Table Of ContentDALIT STUDIES
This page intentionally left blank
D A L I T S T U D I E S
RAMNARAYAN S. RAWAT & K. SATYANARAYANA, EDITORS
Duke University Press • Durham and London • 2016
© 2016 Duke University Press
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on
acid- free paper ∞. Designed by Courtney Leigh Baker and Typeset
in Scala, Scala Sans, and Minion Pro by Westchester Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Rawat, Ramnarayan S., editor. | Satyanarayana, K., editor.
Title: Dalit studies / Ramnarayan S. Rawat and K. Satyanarayana, editors.
Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2015040886|
isbn 9780822361138 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780822361329 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780822374312 (e- book)
Subjects: lcsh: Dalits— India. | Caste— India.
Classification: lcc ds422.c3 d2016 | ddc 305.5/688—d c23
lc rec ord available at http:// lccn. loc. gov/ 2015040886
Cover art: Courtesy of Laxman Aelay, Secular Song, 2013. Acrylic on canvas, 72" × 48".
Laxman Aelay is a contemporary artist from Telangana.
To Dalit men and women who have dedicated their lives
to the pursuit of human dignity
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Acknowle dgments • ix
introduction. Dalit Studies: New Perspectives on
Indian History and Society • 1
ramnarayan s. rawat and k. satyanarayana
1 The Indian Nation in Its Egalitarian Conception • 31
gopal guru
part i. Probing the Historical
2 Colonial Archive versus Colonial Sociology: Writing
Dalit History • 53
ramnarayan s. rawat
3 Social Space, Civil Society, and Dalit Agency in
Twentieth-C entury Kerala • 74
p. sanal mohan
4 Dilemmas of Dalit Agendas: Po liti cal Subjugation and
Self- Emancipation in Telugu Country, 1910–50 • 104
chinnaiah jangam
5 Making Sense of Dalit Sikh History • 131
raj kumar hans
part ii. Probing the Present
6 The Dalit Reconfiguration of Modernity: Citizens and Castes in
the Telugu Public Sphere • 155
k. satyanarayana
7 Q uestions of Repre sen ta tion in Dalit Critical Discourse:
Premchand and Dalit Feminism • 180
laura brueck
8 S ocial Justice and the Question of Categorization of Scheduled
Caste Reservations: The Dandora Debate in Andhra Pradesh • 202
sambaiah gundimeda
9 Caste and Class among the Dalits • 233
d. shyam babu
10 From Zaat to Qaum: Fluid Contours of the Ravi Dasi
Identity in Punjab • 248
surinder s. jodhka
Bibliography • 271 Contributors • 293 Index • 295
viii • contents
AC KNOW LEDG MENTS
Dalit studies has recently emerged as a new field of study in India. As we
explain in the introduction to this volume, a number of factors have contrib-
uted to the rise of this exciting field. Perhaps the most striking is the entry
of Dalit intellectuals into academic institutions. Since the late nineteenth
century there has been a long tradition of Dalit activist- scholars outside
academia. This volume brings a new group of scholars and activist- scholars
to academic attention in North Amer i ca and the West more generally. The
rise of the field of Dalit studies has been propelled by the emergence of a new
generation of Dalit activists and intellectuals since the 1990s. This develop-
ment coincided with the discussions of caste inequities in the Indian media
and academia. In Indian—or, more broadly, South Asian— academia, histori-
cal and anthropological research in the first two de cades of the twenty-fi rst
century yielded information about previously unacknowledged struggles by
Dalit groups, tribal people, women, and other marginal sections of Indian
society. This period also coincided with new research in the disciplines of re-
ligious and literary studies and in historical and contemporary fields, which
further highlighted the role of marginal social groups in sustaining dif er ent
forms of devotion and protest. The exciting new research in the past two
de cades, especially the rise of Dalit studies and new attention paid to B. R.
Ambedkar, also coincided with the formal end of the subaltern studies col-
lective. It is in this new exciting moment that Dalit Studies raises a new set
of questions, focusing on Dalits as subjects of study and on Dalit studies as
a location of marginality to be studied in Indian history. The book seeks to
draw attention to the per sis tence of practices that sustain caste inequality and
its relationship with the unraveling of modernity in India. The last two hun-
dred years of Indian history seems to suggest, as several essays in this volume
argue, that commitments to equality can not only coexist, but can be made
