Descendants of Pioneers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans -- Brahmadeya Villages of Tamil Nadu -- Power and Violence -- The Moneylender and the Peasant -- Custom as Politics -- Caste in Modern Politics: South Kanara -- Politics of Caste in Gujarat -- 6. Kings and Urban Society -- Regional Authority and the Role of the King -- Forms of Kingship: Gujarat and Northern India -- Kingship in South India -- A Tentative Typology of Indian Kingship -- Urban Life: Power and Community -- Pre-colonial Towns of Tamil Nadu -- Vijayanagar in the Sixteenth Century -- Surat, the Port of the Mughals -- Temple Towns or Ritual Centres -- Udupi: From Temple Centre to the Modern Town -- Power and Community in the Towns of Gujarat -- Ahmedabad -- Bombay: Metropolis with a Communitarian Structure -- Calcutta and Other Metropolitan Centres -- Caste and Urban Structure -- 7. Abstractions and Models -- Urban Life: Community and Cosmopolitanism -- Towards an Abstract Order -- Indigenous Models of Indian Society -- Abstract Models and Social Dynamics -- Overarching Indigenous Models: The Brahmin Model -- The King-centered Model -- The Merchant Model -- A Western Model of Stratification -- Alternative Models of Western Society -- Contesting the Holistic Models -- The Models Subalterns Use -- Hegemony and Subaltern Thought -- 8. A Discourse that Structures Hegemony -- Caste and Hinduism -- Is there a Hindu Pantheon? -- A Historical Approach: Rise and Fall of the Gods -- The Question of Integration through Ritual -- Hierarchy Re-defined as Discourse -- From Inequality to Hierarchy -- Discourse as Assertion -- Hierarchizing Discourse: An Example from Religion -- Defining Hierarchizing Discourse -- Inclusion or Separation: A Debate about Goddesses -- Hierarchizing Discourses on Kingship -- Discourse, Models and Hegemony -- Dominant and Contesting Discourses