Few things about India have foxed the western world more than its caste `system'. Susan Bayly, who is a long time scholar of matters Indian, is no exception.
Her difficulty is easy to understand. Caste, after all, has no fixed points of reference.
This seamless feature of caste is especially bothersome for persons trained in the western intellectual tradition which consists of viewing and analysing things within fixed parameters. But if there is one thing that caste cannot be accused of, it is that it has no fixed parameters. Or logicians might put it, it can be `X' and `Not X' both at the same time. Whence the problem for a westerner.
The book is valuable from another point of view as well. It offers up