ABSTRACT
The argument that the savarna Hindu subverts with politeness the challenge by the anti-caste Dalit to practice civility accords a certain framing clarity to the whole spectrum of associational modalities underway in contemporary caste society. The editorial introduction as well as a few of the contributors bring the idea of the public into their deliberations on civility. This is as it should be. For ‘civility’, like any concept being made to do so much work, needs reinforcement. But, it would do well to state explicitly the relationship between civility and public. Likewise, the forcefield that is being configured across ideas of public, trust, equality, democracy, crisis and civility need greater elaboration. For instance, the title of the volume positions civility as being in crisis, a point the Introduction too dwells on. The invocation of a ‘promise’ in the very first line of the Introduction, too, indicates the need to clarify the equation being presupposed between civility, democracy and equality.
