About The Book
THIS BOOK is an insider’s study of the implications of the policy of protective discrimination’ in modern India. Since the Scheduled Caste government employees are the major beneficiaries of the policy, their achievements in terms of social mobility and a new identity have been analyzed and measured within a theoretico-methodological perspective devised for the purpose. The book deals with the mobile Scheduled Castes looking for a positive impact of their achievements on their traditional social status and hence on congruity between caste and class structures. It analyses the negative correlation between the two structures and the resultant status-anxiety from which such Scheduled Castes generally suffer.
The book deals with both the caste and the ‘contra’ identifications, recording in the latter the optimum limit of social mobility and absolute social equality advocated in Buddhism and Marxism. It portrays the emergence of a ‘new middle class’ among the Scheduled Castes with its social and cultural moorings different from those of the old middle classes in India.
The enquiry is built around the themes of status and mobility. The empirical data is rich and suggestive, and his Socio-Economic Status (SES) scale, Caste Status Ranking (CSR) scale, and Social Distance Scale (SDS) are at once a useful contribution to theory and methodology. In the chosen fields — status and mobility — the book makes an important contribution.
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