By selecting important texts, published for the most part in the last decade, that elaborate and advance our understanding of the relationship between caste and gender, this seminal volume provides a succinct account of the caste and gender debate/discourse and a perspective on the theoretical tendencies that determine its frames of reference. Gender & Caste is the first volume of a seminal new series – Issues in Contemporary Indian Feminism – that will serve as a point of entry and a guide to complex and often contentious debates in Indian feminism. These volumes will construct an archive of writing relating to gender issues in India and make an important contribution to contemporary feminist theory.Most of the essays selected have emerged in the context of a renewed national debate about the politics of caste inaugurated by the Mandal decision in 1989 – a decision that produced a profound transformation of the political debates around caste and identity. It reiterated demands for social justice by dalits and lower castes that has consequently changed their political relationship to upper-caste elites.Dalit-bahujan feminists have gone further than merely arguing that Indian feminism is incomplete and exclusive. Rather, they are suggesting that we rethink the genealogy of Indian feminism in order to engage meaningfully with dalit women’s "difference" from the ideal subjects of feminist politics.
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