Political Sociology of Poverty In India: Between Politics of Poverty and Poverty of Politics

This paper on political sociology of poverty in India is based upon the assumption that a) the caste system and economic inequality complement each other in the case of the poorer sections of Indian society, b) Indian society has experienced complexities in identification of class system due to manifold gradations of social rank, which have evolved in the form of caste and tribe along with quasi-religious setting of deprivation, c) the colonial and post-colonial polity have been organized around the recognition of nebulous coexistence of ‘caste’ and ‘class’ principles in the approach of state and political community towards the weaker sections of the society.