Middle Castes Against Hill High Caste Political Domination in Nepal: Can Indian Experience Be A Lesson?

This study examines the problems and prospects of middle caste politics in Nepal based on similar political developments in north India. It investigates the processes of middle caste and class formation in the two countries and goes on to examine demography and upper-caste political strategies. Taking the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN) and its trajectory as an example of middle caste political formation, it shows that the middle castes are at a disadvantage in Nepal than their brethren have been in north India. FSFN’s new merger with two political parties recently further shows the difficulty of mobilizing a middle caste political force and mounting a sustained challenge against the political domination of the hill upper castes. This paper also analyzes emerging caste relations in contemporary Nepal.

Of Caste and Indian Politics: A Detour Through D. L. Sheth and Beyond

Stemming essentially from D. L. Sheth and the work embodied in his 1999 essay ‘Secularisation of Caste and Making of New Middle Class’, the article attempts to outline the pathways for an alternative engagement with caste and politics. In perspective is what is termed the ‘triumphalist’ mode of encountering caste identities; and, along this course, the extant possibilities of the constructivist understanding of caste are addressed. The stakes of the exercise are largely theoretical and conceptual, although a further thought is thrown in about the contemporary ground of caste politics in India as well.

Restaging Transgressive Commensality

This chapter follows the two stories discussed in Chapter 5 into the 20th century, considering how they were represented in plays and films. Three main factors reshaped how the stories appeared on Marathi stage and screen: the narratological demands within and across media formats, equality language that had taken hold in 19th-century Marathi discourse, and the changing landscape of caste politics in the 20th century, especially the rise of non-brahman movements. Playwrights and film producers were inspired by late 19th-century biographers who had become fascinated with the social ethical dimension of stories about Eknāth. In this context, the double vision story’s transgressive commensality became especially popular in plays and films, as producers often sought to resolve the bhakti-caste question by depicting Eknāth as a social reformer.

Is Politics Going Casteless? A dialogue with Politically Untied Jatis in North India

Obituaries on the demise of caste politics in India have already been read. It is argued that religious identity has trumped caste as a tool of political mobilization. Underlining that changing terms of political discourse represents a major break from the past; this article finds the coexistence of ‘casteless’ politics and the ascendancy of dominant castes in electoral politics perplexing. The article argues that politics in India is going ‘beyond’ caste but not without caste. The article offers ‘post-caste politics’ as a prism through which emerging political situation could be studied.

Caste Formation in India.

The purpose of this study is to look at how caste formation, a structural feature of Indian society and the changes that have taken place in caste formations over time, are used by caste in today’s society. The structure of Indian society is based on the caste system. But the caste system was only a product of the upper caste Brahmins of India. In fact, the upper castes enslaved the lower castes only for economic purposes. For that, they used caste as the first extreme. According to historians, the caste system in India was only part of a division of labor and was never caste-based. Because there is no mention in Manusmriti, Bhagavat Gita, Vedic and Later-Vedic literatues about a caste society that separates man from man on the basis of caste. That is why our social reformers proclaimed that caste evils should be eradicated from the society and they worked hard for it and succeeded to some extent. Thus, Independent India was able to build a casteless society as a result of the work of social reformers. But after independence we were able to see a caste politics. What we see today is that every political party is using caste as a tool for their vote bank during elections to consolidate their power. Therefore, caste politics is one of the major challenges facing India.

Scripting Subalternity and the Crisis of Contemporaneity: Reading B. R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste

The paper attempts a subaltern reading of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste and tries to highlight the importance of the speech as a subaltern script in the contemporary world. It foregrounds how subaltern voices are supressed in India with the influence of religious and caste politics. The representation of the subaltern mass is problematized by this nexus which further leads to a total control over their lives. A resurrection of silenced voices is the need of the hour.

The Defence of Aachaaram, Femininity, and Neo-Savarna Power in Kerala

This paper examines the discourse of the Ready to Wait (RTW) campaign, led by highly-educated professional neo-savarna women in Kerala, against litigation to open the doors of Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine to women of menstruating ages, hitherto barred from the pilgrimage. The term savarna refers to the privileged caste-communities that, from pre-colonial times, controlled land and other material resources and ritual practices, and continued to do so to a large extent even later. Avarna refers to those oppressed groups that laboured for the savarna and were subjected to degradation through such practices as untouchability and unseeability, and whose exclusion from social power continues in different ways despite these groups having achieved economic presence and education. Following a Supreme Court verdict in September 2018, which struck down the Sabarimala taboo, Kerala was shaken by violent protests led by neo-savarna and SanghParivar organisations. Through a close reading of the Facebook engagement of a Right to Wait campaigner, I seek to make sense of the particular sorts of ‘dissonance’ these organisations seem to be creating within the male-defined space of Hindutva, the specific caste politics they represent, as well as their articulation and disarticulation with a discourse on women’s empowerment and feminism. I argue that it is time that we seriously theorise the power relations between the savarna and avarna women under brahminical patriarchy, instead of focusing singularly on the subordination of upper-caste women by the male brahminical elite.

The Industry of Caste - The Representations of “Khan” in Films and TV Shows

This paper aims to bring to light the different ways in which media “circumscribes” the image of Khans, specifically in Bollywood films and TV shows like Citizen Khan (BBC). These would include stereotyping and the predesigned representations and simulacrums of “caste” and caste politics in the media. The paper further looks into how media creates and propagates myths about Khans, and how a surname has now come to define a “caste”. The paper would look into how identities are “fixed” by the media in a world of political correctness. <br>

The Industry of Caste - The Representations of “Khan” in Films and TV Shows

This paper aims to bring to light the different ways in which media “circumscribes” the image of Khans, specifically in Bollywood films and TV shows like Citizen Khan (BBC). These would include stereotyping and the predesigned representations and simulacrums of “caste” and caste politics in the media. The paper further looks into how media creates and propagates myths about Khans, and how a surname has now come to define a “caste”. The paper would look into how identities are “fixed” by the media in a world of political correctness. <br>