A few days ago, I received an  email alert  from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in  Gujarat  for the  Dalit  cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935,  Babasaheb Ambedkar  burnt the  Manusmriti . In 1972, we broke the idol of  Krishna , whom we regarded as the creator of the  varna  (caste) system.”

Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by  Routledge , is penned by one of  Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the  Indian National Congress  and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.