Outline of an Approach Burton Stein Study of historical Indian class formation has long been frustrated by the hostility of academic social science to class-based analyses, in part because caste is taken to be the sociology of India. Caste is only one among several historical socio-cultural institutions which must be de-essentialised and provided with context and contingency This may be possible through an exploration of the rise of that most troublesome of all classes, the petty bourgeoisie.
