Paper short abstract:

This paper, built upon secondary data sources, tries to analyse how caste-identities are consolidated and contested among students in Indian Universities. It also seeks to open up a dialogue on possible links between such caste-discourses and resulting psychological distress.

Paper long abstract:

Even as academic scholarship increasingly downplays caste as a social factor of interaction in urban contexts in India, newer ways of social identity consolidation continue to orient caste-hierarchies. In the context of modern urban and inclusive spaces of higher education, interestingly, caste-identities are often articulated under the garb of castelessness (Subramanian, 2015; Deshpande, 2006). 'Merit' is used as an effective trope to assert inherent capabilities (and vice-versa) of some caste groups, usually translating into downright humiliation and exclusion of those deemed as 'lacking merit'. Additionally, identity-politics across the caste-spectrum rather just at the ends lends all the more complexity to campus caste-dynamics.

This paper analyses, from secondary data sources, various mechanisms of identity-consolidation and perpetuation among students in higher education institutions of India. It also tries to build upon these processes of reification of identities to understand how resulting humiliation and exclusion for those at the receiving end of 'merit-debates' lead to long term adverse psychological impact resulting in distress. Paper draws its data from popular media reports, student blogs and social networking forums, published and unpublished literature on caste-discourses in Indian campuses as well as contemporary research on caste's outreach in modern education. The analysis presented forms the basis of an ongoing ethnographic inquiry on caste in modern educational spaces in India.

References

Deshpande, S. (2006) Exclusive Inequalities: Merit, Caste and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education. EPW. 41(24):2438-2444.

Subramanian, A. (2015) Making Merit: Indian Institutes of Technology and Social Life of Caste. Comparative-Studies in Society and History. 57(2):291-322.