Product Description This volume brings together some of the most important essays written over the past two decades by one of India's most distinguished social scientists. In these papers, Beteille considers the relationship between various forms of inequality and distinction (race, caste, tribe, ethnicity, andgender), the relationship between the values of equality and individualism, and the ambivalent role of the modern Indian state as the guarantor of these values. About the Author Andre Beteille is Professor of Sociology at the University of Delhi.