Blended Boundaries: Caste, Class and Shifting Faces of ‘Hinduness’ in a North Indian City

The resurgence of Hindu nationalism in the early 1990s and especially the demolition of the disputed mosque at Ayodhya led to a period of turbulence in Hindu-Muslim relations. Kathinka Froystad was in Kanpur at that time, conducting anthropological fieldwork on local expressions of the Hindu-Muslim controversy among upper-caste Hindus in the city. This book is a result of that extensive study. Blended Boundaries examines how sympathizers of Hindu nationalism relate to the political movement over time and explains their alteration between different kinds of ‘significant others’, in this case Muslims as well as Dalits. Skilfully using its ethnographic framework, the book explores the life worlds of these people, particularly the social boundaries of everyday life. The author analyses the reasons and extent to which boundaries of class, religion and caste are maintained, transgressed, and negotiated in everyday life. The work seeks to understand why upper-caste Hindus in Kanpur changed their political attention from Muslims to Dalits towards the mid-1990s and whether the two were considered different or similar ‘kinds’ of others. This absorbing first-hand narrative will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, and politics besides appealing to journalists, policy-makers, and the informed general reader.