Overview
- His family said he died Tuesday night at his New Delhi home after a period of illness, following a hospital stay, and his last rites were performed Wednesday.
- A longtime Delhi School of Economics professor and since 2003 Professor Emeritus, he received the Padma Bhushan in 2005.
- His influential works include Caste, Class and Power, Society and Politics in India, and The Idea of Natural Inequality and Other Essays, grounded in landmark fieldwork in Sripuram, Tamil Nadu.
- Colleagues and former students recalled a rigorous, accessible teacher who insisted on empirical fieldwork, with tributes led by historian Ramachandra Guha.
- After retirement he served with ICSSR and as Ashoka University’s chancellor from 2014 to 2017, and he argued against caste enumeration, a position revisited as India plans a 2027 caste count.