Caste, Culture and Colonialism

This volume re-examines the formation and persistence of "caste" as a category of analysis. It argues that the caste system, as conventionally understood, emerged not as an indigenous social structure but through British colonial classification, law, and education in India. The study traces the continuation of these colonial constructions into the post-independence period and their uptake in contemporary discourse. Through analyses of colonial education and legal institutions, modern theories of multiculturalism, caste studies, and scholar-activist advocacy for anti-caste discrimination legislation, the volume demonstrates how colonial-Orientalism remains operative. It further examines how these frameworks are mobilized in current legal and policy debates on caste in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia. By advancing an alternative framework for understanding Indian sociality, the book carries significant implications for dominant conceptions of caste and for the epistemic foundations of contemporary law-making in Anglo-Western jurisdictions. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in postcolonial studies, India and South Asian studies, legal anthropology, comparative religion, colonial history, and the sociology of knowledge production as well as to researchers working on caste, exclusion, and discrimination law.