'Caste Pride': Book on legal history of varna system to hit stands next year

This is the way history looks when you turn away from the big, charismatic men that dominate its telling to see what the facts say, said Ajitha GS, publisher, Context.Mitta along with H S Phoolka also co-authored When a Tree Shook Delhi The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath in 2007.

An upcoming book, ''Caste Pride'', will narrate a riveting account of how caste has operated in India over two centuries of reform and modernisation, publishing house Westland announced on Saturday.

The book, written by journalist-author Manoj Mitta, is slated to release next year. It will be published under Westland's 'Context' imprint.

''This project took over seven years and more of my life. What sustained me was the excitement of tracing the evolution of ideas, marked by the clashes between liberal and conservative Hindus, and bringing to light an array of social reformers who never got their due,'' said Mitta, who has also authored ''The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra'' (2014).

''The recording of this legal history is also key to understanding the insidious ways in which caste undermines this republic’s avowed notions of liberty, equality and fraternity,'' he added.

It claims to unearth little-known facts as well as forgotten protagonists who have shaped the India of today, in ways both good and bad.

For instance, how in a bid to win over upper castes, the East India Company exempted Banaras Brahmins from the death penalty in 1795, or the case in 1898 where MG Ranade as the judge of Bombay High Court rejected the Brahmin claim that 'Vaishyas are extinct'.

According to the publishers, the ''scarring battle'' against caste was fought by people across the spectrum of the peculiarly Hindu institution of caste, and ''the story of it opens up a new understanding of this country and its people''.

''Clear-sighted, meticulously researched, measured and nuanced, this is a masterful history of caste. And told as it is through the lens of law, the large events of history and society are clarified, they make sense. This is the way history looks when you turn away from the big, charismatic men that dominate its telling to see what the facts say,'' said Ajitha GS, publisher, Context.

Mitta along with H S Phoolka also co-authored ''When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath'' in 2007.