In this talk, I take up some of the principal themes in my 2025 book, but with a particular focus on the colonial reconstitution of caste in the nineteenth century. I look at the remarkable ability of conservative Maratha Brahmans to adapt precolonial textual traditions to the world of vernacular print. I also explore the new and often competing definitions of Brahmanhood and Hindu orthodoxy that emerged during this process. The interwar years saw intensifying challenges to this long tradition of Brahman-led nationalism. But the tradition nonetheless survived, and shaped both the emerging ideology of Hindutva, and its early organisational forms.
Rosalind O’Hanlon has worked on the history of western India from the early modern centuries to the present. She has two particular interests: the many historical lives of caste, for which India’s Marathi-speaking regions provide rich historical material, and the history of the family, as a place where women’s life-chances are often powerfully shaped.
