Abstract The abolition of caste as demanded during pre-independence period had led to a predicament whereby the need to delegitimize caste was in confict with the commitment to redress the disabilities of caste. The unbridgeable divergence between these two perspectives had made annihilation of caste seem more like a disabling dream than an empowering utopia. The central predicament in caste was the virtual invisibility of the upper caste and hyper visibility of the lower caste that had split society into two unequal and implacably opposed sections. One for which caste appeared to be the only available resource to improve life-chances in a game, where the playing feld was far from level, while for the other camp; caste had already yielded all it could. Contemporary complexities of lower caste and their demands for social justice need to be addressed and close attention to be paid. To its taken for granted side, namely naturalization of upper caste as the legitimate inheritors of modernity. The paper retraces sociological, political, constitutional and judicial perspectives and the emergence and rise of the notion of castelessness. It is an immense privilege to be here today to participate in the collective task of honouring the life and work of Malcolm Satyanathan Adiseshaiah, a pioneer in the feld of development economics and specially educational planning. Honours and awards have the entirely appropriate efect of humbling the recipient. So, even as I ofer my heartfelt thanks to the Malcolm and Elizabeth Adisheshaiah Trust and its Jury for this honour, I am also mindful of the great responsibility it places upon me. I did not know Professor Adiseshaiah and can only claim a tenuous connection to him through one of his students at the Madras Christian College in the 1940s, the late Professor K.N. Raj, who was among my own teachers at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram in the early 1980s. Given the Caste and Castelessness in the Indian Republic: Towards a Biography of the ‘General Category’* Satish Deshpande** * Malcolm Adiseshiah Memorial lecture delivered on 21 November 2012 at Chennai. ** Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi Review of Development & Change, Vol. XVIII No.1, January-June 2013, pp.3-18