ICHR Lecture Programme
Title: Foundations of the Caste System
Speaker: Dr Prakash Shah
Reader in Culture and Law and Director of GLOCUL:
Centre for Culture and Law at Queen Mary, University of London
Venue: ICHR, New Delhi
Date: 9 November 2016 at 4:00 PM
Abstract
In caste studies today there is certainty about the existence of a caste system in India.
This certainty extends to the existence of such a system in the Indian diaspora.
However, whenever an assessment is attempted as to what the properties of the caste
system are, we encounter anomalies. Yet the awareness of anomalies does not lead to
the questioning of why there is certainty about the existence of the system. This lecture
presents the results of collaborative research which is due to be shortly published as a
book. The research shows that when the caste system idea is interrogated more deeply
one cannot maintain the stance that such a system exists in India at all. Rather, we can
now show that the caste system is a feature of Western culture and its way of coming to
terms with its experience of India. Hence our book bears the title, Western Foundations
of the Caste System. We can now show that contemporary ideas about the caste system
and the certainty about its existence are dependent on Christian theological reflections
on Indian society and culture. Multiple questions are consequently raised about what
various movements in India said to be fighting the caste system, what the laws and
policies of caste-based reservation, what legislation against caste atrocities, and what
the recent law against caste discrimination in the UK, are really meant to be doing. If
their foundations are false then critical new questions should also arise about what our
understanding and future study of India should be concerned with.
Speaker
Dr. Prakash Shah is a Reader in Culture and Law and Director of GLOCUL: Centre for
Culture and Law at Queen Mary, University of London. He is co-editor of the
book, Western Foundations of the Caste System (Palgrave, 2017, with Martin Farek,
Dunkin Jalki, and Sufiya Pathan). His recent publications include: Against Caste in
British Law: A Critical Perspective on the Caste Discrimination Provision in the Equality
Act 2010 (Palgrave, 2015) and Family, Religion and Law: Cultural Encounters in
Europe(Routledge, 2014, co-editor). Dr. Shah is also editor of the Routledge series on
Cultural Diversity and Law. He also serves as the chair of the think tank, Dharmic Ideas
and Policy Foundation (DIPF).