Caste: A Global Story by Suraj Yengde explores caste from both a Dalit and global perspective, critiquing caste’s enduring structures and calling for justice in India and beyond. Yengde’s bold blend of memoir, theory and activism, challenge to elite narratives, and global framing of caste makes for a significant addition to anti-caste literature, write Nitin Ranjan and Yasha Singh.
Caste: A Global Story. Suraj Yengde. Hurst. 2025.
In Caste: A Global Story, Suraj Yengde offers a bold and deeply personal reframing of caste injustice in India and its global echoes. A Dalit scholar and public intellectual, Yengde writes with both urgency and authority, blending autobiographical narrative, political theory, and field insight to challenge dominant understandings of caste. Much has already been written on caste, from sociological analyses such as M.N. Srinivas’s theorisation of “Sanskritisation” to Louis Dumont’s influential (and contested) account in Homo Hierarchicus. Against these “from above” perspectives, Yengde aligns with a counter-tradition “from below,” most powerfully articulated in B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste and carried forward by thinkers like Kancha Ilaiah (Why I Am Not a Hindu) and Sharmila Rege. His central provocation is clear: caste must be theorised not from above – by academics, statisticians, or reformist elites but from below – through the lived experiences and political wisdom of those most affected by it.
Rather than offering a linear academic treatise, Caste: A Global Story is a hybrid work-part memoir, part polemic, part social commentary. It seeks to disrupt caste not only as a structure of inequality but also as a system of knowledge production. In doing so, Yengde aligns himself with a long tradition of anti-caste thinkers from B.R. Ambedkar to Kancha Ilaiah, but with a distinctive voice shaped by his position in both Indian and global academic spaces. As debates intensify following the release of India’s caste census in 2026, Yengde’s argument for epistemic justice and his critique of dominant caste data regimes appear timelier than ever.
Personal, not “objective”
At the heart of Yengde’s argument is a methodological intervention grounded in what he calls “Charvaka rationalism” – a philosophical tradition that privileges empirical, embodied knowledge over abstract, textual authority. He insists that knowledge about caste must emerge from experience, not elite interpretation. This stance leads him to embrace first-person narrative, affect, and field testimony as legitimate forms of political and scholarly expression.
In rejecting the detached objectivity often demanded of Dalit scholars, Yengde also critiques the dominant academic and policy discourse on caste, which he sees as sanitising lived violence through technocratic frameworks. For instance, the 2022 Bihar caste-based survey or EPW discussions reduce oppression to statistics, obscuring the humiliation and trauma that shape everyday Dalit life. This approach may unsettle readers accustomed to the conventions of academic writing, but it also allows for a richer, more layered understanding of caste’s emotional and psychological toll.
Caste beyond borders
A particularly compelling section addresses caste in the diaspora. Drawing on his encounters with Indo-Caribbean communities such as Trinidad’s National Council of Indian Culture and the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Trinidad & Tobago and Hindu organisations in the United States including the Hindu American Foundation and Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America – Yengde shows how caste hierarchies can be reproduced under the banner of “culture” or “service.”
Yengde’s framing pushes against the idea that caste is a purely Indian issue, instead urging a global reckoning.
Yengde’s critique is both sociological and political. He argues that many upper-caste elites in the diaspora benefit from caste privilege while denying its relevance, especially in sectors like tech and business. However, Cisco caste discrimination case in California starkly revealed how caste bias remains relevant even with migration. Yengde’s framing pushes against the idea that caste is a purely Indian issue, instead urging a global reckoning. He points to Indian-origin business dynasties like the Mittals, Hindujas, and Infosys founders as examples of caste capital operating within global capitalism disguised as merit. By exposing these structures, Yengde expands the scope of anti-caste struggle to a truly transnational terrain.
Limits of reform and the politics of inclusion
Another of Yengde’s major contributions is his critique of “Savarna-led reform” – a phrase he uses to describe elite-driven efforts at caste inclusion that fall short of genuine redistribution. He argues that upper-caste liberals have often positioned themselves as allies in the anti-caste movement while retaining control over institutions, discourse, and resources. According to Yengde, this form of symbolic inclusion – what he terms “Protestant Hinduism” may offer recognition but rarely transfers power. The phrase recalls the Protestant Reformation, where Martin Luther rejected Catholic authority to reclaim a direct link to God; likewise, Dalits and Bahujans resist Brahminical dominance in religion, seeking a more personal faith free from historical injustice, as seen in Ambedkar’s Navayana Buddhism.
This critique is especially resonant in discussions of policy and development, where numerical representation (eg, electoral quotas or bureaucratic inclusion) may mask deeper patterns of exclusion. For instance, while Scheduled Caste candidates may be elected to local office, their actual authority over decisions, budgets, or personnel is often undermined by informal power structures. Yengde’s call is not merely for greater representation, but a restructuring of authority that centres Dalit voices and knowledge systems.
Yengde’s call is not merely for greater representation, but a restructuring of authority that centres Dalit voices and knowledge systems.
While the book’s arguments are forceful and timely, its stylistic choices may divide readers. Yengde writes in a voice that is unapologetically confrontational – a choice that serves his purpose but may challenge those looking for a more conventional academic tone. The prose shifts between academic references, poetic reflection, and political critique, often within the same chapter. Some readers may find this disorienting, while others will appreciate the hybrid form as an assertion of epistemic defiance. The work is grounded in rage, survival and resistance, explicitly refusing the detached posture that many academic institutions expect of marginalised writers. As Yengde bluntly puts it, “I refuse to be part of the silence that makes caste look like a footnote in global justice discourse.” This choice, though deliberate, may limit its uptake in policy or bureaucratic circles that prize objectivity. But for those willing to read with humility and political openness, the book offers insights rarely found in standard policy discourse.
A major contribution to anti-caste literature
Caste: A Global Story is particularly timely in the current global climate, where movements for racial justice and decolonisation are reshaping academic and public life. Yengde’s work speaks to broader conversations about whose knowledge counts, how inequality is institutionalized, and what solidarity across oppressed groups might look like. His reflections on Afro-Dalit solidarity, caste capitalism, and epistemic sovereignty resonate far beyond India.
For scholars, the book offers an important counterpoint to conventional studies of caste, especially those that rely heavily on census data, legal reform, or development metrics. For activists, it is both a provocation and a companion. And for readers unfamiliar with caste, it serves as a powerful introduction, though one that demands engagement rather than passive consumption. In our own experience working on caste enumeration and data justice through the NGO Inside Jharkhand we have encountered many of the same patterns Yengde describes, such as symbolic inclusion without power, data as erasure and bureaucratic denial of caste realities. While these parallels are not the focus of this review, they underscore the continued relevance of Yengde’s core insights in both scholarly and fieldwork.
Caste: A Global Story is not just a book about caste; it is a challenge to how caste is seen, known, and resisted. Yengde’s call for epistemic sovereignty, his critique of elite reformism, and his insistence on lived knowledge make this a significant contribution to anti-caste literature. While the book’s tone may unsettle some readers, its urgency is precisely what makes it indispensable. For anyone seeking to understand the structures of caste beyond the numbers, policies, or rituals, this book is an optimum place to start.
Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Main image: ChameleonsEye on Shutterstock.
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