Author Description

This two-volume series analyzes the interactions between caste stratification, class structure, ethnicity, and secular political institutions in India from colonial times through the 1989 national election and 1990 state elections. Considering nearly every major area in India--including Bihar, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu--the contributors set out an interactional framework of society-state relations to provide an explanation of how state policies undermine the religious legitimacy of the hierarchical social order, and, at the same time, facilitate the manipulation of linguistic, communal, caste, and ethnic loyalties to diffuse class differentiation.