ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the dynamics of caste and its reproduction in contemporary times in the Indian context, its objective is also to attempt a broader comparison between the two sets of inequalities and mechanisms of their reproduction. It provides a brief overview of how this view came to be formed and accepted and what could be the alternative ways of approaching the contemporary realities of caste. In much of the social science writings, as also in the popular imagination, inequalities of caste are commonly viewed as a peculiar case of social differentiation practiced by the Hindus of India. The caste and ethnicity are presumed to be two different kinds of social realities. Caste has also been seen as being fundamentally a religious value. The changes in the social order of caste have come about due to a variety of efforts and processes from ‘below’, from ‘above’ and from the ‘side’.
