Ramesh Bairy T.S.

Ramesh Bairy T. S. is an associate professor of sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India, and author of 'Being Brahmin, Being Modern: Exploring the Lives of Caste Today'. His research focuses on structure of contemporary caste, inequalities, the region of Karnataka (south India), and the unfolding forms of Hindu-ness.

Ramesh will work on two concerns during his time at the centre: a) to compile a descriptive account of the life of the Hindu monastic institution - the 'matha' - in the state of Karnataka (south India) since the late 19th Century in order to get at why it emerges as a central mediator in enabling access to modern resources for its community of adherents; b) to work off a searing analysis of caste and its stabilities written by BR Ambedkar to ask whether his questions (offered as they were in the 1930s) must remain ours too.