Caste, Communication and Power

Biswajit Das is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has over two decades of teaching experience and specialized research in communication studies, during which he was also a visiting fellow at the Universities of Windsor, Canada and Hawaii, USA. His research has been supported by various foundations and institutions in India and abroad such as Indo-French Scholarship, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and the Charles Wallace Trust. Debendra Prasad Majhi is presently working as Director, Dr Ambedkar Foundation, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. An academic by heart, he has acquired professional qualifications in various disciplines from various prestigious universities across the world, including management schools. Some of these disciplines are: mass communication, public policy and management, journalism and health system management. Dr Majhi also has very rich experience and exposure in multi-disciplinary fields in general administration, human resource management, media advocacy and management, healthy public building initiatives and campaign, disaster management, etc. He attended the 18th World Conference on Health Promotion in Melbourne, Australia, in 2004 as WHO-India delegate, and served as Co-Chair of the Editorial Committee in 2007–2008 in ISS, Netherlands.

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Caste and Power in Everyday Life: Tropes, Interplay and Negotiation - Biswajit Das and Debendra Prasad Majhi
SECTION I (Re)imagining Caste: Theories, Concepts and Trajectories
Caste and the Dalit Question: Mainstream Sociology, Marxism and Dalit Studies - Hira Singh
Caste, Community and Communication in India: Revisiting D.N. Majumdar’s Contribution and Beyond - Archana Singh and Biswajit Das
Facets of the Caste System in Early India: Changing Forms of Expression, Communication and Its Spread - Bhairabi Prasad Sahu
The Etymological Origin of Caste, Communication and Khatik in the 19th and the Early 20th Centuries Colonial UP - Vijay Kumar
SECTION II Caste and Lifeworlds: Rituals, Folklore and Orality
Negotiating Caste Hierarchies Through Symbolic Praxis - Subhadra Mitra Channa
Popular Culture and Social Movements: A Caste Based Narrative - Neerja Singh and Namit Vikram Singh
Communicating the Contestation of Caste: In Between Folklore and Modern Literature in Mithila - Dev Nath Pathak
Pedagogies, Social Transformations and New Oralities of Arjak Sangh - Asha Singh
SECTION III Culture, Subversions and Representation
Popular Subversions: Aesthetics of Resistance in Kaala - Prashant Parvataneni
Caste, Class and the Market: Representation of Caste in Hindi Television Serials - Sushmita Pandit
Dalit Empowerment, Narratives and Violence: Locating Ambedkar through Select Films - Benson Rajan and Shreya Venkatraman
Lives of Voice: Radio Commentary and the Grammar of Sporting Merit in Postcolonial Calcutta - Rohan Sengupta
SECTION IV Mediation, Negotiation and Re-appropriation of Caste
Imagined Caste in Digital Banners of Tamil Nadu - M. Suresh and V. Ratnamala
Caste Identity, Communication and New Social Movement - Ritu Sharma
The Power Dynamics Behind Labelling in the Food Culture of India - Jasmine
New Media, Caste and Ageing Population: A Study of Appropriation in Select Areas of West Bengal - Debarati Dhar
SECTION V Pariyan: Print Media, Mobilization and Resistance in Colonial Madras - J. Balasubramaniam
Caste Identity and Self-fashioning in Mulkraj Anand’s Untouchabler - Shardool Thaku
Communicating Caste: Investigating Chandrakanta - Mayank Kumar
Marathas, Brahmin and Non-Brahmin Contestations: Press and Public Sphere in Early 20th Century - Akshay Sawant
Index