Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age

• Introduction; 1. Historical origins of a 'caste society'; 2. The 'Brahman Raj': kings and service people, c. 1700–1830; 3. Western 'Orientalists and the Colonial perception of caste'; 4. Caste and the modern nation: incubus or essence; 5. The everyday experience of caste in Colonial India; 6. Caste debate and the emergence of Gandhian Nationalism; 7. State policy and 'reservations': the politicization of caste-based social welfare goals; 8. Caste in the everyday life of Independent India; 9. 'Caste wars' and the mandate of violence; Conclusion.

'The book is extraordinary in the diversity of themes that it handles and the chronological span it covers. ... What emerges is an extraordinarily nuanced understanding of caste that satisfies the historian and provokes the social anthropologist.' Dr Seema Alavi, The Book Review