Caste in/as Humanities:

Unsettling the Politics of Suffering

Abstract

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 Mead or 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 pre-empts competition that western modernity brings about. However, caste could be read both diachronically as well as synchronically, as a historical formation as well as a structural imperative. This makes any easy understanding of the question of caste impossible. Textual evidences are not enough, neither are the various archaeological resources, as we know that each historical moment is also constituted by the logic of synchronicity and structure which produces its own form of aphasia and silence. This introduction to the Special Issue of Sanglap on ‘Caste in Humanities’ would show how question of caste is also about silence and therefore requires incessant and seamless re-textualization.