Caste Today (SOAS Studies on South Asia)

This work is a collection of papers which describe and anlyze the nature and significance of caste in contemporary India. They are based on ethnographic research carried out both in rural and urban areas, in north and south India, and among both Hindus and Muslims. This book shows how caste today is increasingly about cutural separation rather than hierarchical rank, how it can become an idiom for class inequality, and why it can take on different forms between Muslims and Hindus. The work also discusses how the meaning and significance of case are becoming increasingly ambiguous for the Indians today.