Democracy and the Recasting of Caste in India

The three books under review offer a fascinating account of how the processes of democracy and the practices of the modern Indian state have refashioned caste as an important feature of social stratification and self-definition. But the implication of the recasting of caste varies in the three accounts. According to Zoya Hasan, caste is an important marker of socio-economic backwardness and the policies of affirmative action that are based on this disadvantage should be extended to minorities. For Lucia Michelutti, electoral politics has refashioned caste into ethnic groups. The ethnicization of caste is premised on the horizontal solidarities of fictive kin groups. For Anupama Rao, the politics of dalit emacipation from caste atrocities has paradoxically exposed dalits to further acts of violence. Together, these books offer a compelling account of the formation of political subjects in modern India.