This book is a collection of essays based on the thoughts generated by teaching courses and doing research related to the sociology of education and sociology of law over the years in TISS. It compiles theorizations, judgements, consequences, and ramifications to present a collection of free-thinking essays around the interrelated themes of caste, reservation, atrocity law, and discrimination. While it takes into account existing thinking on particular matters, it also reaches new junctures and presents them to the reader. Among other topics, this book also details the academic strategy for undermining caste, discusses the popular polemic around reservation, and explores the interface between criminal law and caste.

The subject matter of this book also includes:

• Escape from Caste Through Conversion: Is there a Way Out or a Way In?
• Reservation and the Creamy Layer Principle: Solving the Puzzle
• Questioning Excellence: Expelling 73 Students in IIT Roorkee
• Lacking the Basics: The Supreme Court Judgement on Atrocities Act
• Law and Exclusion

Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Bhutan)

Sthabir Khora voluntarily retired from academics in 2022 to focus on grassroots social change. He was Professor and Dean of the School of Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He is the author of Education and Teacher Professionalism which is a recommended reading in the syllabus of M.Ed programs of multiple universities in India.