Recasting caste : from the sacred to the profane

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Recasting caste : from the sacred to the profane

Hira Singh

SAGE, 2014

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-278) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Recasting Caste confronts the mainstream sociology of caste at its root: Louis Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus and its main source, Max Weber's distinction between class and status. Conventional wisdom on caste is idealist, and most students of the subject therefore exaggerate ritual homogeneity and deflect attention from intracaste differentiation and inequality. In contrast, by focusing on intracaste differences, Professor Singh demonstrates that caste hierarchy is grounded in a monopoly of land rights and political power supported by religious and secular ideology. Drawing on the sociological, anthropological and historical literature, as well as primary sources, Recasting Caste refutes the widespread claim that, in India, caste consciousness always trumps class consciousness. It questions the twin myths that caste is a product of Hinduism and that caste is essential to the survival of Hinduism. It thereby reorients the entire field of study.

Table of Contents

Preface: Growing up in Caste, Studying Caste-A Personal and Professional Story Introduction Studying Caste: Ideas, Material Conditions and History Priest and Prince: Status-Power Muddle Varna to Caste: Religious and Economic-Political Caste and Subaltern Studies: Elite Ideology, Revisionist Historiography Inequalities between and within Castes: Kin, Caste and Land Changing Land Relations and Caste: View from a Village Indenture, Religion and Caste: The Twin Myths about Hinduism and Caste Appendices Glossary Bibliography Index

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