Caste, Race, and the New Moralities and Aesthetics of Exclusion

• In Event: 519 - Section on Race, Class and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 05. Global/Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

This article proposes an alternate theorization of India’s caste structure, and illustrates its affinity with modern racism through an exegesis of caste in the traditional moral doctrines of guna and karma. Demonstrating that these moral and aesthetic closures of guna go a long way in explaining the historical intransigence of the caste system, we argue that a similar aesthetic-moral complex is key to the continuities of social exclusion in contemporary India. The social patterns previously designated “caste” now cannot but express themselves in the new legitimacies of nationalism and neo-liberal references. This reinterpretation of caste—and its transformation into neo-casteism—also provides a strong, longue durée handle on emergent racial forms. Drawing on a comparative study of representative Indian and Western theoretical texts, we argue that “neo-racism,” much like “neo-casteism,” marks a displacement in moral aesthetics even as a necessary and consistent effect of social exclusion is maintained. Far from becoming progressively irrelevant, this article demonstrates that the effects of “caste” and “race” may be becoming ever more consequential in the excesses and infectious certitudes of a triumphant global neo-liberalism.

Authors

• Vikash Singh, Montclair State University

• Jason Ferris Torkelson, Rutgers University-New Brunswick