In the early 2000s, India was expected to ‘shine’ and emerge as a rising superpower. It was the post-1990s golden generation― professionals fresh out of B-schools and engineering programmes ―who were supposed to take us there. The Great Indian Dream was ready to lift-off. Except we never left the ground.

No one could really explain what went wrong. Some blamed politicians, some corruption, some capitalism and some communal polarization. Most people missed the giant elephant in the room―caste.

Caste in India is mostly researched and reported from the experience of the oppressed. Caste as a privilege is not understood well. How do caste elites respond to modernity? How do they understand culture, intimacy, love and tradition? Were their ideas, institutions and imaginations ever even capable of delivering upon the Great Indian Dream?

In Meet the Savarnas, Ravikant Kisana goes where few authors have dared: to document the lives, the concerns and crises of India’s urban elites, to frame the savarnas as a distinct social cohort, one that operates within itself and yet is oblivious of its own social rules, privileges and systems.