Beteille was born to a French father and an Indian mother.[2] He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in anthropology from the University of Calcutta.[3] Thereafter he received his doctorate from the University of Delhi. After a brief stint at the Indian Statistical Institute as a research fellow, he joined the faculty of sociology at the DSE.[4]
The Backward Classes in Contemporary India, Oxford University Press, 1992.
Social and Cultural Reproduction of Caste, Kinship and Occupation in India, 1991.
Society and Politics in India: Essays in a Comparative Perspective, Athlone Press, 1991 (L.S.E. Monographs in Social Anthropology, no. 63).
The Idea of Natural Inequality and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, 1983 (new, enlarged edition, Oxford University Press, 1987).
Inequality Among Men, Basil Blackwell, 1977 (Italian edition published as La diseguaglianza fra gli uomini, Il Mulino, 1981).
Studies in Agrarian Social Structure, Oxford University Press, 1974.
Six Essays in Comparative Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1974 (enlarged edition published as Essays in Comparative Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1987).
Inequality and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 1972.
Castes: Old and New, Essays in Social Structure and Social Stratification, Asia Publishing House, 1969.