Caste

About: Caste is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5681 publications have been published within this topic receiving 91330 citations. The topic is also known as: caste system.

Timepass: Youth, class, and time among unemployed young men in India

Abstract: Unemployment among educated young men has become a central feature of globalization. In this article, I examine the experiences and strategies of unemployed young men in the north Indian city of Meerut. Many of these men complain that they are “just passing time” (doing “timepass”) in run-down government universities. But they also use this idea of themselves in limbo to fashion novel cultures of masculinity that partially bridge caste divides. I use a discussion of these young men's predicament to argue for an ethnographically sensitive political-economy approach to the study of youth, culture, and neoliberal transformation, one attuned to both the durability of social inequalities and counterintuitive cultural practice.

Inequities in Access to Health Services in India: Caste, Class and Region

Abstract: Despite India’s impressive economic performance after the introduction of economic reforms in the 1990s, progress in advancing the health status of Indians has been slow and uneven. Large inequities in health and access to health services continue to persist and have even widened across states, between rural and urban areas, and within communities. Three forms of inequities have dominated India’s health sector. Historical inequities that have their roots in the policies and practices of British colonial India, many of which continued to be pursued well after independence; socio-economic inequities manifest in caste, class and gender differentials; and inequities in the availability, utilisation and affordability of health services. Of these, critical to ensuring health for all in the immediate future will be the effectiveness with which India addresses inequities in provisioning of health services and assurance of quality care. I ndia, over the last two decades, has enjoyed accelerated economic growth, but has fared poorly in human development indicators and health outcomes. Population averages of health status indicators, such as child health and maternal mortality, remain unacceptably high compared with countries in the south and east Asian region that have similar income levels and rates of economic growth. Underlying the low population level indicators, worrisome inequities coincide with the multiple axes of caste, class, gender and regional differences (Deaton and Dreze 2009; Claeson et al 2000; Subramanian et al 2006). In India, an important determinant of socio-economic inequities in nearly all spheres of well-being is caste. The official classi fication defines four categories of caste: scheduled castes ( SCs), scheduled tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and others. The SCs, the lowest level in the hierarchy, constitute around 16% of the Indian population, a large percentage of who live in rural areas and are landless agricultural labourers. The STs, or adivasis, often like SCs, suffer economic and social deprivation. They comprise around 8% of India’s population. OBCs and forward castes together comprise 76% of India’s total population (RGI 2001).

The Success of India's Democracy

Abstract: List of contributors Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Atul Kohli Part I. Historical Origins: 2. Indian democracy: the historical inheritance Sumit Sarkar Part II. Political Institutions and Democratic Consolidation: 3. India's federal design and multicultural national construction Jyotirindra Dasgupta 4. Center-state relations James Manor 5. Making local government work Subrata K. Mitra 6. Redoing the constitutional design: from an interventionist to a regulatory state Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 7. The dialectics of Hindu nationalism Amrita Basu: Part III. Social Demands and Democratic Deepening 8. The struggle for equality: caste in Indian politics Myron Weiner 9. Sharing the spoils: group equity, development and democracy Pranab Bardhan 10. Social movement politics in India: institutions, interest, and identities Mary Katzenstein, Smitu Kothari, and Uday Mehta Bibliography Index.

The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay 1900-1940

Abstract: 1. Problems and perspectives 2. The setting: Bombay city and its hinterland 3. The structure and development of the labour market 4. Migration and the rural connections of Bombay's workers 5. Girangaon: the social organization of the working class neighbourhoods 6. The development of the cotton textile industry: a historical context 7. The workplace: labour and the organization of production in the cotton textile industry 8. Rationalizing work, standardizing labour: the limits of reform in the cotton textile industry 9. Epilogue: workers politics, class caste and nation.

Caste, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village

Abstract: This work deals with the relationship between three fundamental aspects of social stratification, and provides a method for describing and analyzing variation and change in systems of stratification. This new edition incorporates significant additional material in the form of two appendices, dealing with issues of substance and method, and an epilogue which surveys the changing fortunes of village studies in India.