Beyond Caste: Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present'Caste' is today almost universally perceived as an ancient and unchanging Hindu institution preserved solely by a deep-seated religious ideology. Yet the word itself is an importation from sixteenth-century Europe. This book tracks the long history of the practices amalgamated under this label and shows their connection to changing patterns of social and political power down to the present. It frames caste as an involuted and complex form of ethnicity and explains why it persisted under non-Hindu rulers and in non-Hindu communities across South Asia. |
Contents
The Study of State Power and Ethnic Rank in South Asia | 1 |
Chapter One The Birth of Caste | 19 |
penalty M The Spatial Dimension of Social Organization | 45 |
Chapter Three The Political Economy of Village Life | 83 |
The Household | 117 |
Knowledge and Power in EighteenthCentury India | 143 |
Chapter Six Empires Nations and the Politics of Ethnic Identity c 18002000 | 175 |
Afterword | 211 |
| 215 | |
| 235 | |
Other editions - View all
Beyond Caste: Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present SUMIT. GUHA No preview available - 2024 |
Beyond Caste: Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present Sumit Guha No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
administration Agrarian Andre Béteille areas Arthaśāstra Asian balutā Barth Bengal Bombay boundaries Brahmans British caste census Central India Chapter classes collective colonial conquest Dalit Deccan Delhi deśmukh disputes district dominant Dumont early modern East India Company economic edition eighteenth century elite Empire evidence example fiscal functionaries Guha Gujarat Gupta headman hereditary hierarchy Hindu History household ibid identity important Indian society institutions Irfan Habib Islamic jajmānī janapada jāti king kinship Kothari land landlord later Madras Maharashtra Mahars Maratha military Mughal Muslim Nicholas Dirks nineteenth century north India officers organization Oxford University Press Pakistan Panjab pargana peasant Peśvā political Portuguese processes Provinces Pune qaum Rajasthan Rajni Kothari Rajput records regime region religious Report reprint revenue rule rupees rural Sikh Singh social South Asia status structures subcontinent Susan Bayly term territory Thomas Trautmann tion traditional tribal tribe village cluster village servant system western India wrote