Life as a Dalit: Views from the Bottom on Caste in India

Description

Life as a Dalit looks at caste society from the point of view of the Dalits, focusing on their worldview, emotions, and critical appraisal of their own position and of the higher groups. It is a volume based on the critical perspectives provided by scholars who have turned around the more acclaimed and accepted theories of caste society privileging the Brahmanical and textual interpretations of caste. It shows that those at the bottom have their own interpretations and follow a rationality that is tutored by their own life conditions and not what is fed to them from the top. These views from the bottom are indicative of the way in which the oppressed live their lives, make critical judgments, and also stage protests, both symbolic and based on real violence against the oppressive system. The focus is more experiential and based on ground-level data-based chapters. It foregrounds the fact that history is created from the bottom of society as well as from the top and those at the bottom are their own agents and well aware of their subject positions. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Section I: Theorizing Marginality 1 - The Caste System Upside Down 2 - Atrocities and Segregation in an Urban Social Structure 3 - Continuity and Change in “Ex-Untouchable” Community of South India 4 - A Reading of “Untouchable”: The Autobiography of an Indian Outcaste 5 - On Being an Untouchable in India: A Materialist Perspective 6 - Conversion of Upper Castes into Lower Castes: A Process of Asprashyeekaran 7 - Dalits to Benefit from Globalization Lessons from the Past for the Present Section II - Doing Fieldwork among the Dalits 8 - Viewing Hierarchy from the Bottom Up 9 - Becoming a Dhobi Section III - Religion and Gender 10 - Dancing the Goddess: Possession and Caste 11- The Bible and Dalits 12 - Rediscovering God: Iyothee Thassar and Emancipatory Buddhism 13 - Religion, Social Space, and Identity: The Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha and the Making of Cultural Boundaries in Twentieth Century Kerala 14 - Dalit Women 15 - Caste and Gender: Understanding Dynamics of Power and Violence Section IV - Fighting the System: Dalit Responses to Oppression 16 - Climax! The Encounter of Dalits and Hindus 17 - Theyyam Myth: An Embodimentof Protest 18 - Documenting Dissent 19 - The Satnamis of Chhattisgarh 20 - Does Replication Mean Consensus? Dissenting the Hegemony by “Untouchable” Scheduled Castes in Karnataka, South India 21 - Reservations and New Caste Alliances in India Conclusions About the Editors and Contributors Index