Caste and/as Inequality in India

Caste is universally viewed as a uniquely Indian practice, part and parcel of the everyday life of the Hindus of the South Asian region. Its persistence is attributed to its being a cultural and religious practice, sanctified and prescribed by religious scriptures of the faith and traditions. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to the conceptual history of the popular Hindu-centric view of caste and goes on to argue for a need to move away from such a perspective embedded in the notion of Indian exceptionalism. Caste should instead be approached as a social construct, comparable to persistent status hierarchies existing elsewhere, which are similarly structured around notions of honour, contempt, and humiliation. The chapter thus argues for a re-imagination of caste as a generic structure of inequality and explores the modes of its reproduction in the present-day Indian context.