Roland Lardinois: "The Genesis of Louis Dumont's Anthropology", Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 16 No. 1, 1996.

An account of the intellectual atmosphere in which Dumont's study of caste-system took place and his social background. This paper attempts to explain how Dumont's scholarly venture into the study of caste came to privilege the Brahamanic viewpoint of Indian society.
 

M. S. Prbhakara: "Dilution in Durban", Frontline, Sept 28, 2001 [C.Q14.230901...]
"After hectic deliberations that went beyond the schedule, the World Conference against Racism produces a document that satisfies nobody."
This post-conference report  in Frontline magazine describes the compromises and dilution that the process of producing the `draft declaration' and `draft programme of action' witnessed. India's National Commission of Human Rights cognisance of the discrimination against dalits is also noted.

Andre Beteille: "Louis Dumont (1911-98): Obituary", Economic and Political Weekly, January 9, 1999, pp.14-15.
"Already by the 1960s Louis Dumont had formulate an ambitious plan for a lifetime of unremitting intellectual effort. The aim was to contrast on the plane of values - rather than of social morphology or social action - soceities based on holism and hierarchy with those based on individualism and equality, in short, traditional India and the west."

Partha Chatterjee: "Caste and Subaltern Consciousness", in Subaltern Studies VI: Writings on South Asian History and Society edited by Ranajit Guha, OUP, Delhi, 1989. [cedbom: B.M10.G45]pp. 169-209.
"There is no alternative for us but to undertake a search, both theoretical and practical, for the concrete forms of democratic community which are based neither on the principles of hierarchy nor on those of bourgeois equality. The posture by Dumont of the principles of homo hierarchicus against those of homo equalis is false, essentialist, positing of an unresolvable antimony."
 

Oliver C. Cox: "Caste, Class & Race: A Study in Social Dynamics", Monthly Review Press, New York, 1970. [cedbom: B.Q14.C2]
Adolph Reed Jr: "Race and Class in the Work of Oliver Cromwell Cox", Monthly Review, Feb 2001, pp.22-30 [J.Q14.010201MR]

For an evaluation of Cox's contribution to world system thought see: "Cox, Wallerstein and World System" by Sean Heir in Race & Class, January 2001.
 

Seminar, Issue No. 508, December 2001. This Issue is focussed on "Exclusion: A symposium on caste, race and the dalit question". Some of the articles in this issue are listed below:

    Soli Sorabjee: "The Official Position" pp.14-16

    Smita Narula: "Caste Discrimination" pp.17-20

    Martin Macwan: "(Un)touchable in Durban" pp.21-24.
      "Some have attempted to link internationalization of caste discrimination with national interest and
       further to national integrity. Some have preferred to investigate the foreign, Christian and other
       possible motives behind such attempts. Such allegations are not foreign to the history of dalit
       assertion movements in this country where caste, and not the national constitution, continues to
       be the dominant factor.....the issue at the core is: Do we as a nation wish to tolerate caste based
       discrimination any more?"

    Prakash Louis: "Regaining our lost faith" pp.25-29.
       "It is not that dalit discourse is a new phenomena. Those who raised this issue at the international
        forum were under no illusion that the Durban conference would put an end to all the ills of the
        dalits. In fact, dalit discourse is as old as the caste system and caste discrimination."

        [Also see Prakash Louis: "Durban and Post-Durban Dalit discourse: Retrospect and Prospect",
         Update, Issue No. 134, 19-09-2001 in the L18 clippings file at cedbom.]

    Gopal Guru: "Politics of Representation" pp.29-33.
       "Who is entitled to talk about the caste issue and represent it in Durban?.....It was suggested by
         some that since India is a democratic state which believes in equality, it should represent the
         dalits at Durban. The government itself suggested that it was only Hindu dalits who had the right
         to speak on behalf of dalits. Still others argued that all those who believed in equality could speak
         ... But most dalits felt that they alone had the natural right to speak on behalf of the dalits.
         Unfortunately this question of representation got relegated to the background."

        [Also see Gopal Guru: "Dalit Intellectual Activism: Recent Trends", VAK Publications [R.L18.?]
         In this booklet, Gopal Guru discusses several categories of dalit intellectual activism - state
         sponsored, brueaucrates, brueaucrates-turned-intellectuals, activism sponsored by political parties
         and, NGOs etc.]

Dipankar Gupta: "Caste, race, politics" pp. 33-40.
       "To sum up, if caste were race then caste politics would be salient only when brahmans are pitted
         agaisnt the rest... If caste were race then the reality and brutality of yadavs marauding in the fields
         of Bihar would be a bloodless reality and would not have any symbolic energy at all." Gupta sees
         racial identity as fixed - `once a black, always a black' (which is questionable, to say the least), and
         caste identity as eradicable.

    Surinder Jodhka: "Caste in the Periphery" pp. 41-46.
       "... it may be useful to look at caste and caste politics from the experience of a peripheral region
        where, though the brahminical ideology has not been so strong, the practice of caste still exists.
        Contemporary Indian Punjab is an interesting case..".

    D. L. Seth: "Caste in the mirror of race", pp.50-55.
       "When will we shed our colonial mentality and give up attempts to understand Indian reality through
        western categories of analysis?... Caste is a South Asian reality, most densely manifested in India.
        Instead of trying to trim it to fit into the readymade category of race, can we not try to understand
        social discrimination in the U.S., Canada and Japan through the category of caste?"

    Kancha Ilaiah: "Interview: Towards a constructive globalization" pp.56-58.
       "Though the BJP-Hindutva brigate practices caste it is not ready to concede the evils of casteism.
        Dalits are fighting this.... All major movements in the world construct terms to explain their social
        and economic position. Today, the term `dalit' expresses that historical situation. Historical
        deprivation, untouchability (apartheid), and layers of caste discrimination are embedded in this term.
        ...  The Durban summit has important implications. For the first time, the meet was organized under
        a black leadership, under Kofi Annan, and an Irish woman, Mary Robinson, both determined that
        whatever the consequences, the victims of racism and discrimination should be brought together to
        challenge the victimizer. For the first time in UN documents we see a demand for an apology from
        the oppressor to the oppressed, that the oppressor must pay reparations."

       [Also see Kancha Ilaiah's article in The Hindu (21-08-2001) before the Durman summit "Caste and
        and the U.N. Meet"[cedbom file Q14] and his two books:
        "Why I am not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy Culture and Political Economy",
         Samya, 1996 [B.L18.I?]
        "God as Political Philosopher: Buddha's Challenge to Brahminism", Samya, 2000 [L40a.I?]
 

    Further Reading:  A detailed bibliograph of relevant books and articles.
 

Shiv Visvanathan:
"Race for Caste", EPW, July 3, 2001, pp.2512-2516
"Durban and Dalit Discourse", EPW, August 18, 2001, pp.3123-3127

Amir Ali: "Durban and After", EPW, September 15, 2001, pp.3508-9

Ashley Montague: "Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race", OUP, London, 1974 [B.Q14.M1]

Mary Robinson: "Deeper Challenges of Racism Summit", Times of India 29-08-2001 [file Q14]

Margaret Mead & James Baldwin: "A Rap on Race", Mechael Joseph, London, 1971 [B.Q14.M4]

Michael Banton (Ed): "Peoples for Human Rights: Six continents: Race and Unequal Development",
IMADR Yearbook 1991  [B.Q14.B2]

Stephen Jay Gould: "The Mismeasure of Man", Penguin, 1981 [B.L05.G5]
First few chapters of this famous book on the `I.Q. tests' gives a good account of biological theories of race, which emerged at various points in the history of biology, and were used to justify racial discrimination.

Jack Gratus: "The Great White Lie: Slavery, Emancipation, and Changing Racial Attitudes", Monthly Review Press, New York, 1973  [B.Q14.G1]
Patti Waldmeir: "U. S. slavery reparations cases head to court", Business Standard 03-09-2001 [cedbom: Q14 file]

B. B. Mohanty: "Land Distribution among Scheduled Castes and Tribes", EPW, October 6, 2001, pp.3857-3868.
"Based on 13 major states, the present study shows that even after 50 years of planned initiatives and policy measures, there has not been substantial improvement in the landholding status of scheduled groups, and in some states, it has declined further."