Acknowledgements;
Notes on Editors and Contributors;
Introduction—Studying Caste: Conceptual Currents and Emergent Perspectives, Surinder S. Jodhka and Jules Naudet;
SECTION I: CONCEPTUAL FRAMES:
Editors' Introduction;
1:The Idea of Caste through the Ages: Concept, Words, and Things, Roland Lardinois;
2:Hierarchy, Martin Fuchs;
3:The Jajmani System, Peter Mayer;
4:Caste and Capital, Carol Upadhya;
5:Caste and Class, Jules Naudet;
6:Caste and Kinship, Janaki Abraham;
SECTION II: HISTORY, STATE, AND THE SHAPING OF CASTE:
Editors' Introduction;
7:Caste and Kingship, Harald Tambs- Lyche;
8:Transformations of Caste in Colonial India, Dilip Menon;
9: Census, Caste Enumeration, and the British Legacy, Leigh Denault;
10:Caste Disputes in Colonial India: Conflicts and the Legal Shaping of Caste, Julie Marquet;
11:Caste and the Law, Gautam Bhatia;
12:Reservations and Affirmative Action, Ashwini Deshpande;
13:Backwardness, S. Anandhi and Kalpana Kannabiran;
SECTION III: CASTE AND THE RELIGIOUS REALM:
Editors' Introduction;
14:Hinduism and Caste System, Mathieu Claveyrolas;
15:Hindu Sects and Caste in South Asia, Raphaël Voix;
16:Sanskritization: The Inheritance of an Ideational Category, George Kunnath;
17:Caste and Hindutva, Joel Lee;
18:Caste among Muslims in North India and Pakistan, Julien Levesque;
SECTION IV: LOCAL POWER AND THE POLITICAL PROCESS:
Editors' Introduction;
19:The Dominant Caste, Nicolas Martin;
20:Caste Associations and the Post-Mandal Politics of Caste, Rajeshwari Deshpande;
21:Do Indians Vote Their Caste or Their Jati, or Their Class, or . . .?, Christophe Jaffrelot;
22:Caste, Patronage, and Criminalization of Politics, Lucia Michelutti;
SECTION V: COMMUNITY PROFILES AND REGIONAL TRAJECTORIES:
Editors' Introduction;
23:How to Write New Histories of Caste, Ramnarayan Rawat;
24:The Brahmins of Urban India, Haripriya Narasimhan;
25:Agarwal Banias of Delhi, Ujithra Ponniah;
26:Caste Logos: A View from Tamil Nadu, Zoe E. Headley;
27:The Invisibility of Caste in Bengal, Sarbani Bandhopadhyay;
28:Caste in Punjab, Surinder S. Jodhka;
29:Caste, Ethnicity, and the State in Nepal, David N. Gellner;
SECTION VI: DALIT LIVES AND PREDICAMENTS OF CHANGE:
Editors' Introduction;
30:Ambedkar's Legacy, Anand Teltumbde;
31:Changing Dynamics of Untouchability, Suryakant Waghmore;
32:Dalit Movements in India, Hugo Gorringe and Karthikeyan Damodaran;
33:The Mahars and Dalit Movement of Maharashtra, Harish Wankhede;
34:Dalit Activism and Transnational Mobilization, Eva-Maria Hardtmann;
35:Caste, Race, and Ethnicity, Deepa S. Reddy;
36:Caste and Tribe, Jai Prasad;
37:Denotified Communities, Kalpana Kannabiran;
SECTION VII: EMERGING ENTANGLEMENTS OF CASTE:
Editors' Introduction;
38:The Economics of Caste, Guilhem Cassan;
39:Caste and Merit, Ajantha Subramanian;
40:Caste and Mobility, Divya Vaid;
41:Caste and Gender, Pushpesh Kumar;
42:Caste and the Diaspora, Radha Modi;
Name Index;
Subject Index.

"'Caste' invokes tradition, a remnant of the ancient past. According to this popular view, caste was a closed system of hierarchy and it was/is unique to South Asia. It presumably tied everyone to the social collective that they were born into, with no individual choice of occupation, mobility, or marriage. Privileges and statuses were all pre-given, with no one ever questioning the social order. This notion of caste also claimed that the source of its origin and legitimacy lay in the religious cosmos of the Hindus, who practised it as a matter of dharma or faith. The traditional order thus persisted without any change and reproduced itself for ages in the spatial universe of its innumerable village communities"-- Provided by publisher.