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This chapter deals with the changing face of caste from the 1820s to the end of the nineteenth century. It examines how and why the conceptions of caste became so widely adopted in the course of the nineteenth century. The chapter explores the central paradox of the castelike social order: while colonial India's caste differences became widely spoken of as fixed essences of birth and rank, Indians kept finding ways to reshape and exploit them to meet conditions of change and insecurity. Historians of India's so-called subalterns have portrayed initiatives as assertions of anti-authoritarian resistance, especially when they took the form of collective action by low-caste or tribal people against landlords, money-lenders, or agents of the colonial state. Two distinct models of caste society had come into operation in the centuries immediately preceding the British conquest, with a leading role being played by the rulers of the precolonial period.

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5 - The everyday experience of caste in colonial India

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5 - The everyday experience of caste in colonial India

Summary