NLS Faculty Dr. Ashna Singh at BIC | Caste Pride: Battles for Equality in Hindu India

NLS faculty member Dr. Ashna Singh will be speaking at a panel discussion on the book “Caste Pride: Battles for Equality in Hindu India” at the Bangalore International Centre on May 21, 2023. The book is authored by Mr. Manoj Mitta, a Delhi-based journalist focusing on law, human rights and social justice.

The session will begin with a performance by singer & filmmaker, Shabnam Virmani, followed by a presentation by the author, Manoj Mitta. This will be followed by the panel discussion with Manoj Mitta, Ashna Singh and Sudipto Mondal (Executive Editor, The News Minute), and moderated by Jayna Kothari (Senior Advocate and Co-founder of the Centre for Law and Policy Research). The event will take place from 5-7 pm.

Background (Source: BIC)

In the book, Caste Pride, the author Manoj Mitta examines the endurance and violence of the Hindu caste system through the lens of the law. Linking two centuries of legal reform with social movements, he unearths the characters, speeches, confusions and decisions that have shaped the war on caste, mitigating how this ancient institution discriminated between Hindus across the board. Where they could live, how they could dress, whether they could go to a shop, a stream, walk a street or mingle, enter a temple, whom and how they could marry, which scriptures applied to whom, whether their actions, innocent or criminal, would attract punishment or impunity?

Describing brilliantly the passage of Hinduism into its modern avatar, the book celebrates women and men across the caste spectrum—pioneers Savitribai Phule, M.C. Rajah, R. Veerian, B.R. Ambedkar, Periyar, Vithalbhai Patel and others—and outside of the caste system, such as non-Hindu legislators and administrators, including Maneckji Dadabhoy, William Bentinck and Lord Willingdon. It re-examines the positions of leading lights such as Motilal Nehru, Thomas Munro, Mahatma Gandhi and C. Rajagopalachari, and shows why caste prejudice cleaves to names like Madan Mohan Malviya and Surendra Nath Banerjea. Through these histories of reform, Mitta establishes that untouchability is merely the best-known aspect of varna, an elusive purity-based hierarchy that affects the freedoms of all.

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