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Caste in India, despite its historical resilience, has been undergoing transformation since independence. If caste as a system of rigid stratification has been on the decline, castes as autonomous interest-serving groups have been on ascendance. This book critically engages with the changing notions of caste and its intersection with public policy in India. It discusses key issues such as social security, internal reservation, the idea of Most Backward Classes, caste issues among non-Hindu religious communities, caste in census, caste in market, and service castes and urban planning. Drawing on in-depth case studies from states including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal, the volume explores the cyclical process of how caste drives policies, and how policies in turn shape the reality of caste in India. It looks at the impact of factors like protective discrimination, adult franchise and democratic decentralisation, horizontal and vertical mobilisation, land reforms, and religious conversion on social mobility, and traditional hierarchy in India.Empirically rich and analytically rigorous, this book will be an excellent reference for scholars and researchers of public policy, public administration, sociology, exclusion studies, social work, law, history, economics, political science, development studies, social anthropology, and political sociology. It will also be of interest to public policy and development practitioners.

This book examines the principles underlining the policies of affirmative action evolved in two non-homogeneous and multi-ethnic societies-India and the United States. Despite the fact that the governments of India and the United States have, for over 50 years now, adopted a series of measures to overcome discrimination based on caste and race respectively, the author maintains that there is as yet no comprehensive account of the grounds on which they have been intellectually justified. He, therefore, analyses the various arguments which have been presented to justify reservations in India and affirmative action in the United States. Addressing the key question `What is being affirmed through affirmative action?′ the author seeks the answer along four lines: - What is the religious component of such an affirmation, if any? - Is there a moral principle (or principles) underlying this affirmation? - Is this affirmation being advocated on ethical principles with which modern liberal thought is imbued? - Are doctrines of human rights invoked in such an affirmation?