Tag Archives: Sociology

These became a blueprint of sorts for the Constitution of postcolonial India. Coining a term which is replete with irony, Teltumbde calls these the ‘constitutional castes’, meaning thereby that they, along with the later addition called ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBCs), are castes which have been legally accorded the right to reservation. Once caste had been legally ‘entrenched’, with minimum objection from within the Constituent Assembly, the radical Ambedkarite discourse of caste annihilation was marginalized by the pragmatic discourse of state-administered justice via caste-based reservations. Thus, instead of being used as a contingent fire-fighting mechanism to narrow down caste disparities, reservations, with no timeline and no yardstick to measure the degree of their success or failure, have, over time, been installed as the ultimate panacea for the redressal of a caste-riven social order.

‘Annihilating Caste in Caste Associations’ and ‘Periyar at Caste Abolition Conferences’. At first glance, talking about annihilating caste at caste association meetings might seem paradoxical, but Periyar’s praxis becomes clear once we understand how he strategically utilizes the pre-existing caste forums for his own end of furthering the anti-caste agenda.
In every one of the caste meetings of the Sengunthars, Nadars, Adi Dravidas, and Chettiars, Periyar unfailingly emphasizes, ‘No one is above you. No one is below you,’

There is a strong plea made for the foregrounding of the non-Brahman (emic) outlook in preference to the dominant, more or less traditionalist (etic) opinions on caste. Quoting Badri Narayan, the editors observe that ‘mainstream histories have always involved the “de-historicisation of Dalits”, which Dalits have identified and responded to by denying the characterization of themselves as passive objects. This denial takes the form of a search for their own history….’ However, there is a regrettable lack of clarity here. The onus of undoing the misrepresentations of history, if vested in the Dalits alone, would make the correct writing of history a rather exclusivist, if not essentialist, endeavour.

Dalits must opt to remain within the Hindu fold as the downgraded ‘scheduled castes’, while those Dalits who exercise agency by stepping out of Hinduism to convert to Islam or Christianity are ‘punished’ by being denied the mechanics of reparation of historical wrongs afforded to the ‘Hindu’ Dalits. Quite inexplicably, and rather arbitrarily, Dalit converts to Sikhism or Buddhism do not have to pay any penalty for their conversion.

In the 1990s, there was explicit use of the term ‘feminism’ in the media. In this process, concepts like autonomy, freedom, and choice began to be associated with feminism, while women’s activism was seen as an imposition. An example is the way International Women’s Day is celebrated. Generally, this day is marked by women’s organizations that align themselves with progressive forces. But, in the 1990s, one can see that there was a hijacking of Women’s Day. Feminism was associated with discounts and free goodies, and consumption became central to its meaning. The media promoted a notion of feminism which is market-friendly.

I tell them that there are many who take up wide problems but no one takes up narrow and small issues, therefore I have to be narrow minded…’ (p. 132). Similarly, another diary entry of Narayan Uke dated 02.11.1946 mentions that Dr Ambedkar was busy most of the day with the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in an important meeting and how the latter praised his book What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables.

It situates Dalit activism within broader discourses of universal human rights, anti-caste ethics, and transnational solidarities, thereby demonstrating how Dalit claims-making resonates with, and contributes to, wider cosmopolitan frameworks of justice. The chapter underscores the ways in which Dalit aspirations for dignity, equality, and emancipation are no longer confined to the territorial boundaries of the nation-state but are increasingly embedded within global normative and institutional arenas.

The manifesto-like list prepared by the DMK included land reforms with ceiling on land holdings, limiting the Union Government’s power to tax the States, nationalization of industries, health care benefits for the working class, a casteless and classless society, promotion of the Tamil language and renaming the State as Tamil Nadu. Though the Kamaraj Congress won a decisive victory in the 1957 elections, the DMK’s fight for linguistic reorganization of States and its alliance with the CPI worked to its advantage. The DMK won 50 out of 142 seats it contested to the Legislative Assembly.

Alagirisamy shows how Tamil reform organizations drew on existing traditions of Tamil devotionalism to articulate a caste-transcendent, progressive Tamil identity, distinct from the politicization of caste in Tamil Nadu. Despite upper-caste resistance to Periyar’s visit, he found support among working-class and lower-caste migrants. However, the claim that Tamil identity politics produced a distinct Malayan national consciousness among Tamils remains underdeveloped. The political emergence of pan-Malayan identity appears abrupt and largely driven by Periyar’s exhortations to adopt Malayan citizenship.

The idea underestimates the inflexibility of its stranglehold on everyone who is subject to it, including the ‘upper’ castes. I wish to affirm that there are at least three major differences between caste discrimination and racial discrimination (in the American context) which need to be kept in mind while making this comparison. Firstly, the logic of racial discrimination is the colour bar, i.e.,

Having renounced his Brahminical heritage, he founded the Navratan Committee, an anti-caste rainbow coalition, aimed at challenging entrenched caste hierarchies. While he wrote two books on Buddhism, his book Mool Bharatvasi aur Arya (1930) is his most significant work, where he reiterated the argument about the indigenous inhabitants having been dispossessed by the Aryan invaders—a thesis already advanced by Phule and Acchutanand.

Probably the first of longitudinal research with adoptive families, the chapter highlights that most adoptees achieve emotional stability, become fully functioning adults, and form stable relationships. Children who struggled in rigid school systems found themselves in creative fields.

In the second essay, Ramnarayan S Rawat demonstrates the significance of the 16th century Dalit saint-poet Ravidas, whose legacy inspired the Chamar led Sant-Mat community of north India in the 1920s to seek paths to dignity. Through the mediation of the spiritual leader Swami Achutanand

…I have attempted, foolhardily, to document and narrativize the pathologies of the hyper-visible yet perennial blind spot that is the world of elite ‘savarnas’, who critique everyone and everything but never themselves. No matter what method I use, this venture is doomed to fail in many savarna eyes. They will inevitably find clever and creative ways to dismantle its mediocrity in ways that I cannot imagine.

The modern subject is not just isolated, but curated; nudged toward desire and performance, rather than presence or reflection. The result is a public that appears connected and expressive, but is internally alienated, disoriented, and incapable of deep solidarity. This is the quiet violence of neoliberal modernity: the substitution of relationality with curated experience,

In particular, this review remains faultily quiet about the fascinating analyses presented in the book on the prolonged (nineteenth- and twentieth-century) history of child marriage in India and its differential regional framings within the national universe; the ebb and flow of social reform in colonial and post-Independence India swirling around the woes of child brides and child widows, and the intermittent engagement of feminist research and action with the practice of child marriage.

Through her field study and narratives in bhajan ashrams and temples in Nabadwip, the ‘city of widows’ (p. 29), Nilanjana Goswami explores the position of women amidst the exclusionary nature of religious practices as also the commingling of religion and politics, demonstrated through the presence of framed photos of local ministers and MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) in the bhajan ashrams.

Pathak admits that this book is an attempt to engage readers in a discussion about methodology by not reducing it to mere techniques, methods, tools and deliberations on the types of research. The aim is to address methodology for what it is—a discursive realm entailing myriad ways of seeing. In this, he makes room for the possibility of skewed vision, partial understanding, inclusion and exclusion, and pride and prejudices as he argues that this discursive realm should not rest on proving the already proven.

The section on research methodology and methods is particularly engaging and insightful. Saikia has elaborately articulated how she accessed the field, which is far removed from her world. To inform herself about the Tibetans in exile before conducting her research, she referred to books, research articles, documentaries, and newspaper articles. She also identified and joined a week-long programme in Dharamshala (her field) to gain access to the community. This programme was run by a Tibetan NGO called Students for a Free Tibet (SFT).

Pranav Joshipura and Swati Vyas (Kapadia) portray the pain of Indo-Fijian communities in their essays, ‘Issue of Land and Indo-Fijian Reality’ and ‘The Displaced Migrants of Fiji’. Here, the ghosts of colonial exploitation are palpable. In these essays, land is more than soil—it is life, home, and memory, torn away under the weight of foreign rule. Their work offers a haunting reminder that colonization’s scars do not fade with time, binding generations to loss and dislocation.