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.

Census in Colonial India and the Birth of Caste

Abstract: Caste, as conceived in contemporary academic writings or within the policies of the State, is a new idea produced during the second half of the 19th century in the course of and because of the census operations. Colonial census officials, working with concepts of varna and jati, struggled unsuccessfully to define and classify these into castes on a single pan-India list, where each caste had to be discreet, homogeneous and enumerable. The history of caste enumeration in the Indian census illustrates how difficult it is to capture indigenous social hierarchies and identities under the term “caste”. We embark on a new caste census without having addressed many of these challenges. T he proposal of the Government of India to conduct a caste – census has generated intensely conflicting responses within and outside the Indian Parliament. Those in favour of the proposal argue that the survey would reveal the identity and numerical strength of the castes which suffer from deprivation; this in turn would help the state in reformulating and extending policies, such as that of reservation, which would then ensure the upliftment of the deprived sections. Those arguing against the enumeration of caste believe that the measure contravenes the ideals of citizenship and would foster divisive tendencies within society and the polity of the nation. Notwithstanding the other differences, both the protagonists and antagonists in this debate stand together when sharing the following premises: they believe that caste is an indubitable reality of Indian social life; that it has been so since the earliest times; and that the census could map this reality and produce castedata. In the present paper I adopt a contrasting stance. I argue that caste, as conceived in contemporary academic writings or within the policies of the state, is a new idea and that the social form imagined through this term never characterised the Indian society. Further, I suggest that this idea of caste was produced towards the end of the 19th century in the course of and because of the census operations. Caste of the Jati

How do Caste, Gender and Party Affiliation of Locally Elected Leaders Affect Implementation of NREGA?

Abstract: We estimate the impact of the caste, gender, and party affiliation of locally elected leaders on implementation of India's new workfare program for rural areas, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), in Andhra Pradesh (AP), a state in Southern India. While, for most castes, we find a modest increase in participation by members of the same caste of the leader in the program, we find no impact on a broad range of other program outcomes or any effect of reservations for women. Our results suggest that NREGA in AP may be less susceptible to capture than other government programs.

India and the British Empire

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. State, Power, and Colonialism 3. The Indian Economy and the British Empire 4. Knowledge Formation in Colonial India 5. Colonialism and Social Identities in Flux: Class, Caste, and Religious Community 6. Nationalisms in India 7. Law, Authority, and Colonial Rule 8. Networks of Knowledge: Science and Medicine in Early Colonial India 9. Environment and Ecology under British Rule 10. Material and Visual Culture of British India 11. Literary Modernity in South Asia 12. Gendering of Public and Private Selves in Colonial Times 13. The Desi Diaspora: Politics, Protest, and Nationalism 14. The Political Legacy of Colonialism in South Asia

Traditional vocations and modern professions among Tamil Brahmans in colonial and post-colonial south India

Abstract: Since the nineteenth century, Tamil Brahmans have been very well represented in the educated professions, especially law and administration, medicine, engineering and nowadays, information technology. This is partly a continuation of the Brahmans’ role as literate service people, owing to their traditions of education, learning and literacy, but the range of professions shows that any direct continuity is more apparent than real. Genealogical data are particularly used as evidence about changing patterns of employment, education and migration. Caste traditionalism was not a determining constraint, for Tamil Brahmans were predominant in medicine and engineering as well as law and administration in the colonial period, even though medicine is ritually polluting and engineering resembles low-status artisans’ work. Crucially though, as modern, English-language, credential-based professions that are wellpaid and prestigious, law, medicine and engineering were and are all deemed eminently suitable for Tamil Brahmans, who typically regard their professional success as a sign of their caste superiority in the modern world. In reality, though, it is mainly a product of how their old social and cultural capital and their economic capital in land were transformed as they seized new educational and employment opportunities by flexibly deploying their traditional, inherited skills and advantages.