When I started thinking about the caste question, I was coming to this question as someone who had been trained both in anthropology and history.

It stands in a kind of interesting place if we think about the broader intellectual formation of South Asian history, historiography, anthropology, political thought. Congratulations! What historical questions, political exigencies, and ethical concerns did your work grow out of? How did the questions you were interested in addressing change as you worked on your monograph, and how have they continued to change since?Īnupama Rao: I mean, it’s a complicated trajectory, right? Because I think there's a way in which the book was both novel, and forecasted the end of one way of thinking about the question of caste, its relationship to democracy, and the Dalit question. It has been 10 years since its publication. Kelvin Ng: I want to start with your book, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India.

They discuss how the book shifted the debate on caste from questions of social justice and the state to problems of personhood and Dalit subject formation the way in which it drew from writing on slavery, anti-slavery and emancipation Ambedkar’s anger at the unavailability of the Dalit subject in history the dilemmas of competing minorities: the emergence of the Dalit subject and the unmaking of the Muslim subject in South Asia different receptions to the book the convergence of subaltern thought with global history and contemporary Indian politics as a contingent process. This book, and others in the series, will construct an archive of writing relating to gender issues in India and make an important contribution to contemporary feminist theory.On the 10th anniversary of The Caste Question, Anupama Rao speaks to Kelvin Ng about the questions that her book addressed and the debates it raised. They provide a succinct account of the caste and gender discourse and a perspective on the theoretical tendencies that determine its frames of reference.

Dalit-bahujan feminists, from the perspective of the excluded, go beyond arguing that Indian feminism is incomplete and exclusive and suggest that we rethink the genealogy of Indian feminism to engage meaningfully with dalit women's 'difference' from the ideal subjects of feminist politics. It reiterated demands for social justice by dalits and lower-castes that have led to a changed political relationship to upper-caste elites.

The material in this book reflects a renewed national debate about caste inaugurated by the Mandal decision in 1989 - a decision that produced a profound transformation of the political debates around caste and identity. The politics of caste in India today are complex and contentious.

Gender and Caste by Anupama Rao