This talk will examine the question: why do Indian middle-class citizens seem to have no compelling interest improving sanitation for the poor, despite the fact that their own health is affected due to the close proximity of the poor? By comparing the current conditions of poverty in India and China, presenter Peter van der Veer will examine cultural theories of attitudes towards ‘the dirty outside world’ and will argue that these theories ignore the importance of caste, and especially, untouchability. The New School’s Sanjay Ruparelia will serve as a discussant.

Peter van der Veer is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen and Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University. He is the author of Gods on Earth (LSE Mongraphs, 1988), Religious Nationalism (University of California Press 1994), Imperial Encounters (Princeton University Press 2001), The Modern Spirit of Asia (Princeton University Press 2014). He is the editor of the new journal, Cultural Diversity in China and is a senior advisor at the India China Institute.