Dominance and state power in modern India: Decline of a social order

This is the second of two volumes in which scholars of political science, sociology, and history adopt a common set of concepts to analyze patterns of change in the ideological and structural foundations of dominance in India from the colonial period to the 1990s. These comparative studies provide an explanation of how state policies undermine the religious legitimacy of the hierarchical social order and, at the same time, facilitate the manipulation of linguistic, communal, caste, and ethnic loyalties to diffuse class polarization. The studies show that subordinated caste and class groups are mounting increasingly militant challenges to the hold of the upper castes and classes over state institutions which have provided means for social mobility in modern India.