Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2018 The Relevance of Caste in Contemporary India: Reexamining the Affirmative Action Debate Shambhavi Sahai Shambhavi Sahai CMC Recommended Citation Sahai, Shambhavi and Sahai, Shambhavi, "The Relevance of Caste in Contemporary India: Reexamining the Affirmative Action Debate" (2018). CMC Senior Theses. 1854. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1854 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Claremont McKenna College The Relevance of Caste in Contemporary India: Reexamining the Affirmative Action Debate SUBMITTED TO Professor William Ascher Shambhavi Sahai for Senior Thesis Spring 2018 April 23, 2018 Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………....1 Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………………………………3 Chapter 2: Identity and State Building in Post-independence India…..……………10 I. Definitions...……………………………………………..……………………....11 II. OBC: Category or Identity?.......................................................................15 III. Reconciling Primordialism and Constructivism……………………..……..26 Chapter 3: The North-South Comparison………………...…………………………..28 I. Sanskritization……...……………………………………………………………29 II. Ethnicization……………………………………..……………………………...34 III. Enabling circumstances………………………………………………….…….36 IV. Distinctions…………………………………………………..………………….43