Journal articles: 'Indian caste system'

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S, Jeevanandam. "Devadasi System and its Caste Dynamics." International Research Journal of Tamil 3, no. 3 (July 26, 2021): 89–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.34256/irjt21312.

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Caste is an ‘integral component’ of Indian society. Almost all the social groups in Indian subcontinent have their specific rites and rituals. It consolidated them within certain compartmentalized caste category. In this context, there was a custom where girl children were used to dedicate to the ‘Hindu’ temples for the religious service to the deity in the name of devadasi. The system became an important cultural element in the medieval Indian society. The system evolved with its unique functionality in the Indian tradition. The dedicated young girls came from different castes and assigned duties accordingly. However, it was not classified as a separate caste. It became an interesting historical question. This particular paper focused on the devadasi custom and its caste dynamics in the historical past.

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Dayanandan, Ajit, Han Donker, John Nofsinger, and Rashmi Prasad. "Caste Primacy of Auditor Choice and Independence." International Journal of Accounting 55, no. 04 (October 30, 2020): 2050017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s1094406020500171.

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We examine the caste affiliation of the auditor selected by the corporate boards of directors of Indian firms. The history of the caste system in India is one of discrimination and inequity. The constitutionally mandated quota system in the public sector has shown improvements, but has not trickled into private sector leadership. We find that nearly 96% of Indian corporate boards are dominated by a single caste. The auditing firms are also dominated by the forward castes. Lastly, we find that when boards are dominated by one caste, they select an auditing firm that is also affiliated with that same caste. We examine the board and auditor relationship because they both play an important monitoring role in corporate governance. However, auditor effectiveness can be undermined when there is a lack of independence between them and the firm. The existence of a strong shared social network like caste affiliation compromises that independence.

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Shekhar Upadhyay, Dr Indu, and Dr Veena Upadhyay. "Changes in The Nature of social and cultural values; (District Sultanpur,U.P.) INDIA." American Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 7, no. 1 (May 22, 2021): 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.21694/2378-7031.21009.

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Caste system is most important for Indian society. The castes found in Sultanpur district are determined on the basis of lineage and karma. The caste system is an important institution of Indian society. It is found not only in Hindu society, but also in Muslim and Christian societies. Intercaste marriage is also slowly becoming prevalent in the society. The caste system provides the basis for various work in the village or local village groups, which is necessary for social life.

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Jogdand, Yashpal A., Sammyh S. Khan, and Arvind Kumar Mishra. "Understanding the persistence of caste: A commentary on Cotterill, Sidanius, Bhardwaj and Kumar (2014)." Journal of Social and Political Psychology 4, no. 2 (August 18, 2016): 554–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i2.603.

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We contextualise Cotterill, Sidanius, Bhardwaj, and Kumar’s (2014) paper within a broader literature on caste and collective mobilisation. Cotterill and colleagues’ paper represents a fresh and timely attempt to make sense of the persistence of caste from the perspective of Social Dominance Theory. Cotterill and colleagues, however, do not examine caste differences in the endorsement of karma, and take behavioural asymmetry among lower castes for granted. Cotterill and colleagues also adhere to a Varna model of the caste system that arguably is simplistic and benefits the upper castes of Indian society. We caution that emphasising behavioural asymmetry and endorsing the Varna model might further stigmatise lower castes, especially Dalits, and feed into a conformity bias already predominant in caste-related psychological research. We argue that the conceptualisation and operationalisation of Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation and legitimising myths in the Indian context needs to take into account the particular meaning and functions of these constructs in specific intergroup contexts, and for identity positions salient within these contexts. We contend that any examination aimed at better understanding the nature of social hierarchy and oppression within the caste system and Indian society in general remains inconclusive without including a focus on the construction and contestation of social categories and social identities.

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Barreto Xavier, Ângela. "Languages of Difference in the Early Modern Portuguese Empire. The Spread of “Caste” in the Indian World." Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 43, no. 2 (July 1, 2016): 89. http://dx.doi.org/10.15446/achsc.v43n2.59071.

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This essay discusses the circulation of the language of caste in the Indian world in the context of the Portuguese empire. Caste is an inevitable word in the moment of considering the Indian social system, as well as to compare it with European/Western societies. Since it was a word initially brought by the Portuguese to the Indian world, it is relevant to ask whether the Portuguese played an important role in its transformation into such a relevant social category. Six of the most important sixteenth-century narratives about the Portuguese presence in India, as well as treatises, letters, legal documents, vocabularies and dictionaries of the early-modern period will be under scrutiny in order to identify the variations of the word “casta”, its circulation in Estado da Índia, and beyond it. The analysis of these sources will also permit to understand how Portuguese colonial experience shaped the future meanings of “casta”, and therefore, the ways “casta” shaped Indian society (and not only).

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Pollitt, David. "Toyota falls foul of caste system." Human Resource Management International Digest 22, no. 7 (October 13, 2014): 5–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/hrmid-10-2014-0132.

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Purpose – The paper aims to analyze the cross-cultural reasons underlying the extreme industrial unrest experienced during the first seven years of Toyota’s operations in India. Design/methodology/approach – It draws on information obtained from 30 personal interviews, field notes, observations and Internet media sources. Findings – It reports how Toyotism shares three common features with Brahminism – renunciation, performance and perfection – and how antipathy toward the manner in which these features were implemented in India caused significant resistance among the production workforce. Practical implications – It suggests that management seeking to implement lean manufacturing in India should concentrate on minimizing the antipathy by production workers. Social implications – It helps to show how employee relations, unrest and antagonism toward lean-manufacturing practices are closely related to cross-cultural issues prevalent in host countries. Originality/value – It considers that the concept of Brahmanism in Indian employee relations is under-researched in comparison with other aspects of Indian culture, and antipathy toward the concept as a source of resistance to the implementation of lean systems needs to be better understood.

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Jayaraman, K. S. "Indian anger at promotion ‘caste system’." Nature 396, no. 6709 (November 1998): 299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/24466.

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Kowal, Paul, and Sara Afshar. "Health and the Indian caste system." Lancet 385, no. 9966 (January 2015): 415–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(15)60147-7.

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Radhamanohar, Macherla. "Health and the Indian caste system." Lancet 385, no. 9966 (January 2015): 416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(15)60148-9.

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Bawaskar, Himmatrao Saluba, Parag Himmatrao Bawaskar, and Pramodini Himmatrao Bawaskar. "Health and the Indian caste system." Lancet 385, no. 9966 (January 2015): 416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(15)60149-0.

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Mitra, Subrata K. "Caste, Democracy and the Politics of Community Formation in India." Sociological Review 41, no. 1_suppl (May 1993): 49–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1993.tb03400.x.

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This chapter examines debates about the survival of caste in India today. It argues that caste is an institution which has both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ aspects, both ‘primordial’ and instrumental dimensions as, indeed, it probably always had. Mitra rejects the view of modernisation theorists, and of secular Indian intellectuals, who consider that caste is just a hangover from a discredited past. Arguing in favour of an instrumentalist, rather than essentialist, view of caste, he suggests that castes may have a useful role in the formation of identity and, as such, may help in the formation of the nation and state. Castes are resources that actors use to promote their own interests. Caste consciousness destroys those very aspects of the caste system which the essentialist view presented as immutable. The continuation of an essentialist perception of caste serves only to drive a wedge between the state and society. It gives rise to the stigma which prevents the law, bureaucracy and media from doing those things that would help transform castes into social organisations available for the creation of a plural and multi-cultural nation. Mitra develops his argument by focusing on three empirical areas: competitive politics, positive discrimination and the market economy.

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Churiyana, Priya Bharti. "A Review of the Similarities and Differences in the Perspectives on Caste Adopted by Louis Dumont and B.R. Ambedkar." IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences (ISSN 2455-2267) 6, no. 2 (March 3, 2017): 260. http://dx.doi.org/10.21013/jmss.v6.n2.p9.

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<p><em>Dumont's perspective on caste system was primarily concerned with the ideology of the caste system. His understanding of caste lays emphasis on attributes of caste that is why his approach is called attributional approach to the caste system. For him caste is set of relationships of economic, political and kinship systems, sustained by certain values which are mostly religious in nature. Hierarchy in modern western sense has been replaced by the term social stratification which itself proves to be hindrance in the understanding of the peculiarities of caste system in India. Caste is not a form of social stratification, the ideology of caste system is directly contradicted to egalitarian theory of west. Dumont argues that if caste is a social stratification than caste and social class are phenomena of same nature, (2) that hierarchy is incomprehensible, (3) that in the Indian system the separation and the interdependence of groups are subordinated to this sort of obscure or shamefaced hierarchy (hierarchy itself is shame faced) caste is a limiting case of social class in modern sense of the term.</em></p>

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Vallabhaneni, Madhusudana Rao. "INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM: HISTORICAL AND PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEWS." American Journal of Psychoanalysis 75, no. 4 (November 27, 2015): 361–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2015.42.

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Singh, Chandra Lekha. "Annie Besant’s Defence of Indian Caste System: A Critique." History and Sociology of South Asia 13, no. 1 (December 19, 2018): 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2230807518816579.

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Caste system has remained an integral part of the Hindu social order. It has served to provide the uniqueness and the complexity to the latter. During colonial period as well as in the postcolonial period, it has been the most sought after issue. The colonial encounter added a new narrative to this system, as has been argued by the scholars such as Nicholas Dirks. However, apart from colonial officials, the non-official leaders of the ruling country also played an important role in the making of the present-day construct of the caste system. Annie Besant was one such leader, who came to India in 1893 as a leader of the Theosophical Society. She endorsed and extolled the caste system of the land as the best social structure this world has ever had. In this article, I attempt to throw light on Besant’s reading of the caste system and her role in strengthening the roots of this system.

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Roopnarine, Lomarsh. "The Repatriation, Readjustment, and second-term migration of Ex-Indentured Indian Laborers from British Guiana and Trinidad to India, 1838-1955." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 83, no. 1-2 (January 1, 2009): 71–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002459.

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This article examines the readjustment and remigration of ex-indentured Indian laborers from India to the Caribbean. The author shows that there was a small but steady influx of ex-indentured Indian laborers or second-term Indian migrants to the Caribbean. The central question is why ex-indentured Indians returned to the Caribbean to again work under an abusive indenture system? The author contends that desperate conditions along with the restrictive caste structure in India as well their Caribbean experience forced ex-indentured Indian laborers to re-indenture themselves for a second and even third time.

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Silk, Jonathan A. "Indian Buddhist Attitudes toward Outcastes." Indo-Iranian Journal 63, no. 2 (June 22, 2020): 128–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15728536-06302003.

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Abstract Indian Buddhist literary sources contain both systematic and casual rejections of, broadly speaking, the caste system and caste discrimination. However, they also provide ample evidence for, possibly subconscious, discriminatory attitudes toward outcastes, prototypically caṇḍālas. The rhetoric found in Indian Buddhist literature regarding caṇḍālas is examined in this paper.

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FULLER, C. J. "Colonial Anthropology and the Decline of the Raj: Caste, Religion and Political Change in India in the Early Twentieth Century." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, no. 3 (September 15, 2015): 463–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1356186315000486.

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AbstractIn the colonial anthropology of India developed in connection with the decennial censuses in the late nineteenth century, caste and religion were major topics of enquiry, although caste was particularly important. Official anthropologists, mostly members of the Indian Civil Service, reified castes and religious communities as separate ‘things’ to be counted and classified. In the 1911 and later censuses, less attention was paid to caste, but three officials – E. A. Gait, E. A. H. Blunt and L. S. S. O'Malley – made significant progress in understanding the caste system by recognising and partly overcoming the problems of reification. In this period, however, there was less progress in understanding popular religion. The Morley-Minto reforms established separate Muslim electorates in 1909; communal representation was extended in 1921 by the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and again by the 1935 Government of India Act, which also introduced reservations for the Untouchable Scheduled Castes. Gait and Blunt were involved in the Montagu-Chelmsford debates, and Blunt in those preceding the 1935 Act. In the twentieth century, the imperial government's most serious problems were the nationalist movement, mainly supported by the middle class, and religious communalism. But there were no ethnographic data on the middle class, while the data on popular religion showed that Hindus and Muslims generally did not belong to separate communities; anthropological enquiry also failed to identify the Untouchable castes satisfactorily. Thus, official anthropology became increasingly irrelevant to policy making and could no longer strengthen the colonial state.

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Deliège, Robert. "Caste without a System. A Study of South Indian Harijans." Sociological Review 41, no. 1_suppl (May 1993): 122–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1993.tb03403.x.

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According to Dumont, caste can be understood as the institutionalisation of hierarchy, and the principle of hierarchy permeates all relations within Indian society. So understood, caste ideology is uniform throughout the society. This point has been contested by several ethnographers, especially those working among untouchables whom they often described as more ‘egalitarian’. This chapter aims to discuss the concepts of hierarchy and equality among the Paraiyar caste in a Tamil Nadu village. It will show that in spite of a basic acceptance of the value of caste, the Paraiyar espouse a strongly egalitarian ethic so far as relations among themselves are concerned; while there are forms of differentiation within the village, these cannot be conceived according to a hierarchical model. There is a general resistance to any form of internal leadership or domination, to which constant disputes, jealousies and accusations of theft bear witness. Gender roles are not as sharply demarcated as is generally expected in the subcontinent and the relations between affines are not conceived hierarchically. Although hierarchy can be taken as an intellectual device to grasp the foundations of Indian society, it cannot account for all the social relations within that society, which require theorisation of a different kind. It is a mistake to think that people are either egalitarian or hierarchical.

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Sampath, Rajesh. "Marx, Anderson and the Critique of Indian Political Economy and the Caste System." Journal of Social Inclusion Studies 5, no. 2 (December 2019): 158–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2394481119893158.

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This article will deconstruct the assumptions of the famous British Western Marxist, Anderson (2012) , and his recent critique of the Indian political economy in his controversial The Indian Ideology. Anderson’s work is a blistering critique of the origins of the post-British colonial Indian political-economy, society and culture. The paper examines different critical responses to Anderson’s work by Indian intellectuals in light of our re-interpretation of Marx and Engel’s classic, The German Ideology. Our aim is to critically appropriate the salience of Ambedkar’s ideas today in treating contemporary modalities of social exclusion, the continued practice of caste discrimination and political and constitutional responses to caste inequality. The paper argues for the development of new philosophical tools beyond the twentieth century Western Marxist frameworks, which informs the work of current thinkers like Anderson, to extend in new directions Ambedkar’s initial impulses in the South Asian critique of caste.

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Marlow, Louise. "SOME CLASSICAL MUSLIM VIEWS OF THE INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM." Muslim World 85, no. 1-2 (April 1995): 1–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1995.tb03607.x.

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Karan Singh Chauhan. "Caste System: Contradictions between Indian Left and Dalit Movemnet." Journal of South Asian Studies 16, no. 2 (October 2010): 137–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.21587/jsas.2010.16.2.006.

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Jaffrelot, Christophe. "The Rise of the Other Backward Classes in the Hindi Belt." Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 1 (February 2000): 86–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2658585.

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The rise of the other backward classes (OBCs) is certainly one of the main developments in the Hindi-belt politics over the last ten years. The OBCs are castes in the Indian social system that are situated above the Untouchables but below the forward castes (the “twice born,” Brahmins, Kshatriyas [warriors] and Vaishyas [merchants]) and the intermediate castes (mostly peasant proprietors and even dominant castes). They form the bulk of the Shudras—the fourth category (varna) of the classical Hindu social arrangement. The OBCs, whose professional activity is often as field-workers or artisans, represent about half of the Indian population, but they have occupied a subaltern position so far. Their rise for the first time seriously questions upper-caste domination of the public sphere.

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Herrenschmidt, Olivier. "Violences d’un autre âge dans les villages indiens. Actualités d’Ambedkar." European Journal of Sociology 55, no. 1 (April 2014): 59–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003975614000034.

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AbstractIn many Indian villages, the Dalits (Scheduled Castes or former Untouchables) are victims of daily atrocities at the hands of the dominant castes. With respect to the 2006 murder of a family of Dalits by their village’s ruling caste, we show how the police, the medical profession, the courts, and the authorities combined to deny them justice and obstruct the enforcement of laws that are aimed at protecting them – with the involvement of many Dalit officials. In conclusion, it would seem that none of the options or strategies pursued by researchers or activists is likely to improve conditions for the Dalits in the near future: a caste system that is highly adapted to globalisation is far from disappearing; nor is the "practice of untouchability" prohibited by the Constitution (1950).

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Sandhu, Tanroop. "Interwar India through Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Eyes." Canadian Journal of History 56, no. 1 (April 2021): 45–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cjh-56-1-2020-0062.

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This article is an analysis of the political thought of Bhimrao Ambedkar, anti-caste activist, author of the Indian constitution and first law minister of independent India. His personal writings are analyzed, and the origins of his ideas are situated within larger contexts- both national and international. He was representative of the increased radicalism of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1920s and 30s, but he stood apart from the mainstream of the movement on key issues. Above all, the most formative influence on his political philosophy was the fact that his experience of interwar India was mediated through his position at the lower rungs of the caste hierarchy. He brought his unique perspective to bear on some of the most pressing topics that radical nationalists were debating in the interwar period: communism and political economy, defining nationhood, and the caste system. A discussion of Ambedkar’s views on these three key subjects forms the analytical basis of this article, with an eye towards the continued relevance of his thought.

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Banerjee, Amrita. "Race and a Transnational Reproductive Caste System: Indian Transnational Surrogacy." Hypatia 29, no. 1 (2014): 113–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12056.

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When it comes to discourses around women's labor in global contexts, we need feminist philosophical frameworks that take the intersections of gender, race, and global capitalism seriously in order to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of women's lives within global processes. Women of color feminist philosophy can bring much to the table in such discussions. In this essay, I theorize about a concrete instance of global women's labor: transnational commercial gestational surrogacy. By introducing a “racialized gender” analysis into the philosophical debate on this issue, I argue that women's reproductive labor is becoming increasingly stratified within the global economy along racial and other lines. This paves the way for a “transnational reproductive caste system,” which ends up reifying various social hierarchies and sustaining existing global inequities. I aim to expose the kind of violence that surrogates experience due to such stratification as women of color in a transnational space. I discuss how discourses of race and existing racial hierarchies play out in international surrogacy and ways in which these, and indeed, the very category of “woman of color” get complicated in international contexts when they intermingle with other localized social forms and global inequities. For the purposes of my argument, I engage several insights from feminist of color Dorothy Roberts's work on race and reproductive technologies in the US.

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Mandavkar, Dr Pavan. "Indian Dalit Literature Quest for Identity to Social Equality." Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews 3, no. 2 (March 16, 2016): 42–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2015.321.

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India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, yet, it is notorious for its rigid caste system. This paper examines the history of suppression, condition of the suppressed and origin of Dalit writings. It includes the study of movement and scope of Dalit literature. It is widely believed that all Dalit literary creations have their roots in the Ambedkarite thoughts. The paper also dissects the stark realities of Dalit and their commendable attempts to upraise socially. This literature shows dramatic accounts of socialpolitical experiences of Dalit community in the caste based society of India.It traces the conditions of the Indian social factors that surround the Dalits and their interactions with Dalits and non-Dalits. It explores how Dalit community struggled for equality and liberty. Due to strong Dalit movements as well as hammering on upper caste society through Dalit literature by writers and thinkers, and also by implementation of welfare schemes by Government, a positive approach toward equality is seen in social life of Dalit community nowadays. Discrimination on the basis of caste and gender are banned by law. This is a journey of oppressed from quest for identity to social equality through their literature.

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Mallampalli, Chandra. "Escaping the Grip of Personal Law in Colonial India: Proving Custom, Negotiating Hindu-ness." Law and History Review 28, no. 4 (October 4, 2010): 1043–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0738248010000763.

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Postcolonial perspectives on India's past have tended to focus on representations, which served the purpose of colonial domination. The view, for instance, that Indian society is fundamentally constituted by caste or religion legitimated the supposedly secular or neutral system of governance introduced by the British. Building upon Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), scholars have suggested that some of our most widely held assumptions about Indian society were more rooted in an imperial worldview than in real social experiences of Indians. The attempt of colonial administrators to understand and govern India through the study of ancient texts formed the basis of an Indian variety of Orientalism. How colonial courts deployed this text-based knowledge in relation to the actual practices of religious “communities” is the central focus of this essay.

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Dhanda, Meena. "IV—Philosophical Foundations of Anti-Casteism." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 120, no. 1 (April 1, 2020): 71–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/arisoc/aoaa006.

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Abstract The paper begins from a working definition of caste as a contentious form of social belonging and a consideration of casteism as a form of inferiorization. It takes anti-casteism as an ideological critique aimed at unmasking the unethical operations of caste, drawing upon B. R. Ambedkar’s notion of caste as ‘graded inequality’. The politico-legal context of the unfinished trajectory of instituting protection against caste discrimination in Britain provides the backdrop for thinking through the philosophical foundations of anti-casteism. The peculiar religio-discursive aspect of ‘emergent vulnerability’ is noted, which explains the recent introduction of the trope of ‘institutional casteism’ used as a shield by deniers of caste against accusations of casteism. The language of protest historically introduced by anti-racists is thus usurped and inverted in a simulated language of anti-colonialism. It is suggested that the stymieing of the UK legislation on caste is an effect of collective hypocrisies, the refusal to acknowledge caste privilege, and the continuity of an agonistic intellectual inheritance, exemplified in the deep differences between Ambedkar and Gandhi in the Indian nationalist discourse on caste. The paper argues that for a modern anti-casteism to develop, at stake is the possibility of an ethical social solidarity. Following Ambedkar, this expansive solidarity can only be found through our willingness to subject received opinions and traditions to critical scrutiny. Since opposed groups ‘make sense’ of their worlds in ways that might generate collective hypocrisies of denial of caste effects, anti-casteism must be geared to expose the lie that caste as the system of graded inequality is benign and seamlessly self-perpetuating, when it is everywhere enforced through penalties for transgression of local caste norms with the complicity of the privileged castes. The ideal for modern anti-casteism is Maitri (friendship) formed through praxis, eschewing birth-ascribed caste status and loyalties.

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Milner, Murray. "Hindu Eschatology and the Indian Caste System: An Example of Structural Reversal." Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 2 (May 1993): 298–319. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2059649.

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Virtually all interpreters of Hinduism agree that the notions of samsara, karma, and moksa are central to nearly all varieties of Hinduism. That is, it is agreed that most Hindus assume continuing reincarnations (samsara), that a person's current incarnation and experiences are, at least in part, the fruit of past actions (karma), and that release or liberation (moksa) from this ongoing cycle is possible and desirable. As David Kinsley (1982:8) says, “certain underlying beliefs are accepted by most Hindus: karma, samsara, and moksa, for example.” J. L. Brockington (1981:5) notes, “Doctrines concerning … samsara, karma and moksa … may be regarded as axiomatic by most schools of Hindu philosophy.” Thomas Hopkins (1971:50) observes, “By the early sixth century B.C.E., transmigration and the “law of karma” had been generally accepted as basic facts of existence and were rarely challenged from that time on by any major Indian system of thought.” According to A. L. Basham (1989:42): “These [karma and samsara] are the beliefs of nearly all Indians, other than Muslims, Christians, and Parsis, down to the present day.”

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Ayub, Sheikh J., and Asif R. Raina. "Status of Woman in Ancient India: A Comparative Study of North Indian Society and Kashmir." Journal of South Asian Studies 6, no. 3 (October 23, 2018): 159–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.33687/jsas.006.03.2544.

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There is no doubt in saying that ancient Indian society was predominantly patriarchal in nature. The woman lived in an awful state and was lumped with shudras. The most inhuman practice was that of Sati which had gained social acceptance across the length and breadth of the society. But unlike the ancient Indian society, the society of Kashmir was almost free from all these elements which all time remained the core issues of Indian society. Sati system in India continued till British rule while as one finds just some literary references regarding sati in Kashmir. Even both the societies were religiously Hindu, both were ruled by Hindu dynasties and most importantly both were patriarchal in nature but both societies experienced different cultures. We argue that neither patriarchy nor religion can fully explain the subjugation of women. For instance, a woman in Kashmir enjoyed most of the social, political and economic rights than their counterparts in ancient India. Secondly, we argue that the caste system was not that rigid in Kashmir as it was in ancient India; hence caste mobilization was a usual affair in Kashmir and not in India. Thirdly, that the composite culture of Kashmir called Kashmiriyat has always been more inclusive, more accommodative than religious cultures. That is where a large difference is created between the two societies.

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van der Veer, Peter. "‘God must be Liberated!’ A Hindu Liberation Movement in Ayodhya." Modern Asian Studies 21, no. 2 (April 1987): 283–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x00013810.

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There seem to be at least two elusive concepts in the sociology of India: caste and communalism. On caste Eric Wolf makes the point eloquently: ‘The literature on the topic is labyrinthine, and the reader is not always sure there is light at the end of the tunnel’ (1982: 397). The sociological perspective on caste seems to be obscured by a great deal of confusion about the place of religious values and sentiments in Hindu society. According to Louis Dumont (1970: 6, 7), the primary object of the sociology of India should be a system of ideas and the approach that of a sociology of values. Since the religious ideology, on which the caste system is based in his view, seems to have been fixed already in the classical period of Indian civilization, caste becomes a static, a-historical phenomenon in Dumont's writing and in much of the debate originating from it (cf. Van der Veer 1985). The same may easily happen with that other most elusive concept of the sociology of India, communalism. Again Dumont can be our misleading guide here. He argues that ‘communalism is the affirmation of the religious community as a political group’ (1970: 90). In terms of their religious values and norms there is a lasting social heterogeneity of the Hindu and Muslim communities (95–8). This argument amounts to a ‘two-nation’ theory, based upon an a-historical sociology of values.

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Mishra, Aswini Kumar, and Vedant Bhardwaj. "Welfare implications of segregation of social and religious groups in India: analyzing from wealth perspectives." International Journal of Social Economics 48, no. 3 (January 12, 2021): 492–512. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijse-07-2020-0458.

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PurposeThis paper analyzes the welfare implications of the unequal distribution of wealth amongst the social and religious groups by studying the segregation of these groups across different occupations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use measures suggested by Alonso-Villar and Río (2017) and del Río and Alonso-Villar (2018) to compute the well-being of social groups (based on caste system prevalent in the Indian subcontinent) and religious groups due to their segregation across different regions (urban and rural) and occupations and social welfare loss of the society due to the segregation. Here social groups comprise of ST: Scheduled Tribe, SC: Scheduled Caste, OBC: Other Backward Caste and Others: other remaining castes; while, religious groups comprise of followers of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and other religious groups.FindingsThe result shows that SC and ST groups are worse; while, the “others” group is better off due to the segregation of social groups across both regions and occupation. Similarly, in the case of religious groups, the analysis reveals that followers of Christianity are better off due to the segregation across region and occupation. It further shows that followers of Hinduism are negatively impacted while followers of Islam and other religious groups were better off due to the segregation across the regions.Originality/valueVarious researchers have studied the wealth inequality and unequal distribution in India over the years but did not dive further into the welfare implications of segregation of social and religious groups from wealth perspectives in India.

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Jodhka, Surinder S. "Ascriptive hierarchies: Caste and its reproduction in contemporary India." Current Sociology 64, no. 2 (December 4, 2015): 228–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392115614784.

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Social science literature on caste tends to view it as a peculiar institution of the Hindus, emanating from their past tradition and religious beliefs/scriptures. This view also presumes that the processes of urbanization and industrialization, unleashing the process of modernization, will end caste, eventually producing a shift from a closed system of social hierarchy to an open system of social stratification based on individual achievement, merit and hard work. Drawing from a large volume of recent writings the author argues in this article that this approach to the understanding of caste is based on an assumption of Indian exceptionalism. Such an orientalist view of caste also denies the possibility of deploying the framework of caste for understanding caste-like ascriptive hierarchies that exist in many other (if not all) societies. Some of the recent theorizations of caste could perhaps provide useful conceptual tools for developing a comparative understanding of social inequalities.

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Saha, Subro. "Caste, Reading-habits and the Incomplete Project of Indian Democracy." CASTE / A Global Journal on Social Exclusion 2, no. 1 (May 16, 2021): 153–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.26812/caste.v2i1.264.

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Emphasizing on the functioning of caste as embodiment, this paper attempts to show how the internalization of dominant caste-based framework(s) shapes our habits of thinking which include epistemological and pedagogical orientations as well. The paper briefly traces how such frameworks have settled through historical shifts and shaped dominant imagination of the nation’ that has appropriated caste-system as its essence. To show such making of a dominant framework of caste and Hindu-nation, the paper briefly turns towards nineteenth century Bengal, both as a reminder of the many forms of dwelling within vernacular communities and how such multiplicities came to be reduced within a hegemonic framework of majoritarian Hindu- nation. Such making, the paper submits, shapes a doubleness of the decolonial project of nation-making which finds its paradoxical settlement within the postcolonial democratic framework through the embodiment of the majoritarian (casteist) framework of Hindu-nation. The paper, therefore, examines how such problems of embodiment become an infrastructural problem that haunt one’s everyday imagination, and therefore calls for creation of infrastructures that can enable a training of imagination to unlearn such embodied frameworks of segregation. As one such small onto- epistemological possibility, the paper examines the role of aesthetic education and its suspending potentials.

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Singh, Neeti. "Mapping B. R. Ambedkar Within the Matrix of Manu’s Patriarchy, the Mentoring of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad and the Dynamics of Agamben’s Homo Sacer." Contemporary Voice of Dalit 11, no. 1 (February 22, 2019): 33–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2455328x18819900.

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On the 125th birth anniversary of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, this essay acknowledges the great leader’s life, vision and contributions to the cause of marginalized humanity in India. It attempts to examine Ambedkar’s agenda for social reform and his efforts towards the empowerment of the abused caste and gender categories through intense satyagraha (a form of nonviolent resistance), widespread education and supportive state laws. The article concludes with a review of caste and gender issues in the present times and argues for the need to revamp the education system. This essay begins with Ambedkar’s early life and education facilitated by the patronage of the philanthropic reformer and King of Baroda Province, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III. Second, it examines Ambedkar’s endeavours to educate and empower the women and depressed castes of India through his research, scholarship and rewritings of the Indian social history. And third, the essay attempts to understand the concept of the untouchable Dalit as a category that comes close to the Greek phenomenon of the homo sacer—a Greek concept synonymous with the rational of the Dalit/Ati-shudra. Through the ancient concept of the homo sacer, Giorgio Agamben explores agencies that conspire to draft, long-drawn statements of abuse and exploitation of the ostracized social and political underdog.

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Saxena, Vijaylaxmi, and Ashish Saxena. "Pathways of Modernity and Democracy in India: A Critique of Ambedkar’s Prophecy." Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13, no. 1 (January 18, 2021): 8–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2455328x20980841.

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The era of modernity is analysed from the point of view of the assumptions underlying the development of this formation controlled by reason, progress, rationality, knowledge and technology. Paradoxically, we cannot deny that in colonial and post-colonial times, Indian society suffered from the combined effects of religious bigotry, patriarchy and colonialism. Ambedkar is to be seen as a man of international stature rather than in the traditional Indian framework. The philosophy of Ambedkar provides a critique of Hinduism and also an alternative to the Hindu religious system through protests like religious conversion. He speaks not only against the caste system but also against the tyranny of the casteism of high castes. It is argued that his contributions need to be observed as modernist rather than as reductionist understanding as a messiah of Dalits.

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Vorobyeva, M. A. "LEADING INDIAN BUSINESS-GROUPS." MGIMO Review of International Relations, no. 3(48) (June 28, 2016): 265–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2016-3-48-265-272.

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The goal of this paper is to investigate the evolution of the leading Indian business-groups under the conditions of economical liberalization. It is shown that the role of modern business-groups in the Indian economy is determined by their high rate in the gross domestic product (GDP), huge overall actives, substantial pert in the e[port of goods and services, as well as by their activities in modern branch structure formatting, and developing labor-intensive and high-tech branches. They strongly influence upon economical national strategies, they became a locomotive of internationalization and of transnationalization of India, the basis of the external economy factor system, the promoters of Indian "economical miracle" on the world scene, and the dynamical segment of economical and social development of modern India. The tendencies of the development of the leading Indian business groups are: gradual concentration of production in few clue sectors, "horizontal" structure, incorporation of the enterprises into joint-stock structure, attraction of hired top-managers and transnationaliziation. But against this background the leading Indian business-groups keep main traditional peculiarities: they mostly still belong to the families of their founders, even today they observe caste or communal relations which are the basis of their non-formal backbone tides, they still remain highly diversificated structures with weak interrelations. Specific national ambivalence and combination of traditions and innovations of the leading Indian business-groups provide their high vitality and stability in the controversial, multiform, overloaded with caste and confessional remains Indian reality. We conclude that in contrast to the dominant opinion transformation of these groups into multisectoral corporations of the western type is far from completion, and in the nearest perspective they will still possess all their peculiarities and incident social and economical "colouring".

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Pratap, Aastha. "The Portrayal of the Suffering of Socially Denigrated, Suppressed and Silenced Class in Indian Fiction." SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH 8, no. 2 (February 28, 2020): 13. http://dx.doi.org/10.24113/ijellh.v8i2.10411.

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These lines are more appropriate to the present day. It’s a time when India is emerging as economic power, globalized culture and trends but still there lies an abominable and harrowing portrait of caste system behind this glittering appearance. It is so appalling that despite of 69 years of freedom from the clutches of imperialism, we are not yet free from our own social vices of stigmatizing the people belonging to the so called “lower classes”. It’s the harsh reality of our society that even in this 21th century there are some people called “Dalits or Untouchables”, who face discrimination, violence, and oppression from the higher castes or traditional upper classes particularly in access of jobs (works), education, health care, property and marriages etc. They are discriminated socially, economically, even in the matter of religion also. This paper intends to throw some light on the sordid saga of Dalit’s plight and their frequent subjection to oppression, silence to violence and marginalization. Their voice was suppressed so long, their rights has been violated, they are denied to access to land and forced to work in degrading conditions, also they are abused by police and upper- caste society routinely. Though things have changed with the flow of time but still dalits are suffering in many ways, which will be highlighted in this paper with the help of some fiction in Indian literature.

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Sundiata, Ibrahim K. "Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents: A Historical Reflection On Two Cultures." CASTE / A Global Journal on Social Exclusion 2, no. 1 (May 16, 2021): 17–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.26812/caste.v2i1.308.

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In 2020 Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, published Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents. An African American, she used the age-old hierarchy of India to hold up a light to the hierarchical ‘racial’ orders in the United States (Nazi Germany was included as a third case). Ever since the 1940s debate has raged over whether such a comparison is apt. In the United States, more than almost any other group, African Americans are in-marrying, residentially segregated, poor, linked to past forced labor, and stigmatized because of it. One argument put forward against comparison was that the Indian Dalits (the former ‘untouchables’) were inured to a system that was millennia old. However, slaves on Southern plantations were often described as being as humble and compliant as any Dalit. White slaveholders often thought of the India caste model. However, the very brevity of the full-fledged Cotton Kingdom (1820–1860) militated against the coalescence of a fully formed national caste consensus. The United States, unlike most places on the globe, had a constitutional armature in which, following the Civil War, former bonds people could go from being property to voters de jure. In both societies the carapace of caste is now being cracked open, but this leaves open the question of whether we should reform caste or abolish it.

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Nicholas, Ralph W. "M. K. Gandhi, N. K. Bose, and Bengali Village Society." Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India 68, no. 2 (November 6, 2019): 142–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2277436x19877308.

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N. K. Bose, a close disciple of Gandhi, was the author’s Indian mentor in anthropology and with respect to Gandhi’s social thought as well. Gandhi visualised a village society integrated by mutual interdependence but freed from the inequality of caste. The author’s fieldwork in West Bengal villages found two opposed ritual postures that were struck during the two most important community rituals of the year, that is, Gajan in the spring and Durga Puja in the autumn. During Gajan, the ordinary people became temporary ascetics ( sannyasi) and gave up distinctions of caste and rank among themselves, like the disciples of Gandhi, who were expected to free themselves of such differences. During Durga Puja, the traditional caste occupations of the dependents of the former zamindars were mobilised to play differentiated roles in the ritual even when those occupations no longer provided their livelihoods; the jajmani system still prevailed during the puja. Gandhi’s social theory aspired to elements of both ritual postures: the radical equality and ‘communitas’ of the Gajan ascetics, and the mutual contributions to the community of occupationally specialised castes, which, however, have not escaped inequality.

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Kumar, Vivek. "Locating Dalit women in the Indian caste system, media and women's movement." Social Change 39, no. 1 (March 2009): 64–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004908570903900104.

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Queen, Christopher S. "Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System (review)." Buddhist-Christian Studies 28, no. 1 (2008): 168–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/bcs.0.0018.

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Mittal, Devika. "Engaging with ‘Caste’: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Reception." Space and Culture, India 8, no. 1 (June 29, 2020): 101–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.20896/saci.v8i1.615.

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Caste has been a persisting form of stratification that continues to evade equality and social justice in Indian society. Among the routes to tackle the menace of caste has been the education system. In this regard, the National Curriculum Framework 2005 came with a resolute to engage the students with different issues, including that of caste with a critical and empathic eye. This paper locates the challenges to this curriculum by focusing on the pedagogy and reception of the curriculum. In doing so, it argues that the challenges emanate from the social identities and lived realities of the students and the teachers.

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Debnath, Kunal. "Ambedkar’s ideas of nation-building in India." Studies in People's History 5, no. 1 (May 11, 2018): 104–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2348448918759875.

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B.R. Ambedkar is often held to be an uncompromising advocate of the cause of the depressed castes or Dalits. But his advocacy for Dalits was within the larger framework of his vision for an Indian nation that needed to be formed, since he believed that there could be no nation unless everyone within it was not treated as an equal—an end that could be only attained through the annihilation of the caste system. He was not unmindful also of the need to protect religious minorities, for which reason he argued in favour of their adequate representation in legislative bodies, services, etc.

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Sunilraj, Balu, and Oliver Heath. "The Historical Legacy of Party System Stability in Kerala." Studies in Indian Politics 5, no. 2 (October 3, 2017): 193–204. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2321023017727959.

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Kerala has one of the most stable party systems in India, and represents a clear exception to the Indian norm of volatility, instability and electoral change. In this article, we explore the geographical structure of this stability, and examine the extent to which current political divisions are a reflection of the divisions that existed at the inception of mass democracy in Kerala more than 50 years ago. First, we examine the extent to which historical legacies of party formation shape contemporary patterns of voting behaviour. Second, we examine the extent to which these historical legacies were established along social lines to do with caste, religion and class. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results.

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Pandey, Jatin, and Biju Varkkey. "Impact of Religion-Based Caste System on the Dynamics of Indian Trade Unions: Evidence From Two State-Owned Organizations in North India." Business & Society 59, no. 5 (December 4, 2017): 995–1034. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0007650317745867.

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Religion and its envisaged structures have both macro- and micro-level implications for business. Of the many stratification schemas prevalent in India, two macro-social stratification schemas are important at the workplace: caste, which has been an age-old, religion-mandated, closed social stratification prevalent in Hinduism that had led to inequality in the society, and trade union, which is a relatively new and optional open workplace stratification that empowers workers and fosters equality. This study tries to decipher whether these two structures influence each other; if yes how and why do they influence each other (the tensions and contradictions that may happen between them), and whether the influence is uniform for all members. We conducted in-depth interviews with 43 trade union members, three trade union leaders of two state-owned organizations in North India. Initially, we found that caste does not have any superficial effect on the relationship between union members. However, a deeper analysis reveals that roots of this social reality reflect in the social and workplace exchanges between union members, and affect their social identity and loyalty. In the discussion we present a model of twin loyalties between union and caste. From the institutional logic perspective, we also delineate the caste and trade union perspective, and show how there is a change in trade union identity because of the influence of caste-based logic. Our findings have implications for industrial democracy, worker representation, and union effectiveness.

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Smith, Frederick M., and Brian K. Smith. "Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varṇa System and the Origins of Caste." Journal of the American Oriental Society 116, no. 2 (April 1996): 344. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/605763.

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Spencer, George W., and Brian K. Smith. "Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste." American Historical Review 100, no. 1 (February 1995): 214. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2168099.

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Yadav., Dr RichaRani. "MENTAL HEALTH AND SELF-ESTEEM OF TEACHERS: AN INFLUENCE OF INDIAN CASTE-SYSTEM." International Journal of Advanced Research 4, no. 11 (November 30, 2016): 1391–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/ijar01/2224.

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Hertel, Bradley R., and Brian K. Smith. "Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34, no. 2 (June 1995): 283. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1386785.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Indian caste system'

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