‘What deethnicisation of inequalities in India?’

 

Traditional forms of inequalities along class lines and the urban/rural divide have increased in post-liberalisation India (which did not necessarily mean - till recently - that the poor were getting poorer). But new forms of inequality have also crystallised. In this presentation, I will focus on two recent phenomena: the making of class differentiation within caste groups and the relative socio-economic decline of Muslims vis-à-vis other religious communities. If the growing role of class may reflect a certain deethnicisation of inequalities, the marginalization of Muslims tells a different story.

Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot is Senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute (London), Non-Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and President of the French Political Science Association. Among his recent publications are, (as a co-editor with A. Kohli and K. Murali) Business and Politics in India (OUP, 2019), (as a co-editor with A. Chatterji and T.B. Hansen) The Majoritarian State. How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India (Hurst, 2019) and as co-author with Pratinav Anil, India’s First Dictatorship. The Emergency, 1975-77 (Hurst, 2020).    

 

A recording of this seminar can be viewed on the Centre's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79SmSLswdPU