Book seeks to identify forces behind social conflicts in India

Capitalism is making caste obsolete but it does not free society from structural biases and the new dynamics brings challenges as well as opportunities, says a new book. Snakes in the Ganga Breaking India 2.0 by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan seeks to shed light on forces operating behind social conflicts in India.Capitalism is making caste obsolete, but it does not free society from structural biases.

Capitalism is making caste obsolete but it does not free society from structural biases and the new dynamics brings challenges as well as opportunities, says a new book. ''Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0'' by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan seeks to shed light on forces operating behind social conflicts in India.

''Capitalism is making caste obsolete, but it does not free society from structural biases. The new dynamics brings challenges as well as opportunities,'' the book published by BluOne Ink LLP says. ''The only caste system left in the rapidly urbanising India is the one enforced by the government's formal identities given to people. This is India's curse: the birth-defect enshrined in its Constitution. This is fodder for the toxic identity politics,'' it says.

According to the authors, ''Snakes in the Ganga'' is a metaphor for some foreign institutions that are mapping ideas of Wokeism to India, thereby undermining India's ancient civilisational fabric.

The book intends to inform Indians who might be supporting such work, often unintentionally, without an in-depth understanding of the end game of these projects, they say.

They, however, add that the book does not intend to vilify the sponsors of such institutions but is purely an exercise to invite healthy academic debate on intellectual issues.

The authors say the book is the result of an exhaustive investigation involving several domains both in the US and India.

''It has been organised into four distinct stories to help the reader understand its depth. Each story is self-contained and could be a book by itself. But each needs to be seen in the context of the others to appreciate the significant message in this book,'' they write.