Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ‘minimum government and maximum governance’ aims at addressing India’s complexity of governance. The poor and marginalised sections are invisible in governance. In overcoming this lacuna, Digital India (with its nine pillars) endeavours for digital empowerment in creating a knowledgeable society where people’s participation in policy formulation and governance of the welfare are given primacy. The minimalist role of governance is to increase people’s engagement in building new India, and Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) reflects Mahatma Gandhi’s sarvodaya and Deendayal Upadhyaya’s philosophy of antyodaya (the rise of the last person).
Even after 75 years of independence, India witnesses the increasing violence unleashed by the upper caste families against the individuals for inter-caste love or marriage. The objective of this article is to critically engage with the operational aspects of Michel Foucault’s biopolitics of caste system in enforcing endogamy in the marital relationship between two individuals. Caste as a social institution governs every aspect of Dalit’s life, ranging from cradle to graveyard. As such, the increasing incidents of (dis)honour killings, from South India, reflect the idea of endogamy, with the ulterior motto of controlling the sexuality of the Dalits and women, thereby ensuring the purity of the caste Hindu society. Thus, the patriarchy is an inseparable element of caste system in controlling the freedom of women in choosing her partner and it is prevalent in sub-castes of Dalit folds also. The question of discrimination and practice of endogamy within Dalit communities should be addressed in marching towards annihilation of the caste.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.