Lieven is in no hurry to reach conclusions; he takes his time so that he can get into the complexities of provincial and caste relationships.
I spoke to people who had been abused by higher castes, and a girl whose parents had moved cities to escape the stigma associated with their mixed-caste relationship.
According to the South Asia Solidarity Group, the taboo surrounding mixed-caste relationships can make girls wary of approaching men of other castes, especially the supposedly lower ones.
Most parents in India still prefer arranged marriages within their own caste and relationships outside of caste are frowned upon.
Modern India has long had, and profited from, business families; but other kinds of families have – despite the thick contexts of caste, class and relationships that mark Indian society – been more fractured, and augmented their fortunes by a variety of means, including education.
These hierarchies can be broken down into age, sex, ordinal position, kinship relationships (within families), and caste, lineage, wealth, occupations, and relationship to ruling power (within the community).
In India, female CBDs from upper social classes (castes) established an easy relationship with middle and higher cast women but had real problems making services accessible for women with a significantly lower social status (Abbott and Luke 2011).
One man, who has just heard of his brother's death - killed for a relationship across caste lines - refuses to have the reading fee waived, since it would cheapen the death to hear it for free.
Rao is currently working on a book on the political thought of B. R. Ambedkar; and on a project titled Dalit Bombay, which explores the relationship between caste, political culture, and everyday life in colonial and postcolonial Bombay.
She is currently working on a book on the political thought of B. R. Ambedkar; and a project titled Dalit Bombay, which explores the relationship between caste, political culture, and everyday life in colonial and postcolonial Bombay.
