Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens

Review\n"The author appeals to young scholars to take up intensive religion-based studies…is another addition to rich contribution to feminist understanding of Indian society." -- The Tribune\nThe text is among the first critical feminist interventions and push-backs on the dominant discourse of caste that views caste as a consensual rather than oppressive system …. Gendering Caste is an excellent primer on caste and gender as bulwarks of Indian society and the role of the State in maintaining hierarchies. -- J-Caste: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, Vol. 1, Issue 1\n"Chakravarti presents the complex and confounding process by which caste has become so entrenched in Hindu social life and, consequently, such a powerful (and often violent) tool in the subordination of women…. Chakravarti writes with clarity. Her erudition is deep and her research is extensive." -- The Book Review Literary Trust, 08 March 2020\nThe continuous demand for Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens(2003) led to this revised edition which analyses the recent socio-economic and political changes that have taken place. Caste-based marriage and control over women′s sexuality have been crucial for the continuation of the caste system in India. Thus, caste and gender are linked. Brutal reprisals have followed when dalits and women have tried to challenge caste-based marriage and inequality which allots strict rules of conduct for women and all dalits.
Maithreyi Krishnaraj, the Series Editor, highlights the author’s discussion on the new ways in which caste violence targets women and on the changes within the family―immediate and extended―that still keep women subservient to caste norms. She points to the new discussion on an economy in transition to capitalism, and persistent conflicts over religion, language, ethnicity and other differences that relate to gender.
The book also includes a new ‘Afterword: Caste and Gender in the New Millennium’, which provides an updated discussion on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 (known in short as Prevention of Atrocities Act: POA). Erudite, yet accessible, this book enables the reader to understand the ramifications of caste today.