CASTE – A GLOBAL STORY By Suraj Milind Yengde

This is the first comprehensive study, chronicle the lives across 15 countries.

 It traces the life of the caste in the indenture era to the present in Trinidad.

 The intimate portrait of the theorisation and activism of Dalit Panthers.

 It brings the aspects of Dalit and black american connections by archival research and ethnographic study collected over 10 years.

 The book surveys the understanding of caste undertaken by foreigners from Greeks to Islamic travellers to the British.

FOREWORD BY AMARTYA SEN:

‘Caste: A Global Story is a remarkable helpful contribution to understanding and confronting the challenges of hardened inequalities worldwide. We have reason to be grateful to Suraj Milind Yengde for this distinguished work.’

Caste and caste-based discrimination are not just Indian issues — they are global, shaping lives from Britain to Bahrain, Canada to South Africa. This is a worldwide phenomenon demanding worldwide solutions.

In Caste: A Global Story, leading scholar Suraj Milind Yengde illuminates the Dalit experience across continents, tracing a powerful line from nineteenth-century indentured labourers in the Caribbean to today’s migrant workers in the Middle East. Drawing on ten years of history, ethnography, and archival research, Yengde offers a compelling, comparative exploration of caste and race, from ancient times to the present.

What role have colonialism, religion, and nationalism played in sustaining caste hierarchies around the world? What lessons can we draw from anti-caste movements in India and beyond? Why has the South Asian diaspora remained largely disconnected from the anti-caste struggles of the homeland? And where does the promise — and the challenge — of Dalit–Black solidarity stand today?

With sharp insight and global scope, Yengde uncovers the international footprint of anti-caste resistance — from its connections with Black Lives Matter to the activism of international Ambedkarite organisations. This groundbreaking work delivers a powerful analysis of world politics from the perspective of one of the most historically oppressed communities on Earth. Ultimately, Yengde issues an urgent call for a cosmopolitan Dalit universalism as an essential force in today’s global fight for social justice and equality.

About The Author:

Suraj Yengde is a Shorenstein Center inaugural post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has worked with leading international organizations in Geneva, London and New York, and is associate editor of Caste: A Global Journal of Social Exclusion.

A hardback, priced at INR 899, it is going to hit the stands in India from 30th June.