Status and Sacredness provides a new theory of status and sacral relationships and a provocative reinterpretation of the Indian caste system and Hinduism. Milner shows how in India and many other social contexts status is a key resource, and that sacredness can be usefully under…
"[The book] investigates and presents a holistic view of today's rural India by analysing different social aspects such as caste, migration, mobility, education and inequalities. It further studies the village social structure comprising peasants, artisans, weavers and the middl…
The Saint in the Banyan Tree is a nuanced and historically persuasive exploration of Christianity's remarkable trajectory as a social and cultural force in southern India. Starting in the seventeenth century, when the religion was integrated into Tamil institutions of caste and …
"Why is India so filthy?" This book draws on four years of research by an anthropologist and historian to tease out reasons for India's public-sanitation agonies. From the days of Mahatma Gandhi to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has struggled with garbage and human excremen…
"To best understand and address the inequality in India today, Arundhati Roy insists we must examine both the political development and influence of M. K. Gandhi and why B. R. Ambedkar’s brilliant challenge to his near-divine status was suppressed by India’s elite. In Roy’s anal…
This book presents a detailed view on Newar society and culture, its socio-economic, socio-religious and ritual aspects, concentrating on a single Newar town of Sankhu in the Valley of Nepal. The foundation of the town of Sankhu is attributed to the goddess Vajrayogini, venerate…