Power and the persistence of caste-based domination

Abstract

Despite democratic mobilisation and policies of equal opportunity, there has been a persistent pattern of caste-based cruelty throughout India’s postcolonial period. Caste-based oppression involves interrelated challenges such as inequality, exploitation and violence. It would be useful to re-examine basic questions concerning why violence occurs and how violence can be conceptualised among other related terms such as power, hegemony and domination. The paper will return to the old debate on power and caste where the theorist Steven Lukes consulted Srinivas’ sociology of caste. Srinivas highlighted social mobility in the caste system, which made Lukes less able to explain how power matters in the context of caste. The paper re-examines this debate and the extent to which Lukes’ discussion of power would benefit from approaching caste as a more holistic system of domination. While case studies of occupation and caste-based atrocities throw light on how violence and power relate, it may not explain the persistence of caste as a form of domination and why it matters across borders. This paper therefore inquiries into the psychological-ideological dimension of caste beyond old terms such as “imitation” to explain the continued relevance of caste-based domination