ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Dalit1 subordination in the liberalising and globalising economy of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century in India. Markets are deeply embedded in social, political and cultural structures which are as necessary for their functioning in liberalising and globalising economies as in any other economies. The role of ‘traditional’ institutions may increase as competition becomes more aggressive and states withdraw. This chapter looks at the role of caste in the context of liberalisation and globalisation. Based on intermittent fieldwork from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, the chapter looks at the way in which caste institutions have operated to subordinate Dalits. Their mode of operation has changed, but the outcome has remained very much as before.
