusionary form of cultural citizenship which is, in turn, contested by these marginalised socioeconomic groups. The article draws on original qualitative field research conducted in Mumbai ...

The Politics of Forgetting: Class Politics, State Power and the Restructuring of Urban Space in India:

The caste system has conventionally been perceived by scholars as a hierarchy based on the binary opposition of purity and pollution. Challenging this position, leading sociologist Dipankar Gupta argues that any notion of a fixed hierarchy is arbitrary and valid only from the perspective of the individual castes. The idea of difference, and not hierarchy, determines the tendency of each caste to keep alive its discrete nature and this is also seen to be true of the various castes which occupy the same rank in the hierarchy. It is, in fact, the mechanics of power, both economic and political, that set the ground rules for caste behaviour, which also explains how traditionally opposed caste groups find it possible to align in the contemporary political scenario. With the help of empirical evidence from states like Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, the author illustrates how any presumed correlations between caste loyalties and voting patterns are in reality quite invalid. Provocative and finely argued, Interrogating Caste is a remarkable work that provides fresh insight into caste as a social, political and economic reality.

Interrogating caste : understanding hierarchy and difference in Indian society

Introduction - Dipankar Gupta The Certitudes of Caste: When Identity Trumps Hierarchy Caste Panchayats and the Policing of Marriage in Haryana - Prem Chowdhry Enforcing Kinship and Territorial Exogamy `We (Yadavs) Are a Caste of Politicians' - Lucia Michelutti Caste and Modern Politics in a North Indian Town Jains, Caste and Hierarchy in North Gujarat - John E Cort Hierarchy, Difference and the Caste System - Gaurang R Sahay A Study of Rural Bihar Replication or Dissent? Culture and Institutions Among `Untouchable' Scheduled Castes in Karnataka - G K Karanth Sikhism and the Caste Question - Surinder S Jodhka Dalits and Their Politics in Contemporary Punjab Inventing Caste History - Badri Narayan Dalit Mobilisation and Nationalist Past `The Bedias are Rajputs' - Anuja Agrawal Caste Consciousness of a Marginal Community

Caste in question : identity or hierarchy?

PART ONE: FROM SENTIMENT... Introduction Culture, Space and Social Membership Space, Non-Space and Site Root Metaphor and Lex Root Metaphors and Regnant Sets of Meanings Space, Territory and Nation-State Sentiment and Structure Nation and State PART TWO: ... TO STRUCTURE Civil Society or the State What Happened to Citizenship? Fraternity, Citizenship and Affirmative Action Recasting Reservation in the Language of Rights Positive Discrimination and the Question of Fraternity Connecting Durkheim to Rawls Minoritization and the Public Sphere

Culture, Space and the Nation-State: From Sentiment to Structure

Nativism In A Metropolis The Shiv Sena In Bombay

Dipankar Gupta, one of India's foremost thinkers on social and economic issues, takes a critical - and controversial - look at the limits of the Indian success story in The Caged Phoenix. Through a fine blend of theory and new evidence on small scale industries, farming, and more, Gupta argues that, despite the promise of Independence and liberalization, India continues to remain caged in backwardness. In short, the country's phenomenal growth story has not translated into development. Questioning prevailing culture-based theories - and the academics who perpetuate them - that are used to explain India's poverty and its hampered development, Gupta attempts to "normalize" India, advocating a rigorous rejection of justifications that rely upon cultural otherness and exoticization. He critically examines the reluctance to acknowledge that structural impediments, not cultural factors, deny growth benefits to the majority of Indians, and explores the close link between growth in high technology sectors of the Indian economy on one side and sweat shops and rural stagnation on the other. Making a comparison with the developed West, Gupta underscores the point that affluence can be achieved only after living conditions improve across all social classes. Combining original scholarship with a lively narrative, Gupta debunks widespread myths about why India's democracy has yet to deliver and offers compelling explanations for the paradoxes that exist.

Dipankar Gupta

Papers

Interrogating caste : understanding hierarchy and difference in Indian society

Caste in question : identity or hierarchy?

Culture, Space and the Nation-State: From Sentiment to Structure

Nativism In A Metropolis The Shiv Sena In Bombay

The Caged Phoenix: Can India Fly?