Affiliated Faculty

  <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Surinder Singh Jodhka is Professor of Sociology (retired) at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Senior Affiliate Fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH). His research addresses the contemporary dynamics of caste, agrarian change, rural transformation, and the political sociology of community identities, with sustained empirical attention to Panjab. He is a recipient of the ICSSR–Amartya Sen Award for Distinguished Social Scientist in Sociology (2012) and the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies (2024).</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">His monograph <strong><em>Caste in Contemporary India</em></strong> (Routledge, 2015; 2nd ed. 2018) draws on fieldwork in Panjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan to examine how caste persists and transforms under conditions of urbanization, democratic politics, and market liberalization. The book traces how caste operates not merely as ritual hierarchy but as a structuring reality of economic life, labour markets, access to services, and everyday social interaction. <strong><em>The Indian Middle Class</em> </strong>(Oxford University Press, 2016), co-authored with Aseem Prakash, examines the social composition and cultural politics of India's expanding middle class, including the barriers facing Dalit professionals and entrepreneurs. His <strong><em>Caste: Oxford India Short Introductions</em></strong> (Oxford University Press, 2012) provides a concise overview of the concept's history, its colonial and postcolonial reconfigurations, and its contemporary social life.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]"><strong><em>The Indian Village: Rural Lives in the 21st Century</em></strong> (Aleph Book Company, 2023) synthesizes decades of Jodhka's engagement with rural India, examining how villages have been transformed by the green revolution, liberalization, migration, and the erosion of traditional agrarian economies. <strong><em>India's Villages in the 21st Century: Revisits and Revisions</em> </strong>(Oxford University Press, 2019), co-edited with Edward Simpson, brings together restudies of villages first surveyed by social anthropologists and economists in the 1950s, offering new perspectives on what has changed and what has endured in rural social structure.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">With Jules Naudet, Jodhka co-edited <strong><em>The Oxford Handbook of Caste</em></strong> (Oxford University Press, 2023), a comprehensive reference volume addressing the concept's historical construction, its operation across religions and regions, and its contemporary manifestations in politics, labour, business, and everyday life. They also co-edited <strong><em>Mapping the Elite: Power, Privilege and Inequality</em></strong> (Oxford University Press, 2019). His other edited volumes include <strong><em>Contested Hierarchies, Persisting Influence: Caste and Power in 21st Century India</em> </strong>(Orient Blackswan, 2018, with James Manor), <strong><em>A Handbook of Rural India</em></strong> (Orient Blackswan, 2018), <strong><em>Agrarian Change in India</em></strong> (Orient Blackswan, 2022), and <em>I<strong>nterrogating India's Modernity: Democracy, Identity and Citizenship</strong></em> (Oxford University Press, 2013).</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Jodhka's work on caste in Panjab and among Sikhs constitutes a distinct body of scholarship. "Sikhism and the Caste Question: Dalits and Their Politics in Contemporary Punjab" (<strong><em>Contributions to Indian Sociology</em></strong>, 2004) examines how caste identities function in a regional context where Sikh theological principles oppose hierarchy yet caste-based divisions persist in everyday life — in gurdwara management, land relations, and political mobilization. "Caste and Untouchability in Rural Punjab" (<strong><em>Economic and Political Weekly</em></strong>, 2002) documents the practice of untouchability in Panjab's villages through detailed fieldwork. "Sikhs in Contemporary Times: Religious Identities and Discourses of Development" (<strong><em>Sikh Formations</em></strong>, 2009) addresses internal social and economic divisions within the Sikh community — regional, class, and caste — that scholars focused on theology and political identity have largely overlooked. "The Ravi Dasis of Punjab: Global Contours of Caste and Religious Strife" (<strong><em>Economic and Political Weekly</em></strong>, 2009) provides a historical perspective on the Ravi Dasi movement and its global dimensions. "Sikh Religion and Contentions around Caste" (2024) critiques how popular and academic framings of caste among Sikhs remain constrained by orientalist and colonial constructs. He contributed "Changing Manifestations of Caste in the Sikh Panth" to <strong><em>The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies</em></strong> (2014), edited by Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Additional Panjab-focused publications include "Beyond 'Crises': Rethinking Contemporary Punjab Agriculture" (<strong><em>Economic and Political Weekly</em></strong>, 2006), "Caste and Democracy: Assertion and Identity among the Dalits of Rural Punjab" (<strong><em>Sociological Bulletin</em></strong>, 2006), "Internal Classification of Scheduled Castes: The Punjab Story" (with Avinash Kumar, <strong><em>Economic and Political Weekly</em></strong>, 2007), and "From Zaat to Qaum: Fluid Contours of the Ravi Dasi Identity in Punjab" in <strong><em>Dalit Studies</em></strong> (Duke University Press, 2016). He writes a regular column for <strong><em>The Tribune</em></strong> (Chandigarh) on Panjab politics, including analyses of Shiromani Akali Dal politics, Akal Takht governance, and caste dynamics in the state's elections.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">He is editor of the Routledge India book series "Religion and Citizenship" and co-editor of the Oxford University Press series "Exploring India's Elite." He served as Country Coordinator for the Religions and Development Research Programme (DFID–University of Birmingham, 2006–2011) and as a member of the Global Network on Inequality at Princeton University. He has held visiting positions at the University of Lund (ICCR Chair, 2012–2013), the University of Bergen (2005), the University of Wisconsin–Madison (2002), and the University of Oxford (South Asian Visiting Scholar, 1997).</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Before joining JNU in 2001, Jodhka taught at the University of Hyderabad (1991–1998) and Panjab University, Chandigarh (1998–2001). He holds an M.A. (1985), M.Phil. (1987), and Ph.D. (1991), all in Sociology.</p>

The contemporary dynamics of caste in India, with emphasis on empirical fieldwork in Panjab, Haryana, and north India. Caste within the Sikh Panth, including Dalit Sikh politics, untouchability in rural Panjab, and the Ravi Dasi movement. Agrarian change, rural transformation, and the social consequences of the green revolution and economic liberalization. The political sociology of community identities, including religion, caste, and democratic politics. Social stratification, elite formation, and the Indian middle class.