
The Caste Question
Dalits and the Politics of Modern India
Anupama Rao(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Published on 13. October 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-0-520-25761-0 (ISBN)
Description
This innovative work of historical anthropology explores how India's Dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens. Anupama Rao's account challenges standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western India in the colonial and postcolonial periods, she shines a light on South Asian historiography and on ongoing caste discrimination, to show how persons without rights came to possess them and how Dalit struggles led to the transformation of such terms of colonial liberalism as rights, equality, and personhood. Extending into the present, the ethnographic analyses of "The Caste Question" reveal the dynamics of an Indian democracy distinguished not by overcoming caste, but by new forms of violence and new means of regulating caste.
Reviews / Votes
"Rao's book will be required reading for any student of Dalit emancipation in India for some time to come." -- Sasheej Hegde H-Net Reviews "Most compelling." -- Eleanor Zelliot Asian AffairsMore details
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
10 b-w photographs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-25761-0 (9780520257610)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2009
1st Edition
Naval Institute Press
€33.99
Available for download
Person
Anupama Rao is Associate Professor of History at Barnard College.
Content
List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Author's Note Introduction Part One. Emancipation 1. Caste Radicalism and the Making of a New Political Subject 2. The Problem of Caste Property 3. Dalits as a Political Minority Part Two. The Paradox of Emancipation 4. Legislating Caste Atrocity 5. New Directions in Dalit Politics: Symbologies of Violence, Maharashtra, 1960--1979 6. The Sexual Politics of Caste: Violence and the Ritual-Archaic 7. Death of a Kotwal: The Violence of Recognition Epilogue: Dalit Futures List of Abbreviations Notes Index