Recasting caste : from the sacred to the profane / Hira Singh.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Hira Singh, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Caste--India--History.
• Hinduism--India--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (309 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Delhi, India : Sage Publications, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Recasting Caste confronts the mainstream sociology of caste at its root: Louis Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus and its main source, Max Weber's distinction between class and status. Conventional wisdom on caste is idealist, and most students of the subject therefore exaggerate ritual homogeneity and deflect attention from intracaste differentiation and inequality. In contrast, by focusing on intracaste differences, Professor Singh demonstrates that caste hierarchy is grounded in a monopoly of land rights and political power supported by religious and secular ideology. Drawing on the sociological, anthropological and historical literature, as well as primary sources, Recasting Caste refutes the widespread claim that, in India, caste consciousness always trumps class consciousness. It questions the twin myths that caste is a product of Hinduism and that caste is essential to the survival of Hinduism. It thereby reorients the entire field of study.

Contents:

• Studying caste : ideas, material conditions and history
• Priest and prince : status/power muddle
• Varna to caste : religious and economic/political
• Caste and subaltern studies : elite ideology and revisionist historiography
• Inequalities between and within castes : kin, caste and land
• Changing land relations and caste : view from a village
• Indenture, religion and caste : the twin myths about hinduism and caste.

Notes:

• Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

• 93-5388-079-3
• 93-5150-403-4
• 81-321-1980-0

OCLC:

881161975