This book offers a rigorous exploration of caste as a persistent structure of social exclusion in India. Blending personal narratives with academic inquiry, it situates Dalit experiences within global frameworks of marginalization, drawing parallels with race-based discrimination and systemic oppression worldwide. It critically interrogates the Gandhi–Ambedkar discourse, examines intersectionality of  caste, race,  colour,     and gender—and addresses contemporary movements such as Dalit Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter. Moreover, the book describes the Bhim Army and the Balmiki community's struggles against manual scavenging. Through comparative and transnational perspectives, the book engages with foundational theorists, including Max Weber and Louis Dumont, alongside global thinkers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Martin Luther King Jr., to examine caste in relation to race. It incorporates legal developments, including the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and explores debates on affirmative action, media representation, and the Dalit diaspora. The book brings together research and lived experiences to make complex ideas accessible and relevant. By documenting resilience and resistance, the book contributes to global conversations on equality and the pursuit of dignity. It also reveals that prisons can become sites of extreme suffering for Dalits, drawing on the author's own experience of spending several months in prison as a consequence of caste-based discrimination. Furthermore, the book argues that the question of the "colonizer" is fundamentally different for Dalits than for other communities around the world. It is an essential resource for scholars, researchers, and policymakers concerned with caste, race, social justice, and inclusion.
 
"This is a very comprehensive book on the plea of Dalits, not only in India but in the diaspora too. Building on the scholarship of Dr. Ambedkar, scores of secondary sources and first-hand experience of untouchability, it deals with macro issues as well as very specific and under-studied ones like the role of anti-manual scavenging activists and Dalit feminists. Dr. Kumar’s testimony is a must for anyone interested in the caste system."
Professor Christophe Jaffarlot, author of Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and The Rise of Ethnic Democracy.
 
"This book offers an introduction to the history and present of caste in India. Drawing from the long history of caste in India as well as situating caste in a larger global history of exclusion, it combines scholarship and personal experience to make an important contribution to the study of contemporary caste in India."
Professor Ulka Anjaria, author of  Reading India Now: Contemporary Formations in Literature and Popular Culture.
 
"In Reading Caste in India, Krishan Kumar provides a thought-provoking and often personal reflection on the entwining of caste and race. From the nineteenth century world of anti-caste and abolitionist giants Jyotirao Phule and Sojourner Truth, to the twentieth century of B. R. Ambedkar and W. E. B. Du Bois, the book centers Dalit experiences while reminding that today calls of “Jai Bhim!” and “Black Lives Matter” are heard together in movements that stand shoulder-to-shoulder in struggles to remake the world."
Zach Sell, author of Trouble of the World: Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital