Anand Teltumbde is a civil rights activist and a scholar. Among his many books are The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders and India’s Hidden Apartheid and Republic of Caste: Thinking Equality in the Time of Neoliberal Hindutva.
<p>CASTE AND RESERVATIONS, the problem and the solution, are yoked together in public discourse. They incite great passions. A conversation about caste ends up being about reservations. A savarna privilege attacks the very idea as undermining ‘merit’. Reservations started as a policy to ensure that the most oppressed and excluded sections of Indian society, the dalits and adivasis, are representation. Today, it has been extended to powerful communities such as the and marathas in the guise of economic quotas. What role does class play in caste society? Anand Teltumbde offers a dispassionate history and analysis of the connected issues and shows us how the solution has become the problem.</p><div><br></div>
