Caste, Gender and Race

Today weare living in an age of growing polarization. Aggressive nationalism and religious fundamentalism are a menace to the secular and democratic structure of our country. Cleavages and fragmentations seem to be more glaring than ever that are detrimental to the unity and integrity of our nation and wellbeing of the masses. Binary oppositions –self /other, high class/low class, high caste/low caste, Hindu/Muslim, national/anti-national are being fabricated and reinforced to maintain power relation. It seems we are on the brink of catastrophe. Fissures in society are assuming alarming magnitude, if not dealt with earnestly, may perhaps, one day bring about apocalypse that will ruin us all irrespective of our class, class, gender and race. We must understand interconnection between us all, and must seek to integrate all the binaries into monistic, non-dichotomous expressionjust “human being” by dispensing with regressive, man-made categorization, as the truth is ‘every one impinges on everyone else.’ Live and let others live with dignity must be our mission to ensure egalitarian and just society. Let us engage in conjoint, shared, associated, and mutually meaningful activities and start our life anew.This book is a step forward towards meeting this end. The book Caste, Gender and Race: A Politics of Hegemony discusses hegemonic education policy which is termed as a soft slavery, the dilemma of Anglo-Saxons as to caste, gender and race. It also deals with counter hegemonic discourse in Dalit and African-American Literature. Further the book foregrounds representation of hegemony in films by Nagraj Manjule and Shyam Benegal.We believe that this book is going to be a rich epistemic resource for academics, research scholars, practitioners, policy makers and all those who believe in humanitarian valuessuch as global peace, universal brotherhood, non-violence, equality, justice and equal human dignity.