The Pariah Problem Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India (Cultures of History)

450 Pages·2014·3.12 MB·English

by  Rupa Viswanath

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THE PARIAH PROBLEM
Cultures of History
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CULTURES OF HISTORY
Nicholas Dirks, Series Editor
The death of history, reported at the end of the twentieth century, was clearly
premature. It has become a hotly contested battleground in struggles over
identity, citizenship, and claims of recognition and rights. Each new national
history proclaims itself as ancient and universal, while the contingent character of
its focus raises questions about the universality and objectivity of any historical
tradition. Globalization and the American hegemony have created cultural,
social, local, and national backlashes. Cultures of History is a new series of books
that investigates the forms, understandings, genres, and histories of history,
taking history as the primary text of modern life and the foundational basis for
state, society, and nation.
Shail Mayaram, Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the
Margins
Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in
Colonial and Postcolonial India
Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic
Counterpublics
Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod, editors,N akba: Palestine, 1948, and the
Claims of Memory
Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India,
1700–1960
Laura Bear, Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the
Intimate Historical Self
Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern
South Asia
Bernard Bate, Tamil Oratory and the Dravidian Aesthetic: Democratic Practice in
South India
Partha Chatterjee, Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy
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The Pariah Problem
Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India
RUPA VISWANATH
Columbia University Press
New York
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Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-53750-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Viswanath, Rupa.
The pariah problem : caste, religion, and the social in modern India / Rupa
Viswanath.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16306-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-53750-6 (ebook)
1. Pariahs—History. 2. Pariahs—Social conditions. 3. Caste—India—History. 4.
India—Social conditions. 5. India—History. I. Title.
DS432.P25V57 2014
305.5'6880954—dc23
2013047446
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at
[email protected].
Cover Photo: © Bridgeman Art Library
Cover Design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have
expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
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For the Dalit women, children, and men who were the
targets of the official policies and unofficial strategems
this book describes, and for their descendants
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Mitunter aber verlangt eben dasselbe Leben, das die Vergessenheit
braucht, die zeitweilige Vernichtung dieser Vergessenheit; dann soll
es eben gerade klar werden, wie ungerecht die Existenz irgend eines
Dinges, eines Privilegiums, einer Kaste, einer Dynastie zum Beispiel
ist, wie sehr dieses Ding den Untergang verdient. Dann wird seine
Vergangenheit kritisch betrachtet.…Denn da wird nun einmal die
Resultate früherer Geschlechter sind, sind wir auch die Resultate
ihrer Verirrungen, Leidenschaften und Irrthümer, ja Verbrechen…
Sometimes this same life that requires forgetting demands a
temporary destruction of this forgetfulness; it wants to be clear as to
how unjust the existence of something—a privilege, a caste, a
dynasty, for example—is, and how greatly this thing deserves to
perish. Then its past is regarded critically.…Since we are the
outcome of earlier generations, we are also the outcome of their
aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes…
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The epigraph is taken from the R. J. Hollingdale translation of Nietzsche’s
Untimely Meditations (ed. Daniel Breazeale, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), 76. I have slightly altered the translation.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE ON TERMINOLOGY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
Introduction
Chapter 1
Land Tenure or Labor Control? The Agrarian
Mise-en-Scène
Chapter 2
Conceptualizing Pariah Conversion: Caste, Spirit,
Matter, and Penury
Chapter 3
The Pariah–Missionary Alliance: Agrarian
Contestation and the Local State
Chapter 4
The State and the Cēri
Chapter 5
Settling Land, Sowing Conflict; or, The Rise and
Rise of Religious Neutrality
Chapter 6
The Marriage of Sacred and Secular Authority:
New Liberalism, Mission–State Relations, and the
Birth of Authenticity
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Chapter 7
Giving the Panchama a Home: Creating “a
Friction Where None Exists”
Chapter 8
Everyday Warfare: Caste, Class, and the Public
Chapter 9
The Depressed Classes, Rights, and the Embrace
of the Social
Conclusion:
The Pariah Problem’s Enduring Legacies
GLOSSARY
NOTES
ARCHIVAL SOURCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
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