Andre Béteille

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Andre Béteille is an Indian sociologist and writer. He is particularly well known for his studies of caste in South India. He was a Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi where he is Professor Emeritus of Sociology since 2003.

He has in the past taught at Oxford University, Cambridge University, the University of Chicago, and the London School of Economics. He is currently Chairman of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and of the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

In the words of historian Ramachandra Guha,

“

Béteille has written insightfully about all the major questions of the day: India's encounters with the West, the contest between religion and secularism, the relationship between caste and class, the links between poverty and inequality, the nurturing of public institutions, the role and responsibilities of the intellectual.

”

Since 2005, Professor Béteille has been a member of the Prime Minister's National Knowledge Commission. In 2006, following a proposal for increasing caste-based reservations, Andre Beteille quit the Commission in protest.

His French name often prompts questions about his ethnicity: it is Bengali-French. He was born, raised and educated in India; his father was French, and his mother Bengali.

1 Bibliography
- 1.1 Essays
2 Selected Quotes
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Bibliography

Sociology: Essays on Approach and Method, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Antinomies of Society: Essays on Ideologies and Institutions, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Chronicles of Our Time, Penguin Books, 2000.
The Backward Classes in Contemporary India, Oxford University Press, 1992.
Society and Politics in India: Essays in a Comparative Perspective, Athlone Press, 1991 (L.S.E. Monographs in Social Anthropology, no. 63).
The Idea of Natural Inequality and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, 1983 (new, enlarged edition, Oxford University Press, 1987).
Inequality Among Men, Basil Blackwell, 1977 (Italian edition published as La diseguaglianza fra gli uomini, Il Mulino, 1981).
Studies in Agrarian Social Structure, Oxford University Press, 1974.
Six Essays in Comparative Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1974 (enlarged edition published as Essays in Comparative Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1987).
Inequality and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 1972.
Castes: Old and New, Essays in Social Structure and Social Stratification, Asia Publishing House, 1969.
Caste, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village, University of California Press, 1965.

[edit] Essays

[edit] Selected Quotes

"The Indian intelligentsia has somewhat mixed attitudes towards the Indian village. While educated Indians are inclined to think or at least speak well of the village, they do not show much inclination for the company of villagers."
"In the past, Indian society was unique in the extremes of which it carried the principle and practice of inequality; today Indian intellectuals appear unique in their zeal for promoting the adoption of equality in every sphere of society."
"The vitality of a religion depends on a continuous critique of it by its own reflective members."
"A civilisation that cannot accommodate a variety of traditions, seeking to maintain a jealous hold on only one single tradition, can hardly be called a civilisation."
"The practice of untouchability is indeed reprehensible and must be condemned by one and all; but that does not mean that we should now begin to regard it as a form of racial discrimination. The Scheduled Castes of India taken together are no more a race than are the Brahmins taken together. Every social group cannot be regarded as a race simply because we want to protect it against prejudice and discrimination."[1]
"Treating caste as a form of race is politically mischievous; what is worse, it is scientifically nonsensical"[2]