Culture: identity and tradition; social stratification: features of the caste system, varna and jati; caste and class; reform and intervention: Phule, Gandhi and Ambedkar; social change and conflict; caste and democratic politics; sanskritization; the discourse of power and social reality; empowerment and political representation; social backwardness and the politics of reservations; subaltern voices: agency and representation; Dalit movements: caste and social transformation.
Texts/References
1. L. Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus, Vikas, New Delhi, 1970.
2. M.N. Srinivas, India: Social Structure, South Asia Books, 1986.
3. G.P. Deshpande, Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule, Leftword, New Delhi, 2002.
4. D.R. Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet: A Study of the Dalit Movement, South Forum Press, Bangalore, 1993.
5. K.L. Sharma, Caste, Class and Tribe, Rawat, New Delhi, 2000.
6. R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History andSociety, OUP, New Delhi, 1982,
7. A.M. Shah and B.S. Baviskar (eds.), SocialStructure and ChangeVol.I, OUP, New Delhi, 1998.
8. G. Shah (ed.), Caste and Democratic Politics in India, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2002.
9. N. B. Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and The Making of Modern India, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2003.
10. K. Iliah, Why I am not a Hindu, Samya, Calcutta, 1996.
11. G. Chakravarty Spivak, �Can the Subaltern Speak?� in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, University of Illionois Press, 1987
