This volume investigates how the intersection of caste, class, and ethnicity has fundamentally altered the traditional social hierarchy and state power dynamics in modern India. Francine R. Frankel and her contributors utilize an interactional framework to challenge modernization theories, arguing that democratic political processes have systematically eroded the religious legitimacy of dominant groups. By examining electoral data and state policy from the colonial era through the early 1990s, the authors demonstrate how state institutions have become the primary site for both social mobility and the mobilization of communal loyalties.

Scholars frequently cite this work as a critical contribution to the study of Indian political sociology and the evolution of democratic institutions. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous examination of the complex interplay between traditional social structures and modern governance.