Caste, Class and Development Experiences: Discourses on Social Inequality/Equality, Merit and Welfare in Modern India

Abstract

This article discusses the shifting links between the articulation of caste, class and representation claims on one side and development experiences in modern and contemporary India on the other. Going beyond the questions of exclusion, humiliation, protest and caste reforms, it extends the engagement with this subject to India’s path of development, experiences of capitalist modernisation, the functioning of colonial institutions and parliamentary democracy, labour relations and the sexual economy. The works under review suggest that caste and merit became proximate instead of antithetical from the nineteenth century. In contemporary India, the discourse of meritocracy has responded to subalterns’ assertions of their rights against inherited injustice. As a determinant of life chances and axis of inequality, class has largely superseded caste among contemporary Indians. However, the varied employment relations operate in the organised and unorganised sectors. And, they have been wedded to the structuration of class among the better-earning ‘labour elites’ in the organised sector, and the interlaced existence of caste and class among the labouring poor in the unorganised sector. This article suggests implications for action and research.