Juned Shaikh, "Outcaste Bombay: City Making and the Politics of the Poor" (U Washington Press, 2021)

New Books in Sociology · Apr 5, 2021 · 1h 16m

What is the history of caste in a city? Indian modernizers assumed that the various processes of modernity, including industrial capitalism, would attenuate caste and create the possibility of new social relationships, including class solidarity. Instead, capitalism relied on caste to recruit and discipline labor, and the colonial and postcolonial governments deployed it for housing, city planning, and provisions for social welfare. On its part, caste adapted to housing, urban planning, and even land tenures. Even the purported antitheses of capitalism — Marxism and Communism — could not…