New India Foundation

Manoj Mitta is a Delhi-based journalist focusing on law, human rights and social justice. A law graduate from Hyderabad, he has worked with the Times of India, the Indian Express and India Today. Mitta has written two critically acclaimed books on impunity for mass violence: When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath, co-authored with H.S. Phoolka (2007), and The Fiction of Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra (2014). His article on caste was published in 2007 in Writing a Nation: An Anthology of Indian Journalism, edited by Nirmala Lakshman.

NIF Books

In this masterful work, 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. With ground-breaking discoveries and incisive insight, Caste Pride is at once moving, enlightening and transformative.

Reviews:

'A superb and unsparing account of the inherent violence of caste … highlighting not only well-known events but also relatively unknown aspects, as well as many that are as yet unstudied or understudied even by scholars.' AJAY SKARIA, Professor of History, University of Minnesota

'Invaluable … Exploding many myths, restores credit to some forgotten heroes and points out errors of fact and errors of judgement that crept into some hallowed studies on caste.' ANAND TELTUMBDE, Scholar, Writer and Civil Rights Activist

'India's legal history has generally ignored the central aspect of it—caste, i.e., how caste was strengthened by law … Mitta has unmasked how caste has been infiltrating supposedly neutral legal processes and institutions.' ANURAG BHASKAR, Constitutional Scholar and Commentator

'Truly remarkable … nuanced … meticulous … a must read!' CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT, Author of Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste

'With telling detail and incisive argument, Manoj Mitta's Caste Pride offers a fresh and penetrating addition to the literature on India's caste system and on India's remarkable effort to regulate and transform it.' MARC GALANTER, Author of Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India

'The annihilation of caste is a conversation that all of us should be having, please throw this book at anyone who is not convinced. It is heavy enough to inflict injury, solid enough to precipitate a change of heart.' MEENA KANDASAMY, Poet and Novelist

'The cumulative impact of two centuries' worth of documentation on the legal life of caste is stunning.' SATISH DESHPANDE, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Delhi

'This book is breathtaking: in scope, in research and in passion, in telling the story of the battles over thinking about equality and citizenship in a deeply iniquitous society … It is an archive that documents the birth pangs of a new order.' UMA CHAKRAVARTI, Feminist Historian and Democratic Rights Activist