Caste and Politics in India

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course examines caste not simply as an assemblage of fixed social hierarchies, but as a dynamic field of political subjectivity through which individuals and communities come to understand themselves as citizens of democratic India and as collective actors with shared interests on the broader global stage. Moving from the late colonial period to the present, the course explores how caste has shaped and been shaped by democratic politics, ideals of liberal modernity, and claims of recognition, belonging, and identity. We will engage with anthropology, history, and political theory to examine how caste identities are produced and contested through institutions of law and electoral democracy, as well as embodied, everyday forms of politics, such as protests, commemorations, performances, and popular narratives. By the end of the course, students will be able to understand caste as a historically situated and affectively charged mode of political life, and to critically assess how caste shapes modern Indian politics and vice versa.