Reimagining Classes in India Under Neoliberalism

Description

This unique work by one of our notable political economists and social thinkers is crafted to understand the dynamics of caste-class categories under neoliberalism. Continuing his earlier study on the Caste Mode of Production and interrogating the existing literature on class formation by Marxist writers, the author sheds new light on class formation and proletarianization in contemporary India. The analytic framework developed for the study, examines how traditional socio-economic formations have been disrupted and caste cleavages strengthened to reproduce caste-based crony capitalism. The absence of any credible theory of classes and the caste- blind narratives in India inspired him to formulate an innovative approach of dividing the country into different agro-climatic zones and analyzed the emergence of the vanguard class from lower caste landless labourers. This formation is mapped with data to project the manifestation of class struggles in East-South India and Punjab. The need for caste-class fusion through reformist social struggles as class-foritself is reimagined with the concept of ‘class as a process’.

K.S. Chalam is Chairman, Institute for Economic and Social Justice, Visakhapatnam. He was Professor of Economics and Director, Academic Staff College at Andhra University. He was Vice-Chancellor, Dravidian University, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh and held important positions as Member, UPSC, SR NHRC and others. He is founder Editor, South India Journal of Social Sciences.