On caste: towards critical non-derivative caste curriculum theory

Caste is one of the most obnoxious absences within our field’s solar system. A graphic example of Freudian hysterical blindness, as MurzBan Jal (2023) proclaims, which aggravates the field’s epistemicidal nature as well as its scholarship and research. This article examines the persistence of caste as a graded system that precedes the Empire, and the nefarious implications of its undergirded logic – the Hindutva rationale. Moreover, the essay highlights the significant contribution of Dalit and Anti-caste intellectuals working from and within what Santos (2014) calls the ‘epistemologies from the South’ to eradicate ‘casted’ societies. The paper examines and counters inaccurate impulses that conflate ‘caste’ with ‘class’ and ‘race’ that constitute a spitting image of the coloniality of whiteness and the ‘monumentality’ of Eurocentric white reason. Furthermore, the article calls for a commitment to a critical caste curriculum theory through an itinerant curriculum theory to help disestablish the field’s original sin: eugenics.