Education and Caste in India: The Dalit Question

Seven decades since Indian Independence, education takes the centre stage in every major discussion on development, especially when we talk about social exclusion, Dalits and reservations today. This book examines social inclusion in the education sector in India for Scheduled Castes (SCs).

The volume:

· Foregrounds the historical struggles of the SCs to understand why the quest for education is so central to shaping SC consciousness and aspirations;

· Works with exhaustive state-level studies with a view to assessing commonalities and differences in the educational status of SCs today;

· Takes stock of the policymaking and extent of implementations across Indian states to understand the challenges faced in different scenarios;

· Seeks to analyse the differential in existing economic conditions, and other structural constraints, in relation to access to quality educational facilities;

· Examines the social perceptions and experiences of SC students as they live now.

A major study, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of education, sociology and social anthropology, development studies and South Asian studies.

Ghanshyam Shah is former Professor in Social Sciences at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has also been a national fellow at ICSSR, Delhi, and at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, India.

Kanak Kanti Bagchi is Professor at the Department of Economics, University of North Bengal, Siliguri, West Bengal, India.

Vishwanatha Kalaiah is Professor and Chairman at the Department of Economics and Director, Centre for Study for Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy Mangalore University, Mangalore, India.