Reinventing Caste

This book reveals that caste, usually assumed to be a feature of Hindu society, was in fact a trans-religious phenomenon in colonial India, as it is today. Even in an Islamic religious milieu that was supposed to be more egalitarian than hierarchical Hinduism, colonial Indian subjects thought and acted in terms of caste. Through a focus on one agrarian Muslim caste of colonial India known as Arains, Ashish Koul shows how some Muslims transmuted caste and emplaced it within the Islamic tradition of their time. In late nineteenth-early twentieth century India, Arain Muslims were derogatively called mali – gardener – instead of what they wished to be seen as – respectable landholders. Seeking to refute such negative portrayals, a group of elite Arain Muslim landholders and educated professionals came together to develop a new Islamic vocabulary for caste. Through a variety of primary sources in English and Urdu, Koul analyzes the intricacies of caste, religion, and politics among Muslims in colonial India. By asserting that being Arain was a true way of being Muslim, elite Arains were able to intervene in significant debates about Muslim identity, colonial law, and political representation. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that in order to understand why caste persists among South Asians, we must examine how caste consciousness has been entrenched within multiple religious traditions.