Description
Book SynopsisWhen thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. This work argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. It traces the career of caste from the medieval kingdoms of southern India to the textual traces of early colonial archives.
Trade Review"Massively documented and brilliantly argued,
Castes of Mind is a study in true contrapuntal interpretation. Nicholas Dirks is a subtle unraveler of the dense, many-layered fabric of India's colonial and modern history as they converge in the idea and practice of caste. Even for the nonspecialist, the results of this gripping book are remarkable to behold. No one before Dirks has examined the ways in which caste gathers from as well as ignores the complex realities and hierarchies of Indian society. Neither reductive nor schematic, the notion of caste that emerges here is genuinely original."
—Edward W. SaidTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Abbreviations xv PART ONE: THE "INVENTION" OF CASTE 1 One: Introduction: The Modernity of Caste 3 Two: Homo Hierarchicus: The Origins of an Idea 19 Three: The Ethnographic State 43 PART TWO: COLONIZATION OF THE ARCHIVE 61 Four: The Original Caste: Social Identity in the Old Regime 63 Five: The Textualization of Tradition: Biography of an Archive 81 Six: The Imperial Archive: Colonial Knowledge and Colonial Rule 107 PART THREE: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC STATE 125 Seven: The Conversion of Caste 127 Eight: The Policing of Tradition: Colonial Anthropology and the Invention of Custom 149 Nine: The Body of Caste: Anthropology and the Criminalization of Caste 173 Ten: The Enumeration of Caste: Anthropology as Colonial Rule 198 PART FOUR: RECASTING INDIA: CASTE, COMMUNITY, AND POLITICS 229 Eleven: Toward a Nationalist Sociology of India: Nationalism and Brahmanism 231 Twelve: The Reformation of Caste: Periyar, Ambedkar, and Gandhi 255 Thirteen: Caste Politics and the Politics of Caste 275 Fourteen: Conclusion: Caste and the Postcolonial Predicament 297 Coda: The Burden of the Past: On Colonialism and the Writing of History 303 Notes 317 Index 359
