The Persistence of Caste

While the caste system has been formally abolished under the Indian constitution, according to official statistics, every 18 minutes a crime is committed in India on a member of the dalit caste. This book explodes the myth that caste is a feudal relic, and argues that it has been well assimilated by both capitalist India and globalising India.

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While the caste system has been formally abolished under the Indian Constitution, according to official statistics, every eighteen minutes a crime is committed in India on a dalit-untouchable.

The Persistence of Caste uses the shocking case of Khairlanji, the brutal murder of four members of a dalit family in 2006, to explode the myth that caste no longer matters. In this exposé, Anand Teltumbde locates the crime within the political economy of post-Independence India and across the global Indian diaspora. This book demonstrates how caste has shown amazing resilience - surviving feudalism, capitalist industrialization and a republican constitution - to still be alive and well today, despite all denial, under neoliberal globalization.

This insightful new analysis not only provides a fascinating introduction to the issue of caste in a globalized world, but also sharpens our understanding of caste dynamics as they really exist.