Paper Title
REVISITING MODERN INDIAN HISTORY THROUGH AN ANTI-CASTE LENS: SOCIETY, POWER, AND RESISTANCEAbstract
This study revisits the social history of modern India (late 18th century to mid-20th century) through an anti-caste analytical framework. Conventional historiography of modern India has often narrated the story of nation-making through the prisms of colonialism, nationalism, and secular reform, with caste appearing as a traditional social residue. This paper argues that caste was not a residue but a central axis around which modernity, colonial power, and social reform were negotiated. By centering the intellectual traditions and movements of Jyotirao Phule, Savitribai Phule, Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, Pandita Ramabai, and B.R. Ambedkar, the study examines how anti-caste thinkers exposed caste as a system of graded inequality, labour expropriation, and control of knowledge and gender. Using archival sources, anti-caste literature, and secondary historiography, the paper explores three dimensions: society - how caste was codified and hardened under colonial census and law; power - how dominant nationalist discourse accommodated caste hierarchies; and resistance - how Dalit-Bahujan movements articulated alternative visions of liberty, equality and fraternity. The research concludes that revisiting modern Indian history from an anti-caste perspective not only recovers marginalized agency but also offers a critical method to understand democracy and social justice in contemporary India.
KEYWORDS : Anti-Caste Thought, Social History, Modern India, B.R. Ambedkar, Jyotirao Phule, Periyar, Dalit History, Caste and Colonialism, Resistance, Social Justice.
