Page 72 - EW February 2023

Books

‘captive market’, Churchill coalesce around the quota-
purported to see the tion from Shakespeare’s CASTE DISCRIMINATION
Empire as essential to the King John with which he AND EXCLUSION IN INDIAN
well-being of the governed opened Malakand. UNIVERSITIES: A CRITICAL
REFLECTION
as much as the governing; According to the fair N. Sukumar
in his 1931 phrase, had play of the world
Britain addressed itself Let me have an audi- ROUTLEDGE
“to the moral and mate- ence. Rs.12,600 Pages 215
rial problems that are at RAMU DAMODARAN (The
the root of Indian life… Book Review)
it would have been much versity becomes a crude With comprehensive
better for the working folk extension of the outside ethnographic
of Burnley and Bombay, of Pernicious world? research, Sukumar
Oldham and Ahmedabad”. N. Sukumar’s insightful details how caste
Today, Kishan Rana casteism in new book is a damning continues to shape
notes, we would call these indictment of the the functioning of
good governance concepts. academia profoundly inegalitarian India's universities
But the problem was nature of Indian
that Churchill clutched universities. With focus on
at anything that served NOWLEDGE, AT the everyday plight of SC caste performativity. To do
his political purposes. least in its a priori (scheduled caste) students that, he makes use of an
His interest in improved Kform, promises to in Indian university exhaustive questionnaire
colonial management was be liberating. The thought campuses, Sukumar builds which seeks to expose the
shallow. He never reverted of being able to learn, a harrowing narrative to nuances of caste signifiers
to these arguments or question, unlearn and then argue how caste continues in academic spaces.
developed them into policy relearn is deeply empower- to shape the functioning of These include issues
recommendations. Worse, ing. However, knowledge universities. about but not limited to,
later as prime minister, de- production and knowledge With a comprehensive student enrolment ratios,
termining colonial policy, dissemination seldom ethnographic research scholarships, social bond-
these humanitarian and remain under the control work featuring interviews ing in classroom and hos-
good governance concerns of one individual. Knowl- with 600 students from tels, research experience
did not tinge or guide edge can become liberating five Central and five and supervision, adminis-
Churchill’s actions. and empowering only if State universities across trative support, and legal
What their profession its systemic functioning is India, the author’s work and institutional support,
did do was help shape his informed by sentiments delineates multiple forms among others. Interviews
spoken and written word, of equity, empathy and of caste discrimination were conducted in Hindi,
which gave indication of respect. and exclusionary practices English, Malayalam, Tamil
the person he might have The space of a uni- that are strategically and Telugu. The interview-
proven to be, courageous versity, more so a public produced and reproduced ees included 412 men and
and coolheaded, drawing university, is theoretically on university campuses. 188 women.
upon the metaphor of his meant to be a place where Along with a meticulously Sukumar provides ump-
first ventures into battle the individual navigates detailed quantitative teen disturbing examples
as a soldier, which were social and cultural fissures account, the author from his own fieldwork
invariably combined with encountered in the outside underlines the need to and supplements them
journalistic reporting from world. But what happens explore the often-neglected by ingeniously infusing
the battlefield, harbinger when this space, which psychosocial dimensions the narrative with already
to the intertwined lives he promises socio-cultural and consequences of these published accounts of
led as a leader and histori- emancipation, is itself practices. exclusion and discrimina-
an, each action determined riddled with hierarchical As a first-generation tion. His account begins
as much by the immediacy notions of merit and privi- student whose caste with a theoretical frame-
of its impact as its measure lege? What if the rosy-eyed consciousness crystal- work to unravel pedagogy’s
by a reader distant in time emancipatory potentiali- lised as a SC student in intimate connection with
and geography; in the end, ties of the university space the post-Mandal phase discrimination and exclu-
and in his life, affirming end up being a dystopian in Hyderabad, Sukumar sion. By using Bourdieu’s
the truth that all seemed to universe? What if the uni- identifies subtle forms of concept of cultural capital,

72 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2023