Caste Marginalisation And Resistance

The identity politics of the householder Naths (Yogis), on the one hand, is one of the oldest and most persistent identity assertions in Bengal and Assam. On the other, for an array of reasons, the identity assertion of the householder Naths of Bengal and Assam has failed to draw academic curiosity so far. Since the late nineteenth century, a segment of the Naths, largely educated and elite, has been crafting their identity as Brahman grounded on their “origin myth”, negotiating with the British colonial administration through different census enumerations, as well as internal social reforms. One of the primary reasons for their current lagging is that the Naths never politicised their identity and demands, and did not mobilise themselves in the democratic political arena.

This book is a collection of essays by prominent thinkers on the historist and humanist transcendence of the caste system such that an authentic democracy can bloom in India. It locates caste as not only a social problem, but a moral evil and schizophrenia affecting India civilization. Besides reflecting on Jotiba Phule, Karl Marx, and B.R. Ambedkar, this book also traverses through Nietzschean genealogy, communalism in colonial India, the need for radical education to fulfil the democratic revolution, the literature of Triveni Sangh, questions of social exclusion and inequality, the story of Eklavya in the Mahabharata and the asking of pertinent questions to the Indian left. This book is co-published with Aakar Books. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

‘Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature’ explores the claustrophobic shadow of discrimination hanging over Indian women and lower caste people from ancient times. It examines how different literary figures paint a vivid and descriptive picture of the physical and psychological oppression faced throughout India. The book traces feminist resistance, subaltern resistance, and resistance during the anti-colonial struggle, with the literary outputs discussed working as socio-political activity against dominant ideologies. The volume further talks about the responsibility, not only of those oppressed, but also of us as human beings, to speak out against the violation of human rights and for justice. So, the book focuses on the literary writers who always dream of a better India where all people, regardless of their caste, class and gender, can live and breathe freely. The book is divided into three parts. Part I describes the plight of women, their commodification and the politics around them, and how they fight hard to regain their faded identity. Part II depicts the interesting findings on gender-caste intersections and discrimination. Part III explores the struggle of the low caste, specifically male members of Dalit community, along with their history. It further portrays how orthodoxy in rituals creates the burden of traditional and existential crises. ‘Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature’ re-visits Indian literary texts in terms of what they reveal about the resistance registered through the suffering of human beings (women and Dalits) at the hands of fellow human beings, and further links the discussion to our contemporary situation. The book has a unique quality in that it is not only a detailed study of select Indian English texts, but also delves into an in-depth analysis of texts from Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi literature. The work is likely to affect and appeal to students, scholars and academics, and can be adopted for classroom teaching and research purposes as well.

5 The Romance of Banaras: Boatmen, Pilgrims and Tourists -- Conclusion -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index

Historical barriers still inhibit compara-tive frameworks to map and challenge two of the most odious forms of discrimination-racism & casteism. Both justify themselves on a principle of biological descent; they enable stigma as if it were a natural fact, refusing to see it as deleterious social exclusion. Against Stigma carries fifteen essays that build upon the energies generated in scholarship as a result of the landmark 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance at Durban,South Africa. The contributors, represent a multiplicity of disciplines and intellectual orientations, explore comparative aspects of caste and race including conundrums of a globalized discourse and national problematics of racism and casteism. The editors whose Introduction locates this comparative project around descent-based discrimination in a wide context suggest that globalization holds out the promise of more generalized practices of resistance and emancipation by oppressed national minorities. A critical bibliography on race and caste is a bonus to students and teachers of Human Rights, Race Relations, Caste Studies and Politics of Socio-economic Exclusion. At a time when democratic movements are sweeping across the globe, Against Stigma presents a fresh selection of authoritative scholarship and instructive debates centred on race and caste, two of the most potent and divisive concepts in the histories of humanity, sociology and human governance.

La transformation des basses castes et de la société tribale en Asie du Sud est examinée dans une perspective pluridisciplinaire, avec l'apport d'historiens, d'anthropologues et de spécialistes du politique. Ces études montrent la portée et les limites du changement social parmi ces laissés-pour-compte, ignorés durant des décennies par la sociologie traditionnelle.

The Marginalized Self questions the century-old perception of the Musahar community as rat-eating, pig-rearing, habitually drunk, lazy and unmotivated; a perception fostered by the dominant discourse of development, and the historically prevalent hierarchical social system. This collection of essays argues that these victims of the dominant model of development acquire a different kind of power and critical consciousness due to their marginality, which helps them to examine the processes, practices, and institutions that give rise to and justify poverty, displacement, corruption, greed, competition, and violence in the name of development. Ethnographic studies focussing on the Musahars have demonstrated that the people of this community are capable of offering resistance to the might of the development regime in terms of a comparative critique of modern civilization. They can assert the value of their own worldview and epistemology, and in doing so, they subvert the superiority that is generally assigned to the logical and formal schema in understanding the world, and which often speaks in contradictory, evasive, ambiguous, and metaphorical terms. The book offers insights into marginality, culture, and development in India, and will be of interest to students, scholars, practitioners and policy-makers associated with the disciplines of development studies, social work, social anthropology, critical social psychology, history, and public policy.

This volume engages with the renewed focus on various forms of persisting and new marginalities in globalising India. The persistence of hunger in pockets of India; forcible land acquisitions and their impact on deprived sections of society; the effects of urban relocations; material deprivation of minority groups and tribes as a result of conflicts; continuing caste discrimination; reported cases of atrocities against lower castes and tribes; regional disparities; gendered forms of exclusion and those related to disability and many other conditions suggest the need to rethink notions and practices of marginality and exclusion in India. This volume critiques the principal ways of thinking about marginalities, which primarily consist of a focus on normative principles, and brings into focus the chasm between such principles and subjective notions and experiences of marginality and injustice. The uniqueness of this edited volume is that it connects theoretical perspectives with empirical case studies and discussions, and cases of exclusion are discussed within an overall inclusive and integrated framework. This is a valuable resource for researchers, scholars, students, public policy formulators and for social innovators from private sectors and non-government organisations.

Our world today is experimenting a time of great power but also of tremendous resistances. Everywhere, people are brought together by similar burdens and frustration and creatively think about how to counter the forms of domination they are ascribed to. In academia as well there is an awakening among scholars to further investigate these multiple forms of resistance and equip the field with useful and empowering knowledge. This book aims at presenting some of these findings and reflecting upon the implications, social relevance, and ethical challenges of the growing field of Resistance Studies.