Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction. Dalit Studies: New Perspectives on Indian History and Society / Ramnarayan S. Rawat and K. Satyanarayana  1

1. The Indian Nation in Its Egalitarian Conception / Gopul Guru  31

Part I. Probing the Historical

2. Colonial Archive versus Colonial Sociology: Writing Dalit History / Ramnarayan S. Rawat  53

3. Social Space, Civil Society, and Dalit Agency in Twentieth-Century Kerala / P. Sanal Mohan  74

4.  Dilemmas of Dalit Agendas: Political Subjugation and Self-Emancipation in Telugu Country, 1910-50 / Chinnaiah Jangam  104

5. Making Sense of Dalit Sikh History / Raj Kumar Hans  131

Part II. Probiing the Present

6. The Dalit Reconfiguration of Modernity: Citizens and Castes in the Telugu Public Sphere / K. Satyanarayana  155

7. Questions of Representation in Dalit Critical Discourse: Premchand and Dalit Feminism / Laura Brueck  180

8. Social Justice and the Question of Categorization of Scheduled Caste Reservations: The Dandora Debate in Andhra Pradesh / Sambaiah Gundimeda  202

9. Caste and Class among the Dalits / D. Shyam Babu  233

10. From Zaat to Qaum: Fluid Contours of the Ravi Dasi Indentity in Punjab / Surinder S. Jodhka  248

Bibliography  271

Contributors  293

Index  295

D. Shyam Babu

Laura Brueck

Sambaiah Gundimeda

Gopal Guru

Rajkumar Hans

Chinnaiah Jangam

Surinder Jodhka

P. Sanal Mohan

"Dalit Studies raises and tries to answer imperative questions and also demonstrates areas open to further research. It therefore provides an interesting read for specialists and nonspecialists alike." — Amal Shahid, LSE Review of Books

"The editors successfully locate and contextualise the historical agendas and agencies of Dalit Studies across time and space and have also aptly documented and explicated the sources and milieus of the origin, emergence and proliferation of Dalit Studies. Moreover, they clearly explain how the ideological as well as epistemological paradigms that prevailed in India for a long time stood in the way as obstacles that hindered more complex realisation of Dalit discourses and practices." — Sheeju N.V., South Asia Research

“The authors are aware that they represent the transition in the field of Dalit studies where Dalits initially were mere objects of study, but now with research contributions such as the present volume, they are also the subjects who are contributing to the study of Dalit lives…. The editors have done a commendable job in bringing together the diverse strands of scholarship for a Western audience.”

"This anthology, the work mostly of Dalit and other like-minded scholars, will doubtless inspire students and scholars of caste, history, Dalits, literary studies, and the politics of India as well as comparative historians of marginality and difference." — Shailaja Paik, Histoire sociale / Social History

"Dalit Studies raises and tries to answer imperative questions and also demonstrates areas open to further research. It therefore provides an interesting read for specialists and nonspecialists alike." —Amal Shahid, LSE Review of Books

"The editors successfully locate and contextualise the historical agendas and agencies of Dalit Studies across time and space and have also aptly documented and explicated the sources and milieus of the origin, emergence and proliferation of Dalit Studies. Moreover, they clearly explain how the ideological as well as epistemological paradigms that prevailed in India for a long time stood in the way as obstacles that hindered more complex realisation of Dalit discourses and practices." —Sheeju N.V., South Asia Research

“The authors are aware that they represent the transition in the field of Dalit studies where Dalits initially were mere objects of study, but now with research contributions such as the present volume, they are also the subjects who are contributing to the study of Dalit lives…. The editors have done a commendable job in bringing together the diverse strands of scholarship for a Western audience.”

"This anthology, the work mostly of Dalit and other like-minded scholars, will doubtless inspire students and scholars of caste, history, Dalits, literary studies, and the politics of India as well as comparative historians of marginality and difference." —Shailaja Paik, Histoire sociale / Social History

"Dalit Studies presents exciting new scholarship that makes for a powerful introduction to the Dalit struggle against injustices in modern India. Arguing for a contemporary global history that places practices of exclusion based on caste or color at its center, this volume invokes insightful comparisons between Dalit battles and African American campaigns for civil rights."  — Barbara D. Savage, University of Pennsylvania

"This book provides a series of empirically rich and provocative essays on Dalit history, politics, and religion, mostly on subject matters about which little is known. The introduction is a tour de force, calling into question dominant interpretations of South Asian society and history, and offering compelling new counterperspectives. This volume will be invaluable to scholars and students interested in Dalit studies and is a must-read for anyone involved in teaching or doing research in modern South Asia."  — Douglas E. Haynes, author of, Small Town Capitalism in Western India

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