Abstract: Of late, a number of scholars have attempted to argue that caste as a system is dying very fast and individual castes are flourishing (for example, Gupta, 2005b; Mayer, 1996; Searle–Chatterjee and Sharma, 1994; Srinivas, 2003). Their argument that ‘vertical social system’ defined by hierarchical relationships is decaying and castes are becoming like ‘horizontally disconnected ethnic groups’ draws on mainly two ongoing processes in contemporary India. One of these seems to be the breakdown of the closed village economy and decaying of caste-based division of labour. And the other process, according to them, is the significant spread of democratic politics in post-colonial India.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-12-19
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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