Caste

The relationship between the Gaud Saraswat Brahmins and the Portuguese state has not drawn much scholarly attention. This paper examines the transformation of the numerically marginal, yet most highly placed GSBs in the Portuguese Goa. It focuses on the amicable and conflictive strategies of the community with the Portuguese imperial agents, the colonisers of Portuguese origin and the Goan Catholics. It studies internal contradictions, the caste networks and institutions in the context of competitive conditions in the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. These processes, the paper suggests, are critical in understanding the cultural and political prospects of the scribal communities; they help trace a complex history of language practices, the kind of influence their position and skills enabled, and the formation of a Hindu polity.

Two new indices, the index of representation in longevity and the index of socio-economic inequality in longevity, are presented for examining socio-economic inequality in longevity in India. The India Human Development Survey data from the 2004–05 and 2011–12 rounds are used to investigate socio-economic inequality based on caste, occupation, economic classes, and geographic regions. The findings suggest that India suffers from substantial socio-economic inequality in longevity with the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Muslims being worst off. Groups such as agricultural and non-agricultural labourers, petty traders, and lower economic classes were substantially under-represented in longevity. Regionally, the south and west have over-representation, whereas the central, east, and north-east have under-representation in longevity. 

The evolution of income in India from 2014–19 is analysed, and it is found that the lower end of the income distribution has experienced significant losses—the bottom ventile shows not only a decline in income share of ~41% but also a negative real average income growth of -5.5% per annum. Further investigating the composition of this part of the distribution using rural and urban splits, it is found that even as income shares at the bottom of the urban distribution have increased over time, those at the bottom of the rural distribution have decreased—income share of the bottom decile of the rural income distribution declined by ~43%, and the real average income growth of this decile was -5% per annum. The bottom ventile of the consolidated Indian income distribution is composed primarily of rural incomes and therefore the decline in real incomes is essentially a rural phenomenon.

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The Social Construction of Capabilities in a Tamil Village by L N Venkataraman, Hyderabad:Orient BlackSwan, 2021; pp 190, `595.