India's democratic constitution offers a rare possibility to acquire insights into how a constitutional democracy deals with embedded inequalities. Caste is a central topic in this context, and the historically excluded ‘untouchable’ castes (Dalits) have, along with the tribal population (Adivasis), been at the centre of the ambitious policy of equal opportunity. The caste system, however, creates inequalities and exclusion and represents a source of challenges at the heart of the democratic project. In fact, the topic of this book – caste and law – has grown bigger, more global and politically charged, as I have been writing about it. It is as if this object of study has become more visible every day.

Caste-based exclusion compares to racism as a phenomenon that is aggravated by the rise of right-wing rhetoric and mobilization. The mobilization of Hindu nationalist groups since 2014 seems to have put India's constitutional democracy in a critical situation. But caste-based violence and abuse have been a troubling side of India's democracy throughout the postcolonial period. Caste is part of the everyday social order. Despite its current visibility in India and overseas, however, there is a great deal of confusion and mystification about this complex social system. Caste does not fit into pre-existing categories in law, politics or sociology. The social sciences were developed with the growth of the modern nation-state, and its many technical approaches have not been designed to address caste in South Asia.

A huge amount of writing has emerged on caste and Dalits. Yet this book is premised on the idea that there is much more to learn by bringing caste into the global conversation on social inequalities and exclusion in constitutional democracies, states and organizations. Social scientists must have the courage to use their understanding outside the strictures of disciplines’ silos, since these are often mired in Eurocentrism, empiricism or theoretical deductions. This implies, among other things, that one needs to bring the study of caste outside the discipline of social anthropology. Caste represents a thought-provoking social system in which hegemony and inequality are systematically reproduced. This matters for law and democratic thought, and many concepts appear either out of date or inadequate to explain its significance.