[Reader-list] SAU Sociology Seminar: Balmurli Natrajan

[Diya Mehra]

 The Department of Sociology, South Asian University cordially invites you a seminar: Is Caste Ethnicity and Why Does It Matter? On Heterophobic and Heterophilic Casteism and Anti-Casteismby
 
Dr. Balmurli Natrajan, Associate Professor, William Paterson University of New Jersey, U.S.A
 
Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 2.30 pm, FSI Hall, Ground Floor, South Asian University, Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri,
 A  dominant  strand  of  scholarly,  official  and  popular  discourse  in  India  claim that  caste  has transformed into ethnicity with caste groups acting simply as ethnic groups. This process of   "ethnicization of caste" is advanced alongside a discourse of "positive" changes with respect to caste and casteism in India that accompanies a triumphalist narration of an emergent neoliberal India. This paper is a broad argument against this "ethnic view" of caste on three related grounds - that it is unable to explain the continuing casteism in India, that is fails to raise questions about the production of caste as a group and "difference," and  that  it  fails  to  capture  the emergence of new  forms  of  casteism  that  sit  snug  with  capitalism  and  Hindutva (Hindu supremacist ideology and movement). This paper concludes by raising questions about what accepting the "ethnicization" of caste would mean for the ethics of "annihilation of caste."