So. Here is the thread on the book "Caste, Society and Politics" written by Susan Bayly.
Warning: This book is neither a "Trad" book or a "reformist/modern" book but a social anthropologist's account of caste and Indian society in a particular time period.

As most of you are aware, I had done a thread on Morton Klass and his view of caste as groups of "marriage circles". The whole reason for writing such threads (which hopefully will be the last as I would like to write on other topics also) is to challenge the view of....

"a caste system" as an universalised top-down uniform system across the land. While marriage circles and endogamy is an established fact, the spread of purity pollution norms hasn't been right from the start. Also, it doesn't take into account the fluidity of the "system."

The idea of Brahmins going around with MG42s oppressing others is hyperbole to a large extent, even though many would like it to be for their own reasons, both positive and negative. This isn't going to be easy if you believe in an ahistorical reading of caste but here it goes.

Susan Bayly starts the book with a bang. "Caste is not and never has never been a fixed part of Indian life. Both caste as varna and caste as jati are best seen as composites of ideals and practices that have been (note) 'made and remade' into varying codes of...

moral order over thousands of years. The context for this fluidity has been the subcontinent's remarkable diversity in culture and physical environment, and above all diversity of its states and political systems. The conventions of rank & corporate essence that are often seen...

as the defining feature of caste have been shaped, critiqued, and reconstituted in all sorts of ways, both century by century, and region by region." Her argument is that between about 1650 and 1850, the ritual aspect of the caste system increasingly made its mark.

Bayly posits a two-stage scheme in the post-Mughal era.
1. The rise of the royal man of prowess
2. The emerging courtly synthesis between Kshatriya-like kings and Brahmins.

Bayly argues that while there are idealised social and moral order schemes in South East Asia (Japan-Warriors, commoners, merchants and untouchables), a caste-like system couldn't arise as:
1. These places are less diverse culturally.
2. Less diverse political landscape...

3. Indian clergy and ascetic orders retaining greater degree of separation and independence from the State.
In India, there was a diversity of ecologies, languages, modes of production. In her opinion, pre-colonial kings did not treat caste norms as one-dimensional...

absolutes, but as reference points to be negotiated, challenged, or reshaped.

As an example, by late 17th Century CE, there were many parts of the north and Central India, where the most fertile lands had become subject to petty lords, who used their bonds of marriage to command a flow of resources and deferences from non-elite tillers and dependent labor.

Bayly's essential argument is that even before colonialism, a large proportion of the subcontinent was populated by martial uplanders and pastoralists who knew little of Brahmins or purity norms.

What is interesting is the 'peasantification' of people and caste formation in the colonial as well as pre-colonial period.

"By the mid 18th Century CE as Mughal authority fragmented and the rulers of the new successor regional realms fought to consolidate their power, many of the upland, forest and tribal people made dramatic gains. The expanding State systems...

with which they became involved in this period, played a crucial role in the world of jati and varna." From tribe to caste.
1. The way of the kingly warrior.
2. The way of the life of the service provider.
3. The way of the life of the settled man.

It is also interesting to note the rise of scribal castes in this period as these dynasts required men to maximise their revenue, maintain their records and intelligence networks and to grace their courts.

I END this first thread on the book. I will do another 1/2 threads on the book. I hope you have liked this even as you disagree. As always, comments etc. are welcome.