One afternoon, at a small gathering in the US, a Brahmin man I shall call Gaurav spoke warmly about his son, Pranav – his academic achievements, his skilled batting on the cricket pitch and his good nature. It was a pleasant conversation, but something caught my attention.

Every time Gaurav uttered his son’s name, he emphasised the nasal weight on the “na” – Pranav. Gaurav, his wife and Pranav himself insisted on this. The nasal “na” Gaurav and his family insisted on is a caste marker, the performance of Brahmin caste identity. Language is a ledger of the mechanism of caste. It records who you are, where you come from and where you stand in the social caste hierarchy.

The mechanism of caste and the linguistic function to work and maintain it was remarkable. This is what I have described as the vulgar inequality of caste in my book, The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India.

Consider another young man I know, also named Pranav. Curious about the divergence in pronunciation and because many parents invest much thought in naming, I once asked Pranav what his name meant. He smiled sheepishly, shrugged, and said, “I have no idea, aunty.”

I suggested it might be related to praan,...

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