Caste, Clan and Ethnicity: A Study of Mehtas in Rajasthan

This study on Caste, Clan and Ethnicity presents an alternative paradigm to understand and analyse the social differentiation, inequality and identity amongst people in a feudal society. The negotiation of traditional institutions and pattern of relationship with those of modernity reveal dialectics of historical continuity and contemporaneity of change. This book dissects a dominant and powerful clan (Bachachavat Mehta of Rajasthan) taking the pluralistic perspectives of historical sociology, micro-anthropology and sociology of ethnicity. The study also reveals the processes wherein history is converted into sociology and self-experiences are converted into authentic data. The genealogical chart of thirty-five generations explains the lineage, kinship, clan and ethnic character of a group through micro-level historical continuity and transformational adjustments. The study brings out interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature of analysis and shall be of great value to not only stu