Introduction: The Modernity of Caste | Caste as India

Introduction: The Modernity of Caste

In that Country the laws of religion, the laws of the

land, and the laws of honour, are all united and

consolidated in one, and bind a man eternally to the

rules of what is called his caste.

—Edmund Burke1

Colonialism made what caste is today (Dirks, 2001). 

Nicholas B. Dirks is an American academic and the former Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. Dirks is the author of numerous books on South Asian history and culture, primarily concerned with the impact of British colonial rule. In June 2020, Dirks was named president and CEO of The New York Academy of Sciences. Dirks is the author of numerous books on South Asian history and culture, primarily concerned with the impact of British colonial rule. His most famous works include The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (1987), Castes of Mind (2001), and The Scandal of Empire (2006). In these works, Dirks advanced the research on how British rule shaped the culture of the Indian subcontinent and how Britain became influenced by its colonies.