Introduction: Caste in/as Humanities: Unsettling the Politics of Suffering

Caste ̧ as Nicholas Dirks suggests, has become the most important and well-known register of identification of the Indian civilisation. It is often considered ‘intrinsic’ to the Hindu society in the scholarly investigations on India (or more generally on South Asia) emerging in the global academia (Dirks 3). From the time of early travel narratives on South Asia by western tradesmen, orientalist scholars like William Jones, Max Muller, narratives written by Christian missionaries like Charles Mead or Robert Caldwell or the denigrators of ‘oriental societies’ like G.W. F. Hegel and concerned critics like Karl Marx to much of our postcolonial socio-political struggles, ‘caste’ has been perceived as either an elusive, resilient, hydra-headed monster, or a unique feature of the Hindu society that preempts competition that western modernity brings about.