DURGABAI DESHMUKH MEMORIAL LECTURE 2025

Re-cast(e) ing the State Policy: Ascription, Identities and Democratic Politics
 

Speaker: Prof. Surinder Singh Jodhka, Professor of Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University and recipient of the ICSSR-Amartya Sen Award for Distinguished Social Scientist.

Welcome and Introduction: Prof. Nitya Nanda, Director, Council for Social Development

Vote of Thanks: Prof. Biswajit Dhar, Vice President, Council for Social Development

The post-independence Indian state has had a rather ambivalent attitude towards caste. Caste could not enter the imaginations of India’s development establishment and found no place in the vocabulary of economic growth spelt out in the planning models of the Nehruvian state.
The announcement to enumerate caste in the forthcoming national census marks an important turning in the attitude of the Indian state towards caste. Through his presentation, Prof. Jodhka will attempt to provide a political journey of caste and its changing relationship with the state policy.

(Collaboration: Council for Social Development)