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Caste-fying the elite

By Anonymous

Reading Mills triggers in my mind the congruencies and contrasts with respect to some aspects of the two prominent democracies of the world – the US and India. The common denominators undercutting the power elite in the US are markers of property, heredity, fame, and status in the official machinery (echelons of political, military or corporate order). While none of these are entirely absent in the Indian context another very interesting variable undercuts most, if not all, elite that of Caste.

Mohanty, (2004) states about caste, “Despite a degree of mobility and assimilation, the hierarchy and social oppression of confining people to social boundaries to perform defined roles and enjoy prescribed status in society persists throughout Indian history.” In many ways the caste situation in India is different from the elite hierarchies of the US. While the hierarchies of the US can profess a ‘secular’ character, the Caste based hierarchy of India – that continues to have privileges, both material and symbolic-- bases itself on the foundations of religion and divinity. The neoliberal democratic development of the Indian polity has done a lot to let the correlation between socially elite and high castes prevail. With respect to such a situation I wonder how can one apply the format of analysis that Mills takes up, to a context that is very different from what it was meant for? What modifications/ suggestions would you suggest for studying caste elitism in the Indian society?

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