-Democracy hasn't eradicated caste, - writes Arundhati Roy. -It has entrenched and modernized it.-

To best understand caste today in India, Roy insists we must examine the influence of Gandhi in shaping what India ultimately became: independent of British rule, globally powerful, and marked to this day by the caste system.

--For more than half a century--throughout his adult life-- Gandhi's] pronouncements on the inherent qualities of black Africans, untouchables and the laboring classes remained consistently insulting, -- writes Roy. --His refusal to allow working-class people...