Caste - Crossroads ಅಡ್ಡರಸ್ತೆ

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59332336-who-were-the-shudras" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Who were the Shudras" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634029522l/59332336._SY160_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59332336-who-were-the-shudras">Who were the Shudras</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/618535.B_R_Ambedkar">B.R. Ambedkar</a> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7119209896">4 of 5 stars</a> Very insightful and a good example of argumentative theory-building in social science (methodologically speaking). He has selected several portions of translated text and sourced material for the theory building from multiple sources and often the material presented is long, boring and quite often disgustingly so (the deep prejudice against entire peoples or women for instance) and can feel tedious to read. But the portions written by Ambedkar himself shows a scholarly and measured approach to inferences drawn. Overall a good read and quite unlike many of his other works I am familiar with. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/597552-prashanth-nuggehalli-srinivas">View all my reviews</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51062832-radical-equality" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565308334l/51062832._SX98_SY160_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51062832-radical-equality">Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9873757.Aishwary_Kumar">Aishwary Kumar</a> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5251473670">3 of 5 stars</a> The book aims to create a meta-understanding of the politics of Ambedkar & Gandhi, helping to build an understanding of the commonalities underlying their politics. It is organised in 7 chapters and each chapter does a rather deep dive into their writings with carefully selected verbatim quotations from their books, letters, speeches or other published work. The first and the sixth chapters for me were the best. The book requires a fair foundation on the popular works of both Gandhi & Ambedkar and assumes a fair degree of understanding of their politics. Although initially I thought it might be some kind of an apologia of Gandhi, it was not so. Both are treated fairly in isolation, but the republican, civil libertarian and constitutionalist/state-ist positions of Ambedkar are given thorough treatment as are the theological politics of Gandhi rooted in his particular understanding of Dharma (contrast with detailed explanations of Ambedkar's quest for a religion-grounded politics and his tryst with Buddhism and his departure from a Brahminical/Vedic Hinduism that he was never able to see rid of its foundations anyway). Overall, a decent read but not the easiest one. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/597552-prashanth-nuggehalli-srinivas">View all my reviews</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63851891-rss" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="RSS: The Long and the Short of It" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1669544480l/63851891._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63851891-rss">RSS: The Long and the Short of It</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14131546.Devanura_Mahadeva">Devanura Mahadeva</a> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5151003602">4 of 5 stars</a> More of a pamphlet (in the classical use of this term) than a book, yet a concise, simple and a withering take-down of the current politics of the RSS-BJP-associates. Devanura Mahadeva is quite well known for his critical reflections on how caste and the growing majoritarian construction of the modern Hindu identity. Starting with excerpts of text from Savarkar, he traces the origins of the ideology that is currently feeding the RSS and its associate organisations. Language is very simple and is spoken much more as an appeal to what he calls "Vishaala hindu samaaja (wideest hindu people)" to not give in to hatred and divisiveness. This book is the English translation of the original written in Kannada. Upon reading it, <a href="https://www.daktre.com/2022/07/ಆರ್-ಎಸ್-ಎಸ್-ಆಳ-ಮತ್ತು-ಅಗಲ-rss-aaala-mattu-agala/" rel="nofollow noopener">I had immediately put out an unofficial</a>, unauthorised English translation which <a href="https://archive.org/details/englishv.-29" rel="nofollow noopener">someone has uploaded on the Internet Archive </a> and has already seen >1500 views/downloads. It is also available in several other Indian languages. My only grouse is the pricing: the Kannada one is priced at 40 while this one is nearly 5 times that: nonetheless affordable, accessible and irrespective of one's political leaning, something to be "engaged" with. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/597552-prashanth-nuggehalli-srinivas">View all my reviews</a> Based on the reading of BR Ambedkar's *Who were the Shudras*, a pertinent revisit of his central thesis is here (still to be read/filed here for reading) > Arvind Sharma, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on the Aryan Invasion and the Emergence of the Caste System in India, _Journal of the American Academy of Religion_, Volume 73, Issue 3, September 2005, Pages 843–870, [https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfi081](https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfi081) Also scan this book by Ram Sharan Sharma (1990) [Śūdras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order Down to Circa A.D. 600](https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/%C5%9A%C5%ABdras_in_Ancient_India/gsZkAu-RHVgC?hl=en&gbpv=0) Meanwhile, the scan of the recent Karnataka Caste Census report scan - OCR text detection ongoing using the coolly named Tesserect-OCR. [Link to report on Archive](https://archive.org/details/see-survey-karnataka-2024report)