THE CENTRALITY OF CASTE IN INDIA
HT’s editors offer a book recommendation every Saturday, which provides history, context, and helps understand recent news events
India is witnessing an intense political debate on the need for a caste census and sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This is a reminder about the centrality of caste in Indian politics and society.
This week, we recommend Understanding Caste: From Buddha to Ambedkar and Beyond by scholar, sociologist and human rights activist Gail Omvedt, who passed away on August 25. Written in a lucid style, the book critiques the sensibility that equates India’s tradition with Hinduism, and Hinduism with Brahmanism, and shows how even secular minds remain imprisoned within this framework.
The book documents the failures and triumphs of the efforts made to erase the oppressive facets of Hinduism and caste ideology, and chronicles efforts to achieve another world where equality and freedom are supreme. Omvedt’s work on caste is deeply provocative and raises uncomfortable questions, but that adds to its significance.