Enclosing Caste. Interview with Rupa Viswanath and Joel Lee – 7 September 2026

The Caste Pod is a podcast hosted by Ajantha Subramanian, historical anthropologist whose work addresses the historicity and political economy of caste. Ajantha is Professor of Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center.

This episode features a conversation with historian Rupa Viswanath and anthropologist Joel Lee. We covered the remarkable transformations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that resulted in widely shared assumptions that caste is primarily a religious phenomenon and that Dalits are essentially Hindus. We discussed how Protestant missionaries enclosed caste within religion by framing untouchability as a form of religious persecution, in the process allowing the extraction of untouchable caste labor to continue unchecked. With the rise of both social reform and electoral politics in the 20th century, this missionary framing of caste and untouchability dovetailed with Gandhi’s own paternalistic embrace of Dalits and movements to build a Hindu majority. In addition to discussing these projects targeting Dalits, we delved into the many ways that Dalits have engaged in their own forms of collective self-definition and action, including both overt legislative and political claims-making and covert expressions of religious alterity. We ended with a brief overview of the contemporary legacies of these historical processes.

Read the transcript here.

Guests

Rupa Viswanath: Professor, Center for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen.

Joel Lee: Associate Professor of Anthropology, Williams College.

References

Rupa Viswanath, The Pariah Problem (2014).

Rupa Viswanath, “Spiritual Slavery, Material Malaise” (2010).

Rupa Viswanath, “Rethinking Caste and Class” (2014).

Joel Lee, Deceptive Majority (2021).

Joel Lee, “Odor and Order” (2017).

Dharma Kumar: Indian economic historian noted for her work on the agrarian history of India.

Bhagwan Das: Indian Theosophist who he served in the Central Legislative Assembly of British India.

Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901).

William Goudie: member of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society who served in colonial Madras Presidency from 1882 to 1906.

Arya Samaj: Hindu reform movement launched in the late 19th century by Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, who advocated a return to what he believed to be the monotheism of the Vedas.

Harijan Sevak Sangh: an organisation founded by M.K. Gandhi in 1932 aimed at the uplift of Dalits.

Poona Pact: a 1932 agreement that replaced separate electorates for Dalits with reserved seats in joint electorates.

Arjun Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers (2006).

M. K. Gandhi, “The Ideal Bhangi” (1936).

M. C. Rajah: Tamil politician, educationist, social and political activist who was the first member of the Dalit community to be elected to the Madras Legislative Council.

Panchayati Raj: system of local self-government in rural India.

Iyothee Thass: Tamil anti-caste thinker and writer who converted to Buddhism and called upon members of his own Pariah caste to do the same.

Tamizhan: or Oru Paisa Tamizhan was an anti-caste weekly started by Iyothee Thass.

Rettamalai Srinivasan: a Dalit activist and politician from colonial Madras Presidency who founded the Adi Dravida Mahajana Sabha in 1893.

Kumbh Mela: major Hindu pilgrimage held every 12 years.

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