Caste and Democracy in India: A Perspective from Below

This book makes two claims about Jati (caste) and democracy in India. First, Social Scientists have only partially understood the realities embedded in the institution of Jati. Second, this partial understanding has propagated a distorted picture of the relationship between Jati and democracy. To prove these claims, the book critically examines structures and processes in the Jati and Indian democracy like Political Parties, Civil Society Organizations, Self-representation, Personality Cult, and Corruption. On the above bases, the book argues that two opposite views on the relationship between Jati and democracy have emerged in the Indian academia; one, Jati as functional for society but antithetical to Indian democracy and second, Jati as dysfunctional for the ex-untouchables but functional for the Indian democracy. However, the first view is more privileged than the other. While the book makes an attempt to map the reasons for this privilege, it tries to record the second with a 'perspective from below'.About The Author:- Vivek Kumar is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University where he earned his PhD. A recipient of Fulbright Teacher's Fellowship, Dr Kumar has been a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, USA where he taught a course on 'social Exclusion and Inclusion in Indian Society' during the Spring Semester, 2012. He has also been a visiting fellow at Humboldt University, Germany in 2013 as a DAAD –UGC fellow. He has recently completed a research project, "Social Status and Social Attitudes in India: A Study of Indian College Students,” with Harvard University and University of British Columbia. Dr Kumar was appointed as Lecturer at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai in 1996 and has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Pune, Jammu, and Mumbai. His publications include the edited volume Dynamics of Change a