Annihilation of Caste in India

This book offers a critical re-examination of the relationship between caste and class. Singh demystifies caste based on a comparative analysis between a Weberian and Marxian understanding of power. He rejects Max Weber's account of caste as rooted in culture which Weber saw as analytically distinct from the economic and political power. In contrast, Singh offers a Marxist analysis of caste as a matter of land (means of production) and labor (social relations of production). Extending his critique of the cultural understanding of caste, Singh examines one of the most prominent accounts of caste as a religious phenomenon specific to Hinduism. The book aims to show the intrinsic interconnectedness of class and caste.

Refutes the twin myths about caste: that there is no caste without Hinduism and no Hinduism without caste Presents caste hierarchy as a result of access (or lack of access) to economic, political, and cultural power Argues that the annihilation of caste means the annihilation of unequal access to the economic, political, and cultural power within the caste hierarchy

Autorentext
Hira Singh is Associate Professor of Sociology, York University, Canada.

Inhalt

1. Ambedkar: Castes in India.- 2. Ambedkar: Annihilation of Caste.- 3. Ambedkar: What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables.- 4. What Gandhi Says About Ambedkar and Caste.- 5. Republic of Caste.- 6. Caste and Class in Indian Society and History: Weberian Legacy.- 7. Caste in Subaltern Studies: Brahmanical, Bourgeois, Bohemian.- 8. Inequality within Caste and Kin: What Does That Have to do with Religion?.- 9. Race, Caste, and Collective Mobilization: Gandhi in South Africa.- 10. Marxism and Caste: Unjustified Critique from the Right (Part I and II).- 11. Annihilation of Caste without Annihilation of Hinduism: The Story of Indians in South Africa.- 12. For a Theory of Caste: Material Conditions, Ideas, History.