Title: Dalit reconfiguration of caste: representation, identity and politics
Abstract: Critical QuarterlyVolume 56, Issue 3 p. 46-61 INDIAN CULTURAL STUDIES: ESSAYS FROM HYDERABAD Dalit reconfiguration of caste: representation, identity and politics K. Satyanarayana, K. SatyanarayanaSearch for more papers by this author K. Satyanarayana, K. SatyanarayanaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 21 October 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/criq.12137Citations: 22Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Notes Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme, University of Oxford, on 26 May 2011 and at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, on 16 April 2013. I thank audiences at both places and also Susie Tharu for her intellectual support. 1See, for a detailed documentation of the incidents of dalit massacres in India, Broken People: Caste Violence against India (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999). For a discussion on Karamchedu killings and the reservations issue, see K. Balagopal, Ear to the Ground: Selected Writings on Class and Caste (New Delhi: Navayana, 2011). 2These lines are my translation. For the complete song, see JNM (Jana Natya Mandali) Publication, Karamchedu Porata Katha, 17 July 1995, 23. 3This paper could not address the complexity of conceptualising caste in the context of questions raised by dalit feminists and Other Backward Classes. 4The protests and agitations against the state policy of preferential reservation (like affirmative action) in public education and employment date back to the 1980s in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. The policy was originally introduced in the Constitution to help the dalits and did not attract any visible public opposition. When the reservation policy was extended to the backward castes, the upper-caste students and elite opposed this measure by public protests. The anti-Mandal agitation in 1990 is a national protest against extending reservations to the Other Backward Classes. 5For a review of sociological studies of caste, see Surinder S. Jodhka, Caste (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012). 6The continuing hold of this model in anthropological literature and by extension in the humanities and social sciences is evident in Dumont's much celebrated 1966 work Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications. The Dumontian view is rightly criticised by anthropologist Gerald D. Berreman as 'a brahminical view of caste'. 7Satish Deshpande interrogates the failure of the disciple of sociology on the question of caste. See his Contemporary India: A Sociological View (New Delhi: Penguin, 2003). 8M. Kunhaman talks about 'the target-group approach' in his essay ' Socio-economic Development of the Dalits in India: A Macroeconomic Overview', in No Alphabet in Sight: New Dalit Writing from South India, ed. K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu (New Delhi: Penguin, 2011), Dossier 1, 516– 524. 9D.L. Sheth, 'Secularisation of Caste and Making of New Middle Class', Economic & Political Weekly, 34:34–5 (21–8 August 1999), 2502– 2510. 10Ibid., 2504. 11Sudipta Kaviraj makes a similar argument. See Kaviraj, ' Democracy and Social Inequality', in Francine R. Frankel (ed.), Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 102. 12D.L. Sheth, ' Secularisation of Caste', 2503. 13The subordinated caste movements were referred to but not represented as significant agents in changing 'the caste system'. 14Rajni Kothari, ' Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste', in State and Politics in India, ed. Partha Chatterjee (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 439– 458. 15Ibid., 444. 16Ibid., 441. 17Ibid., 443. 18The Indian government announced in 1990 implementation of reservations in public education and employment to the OBCs who are the middle castes in India. This policy is based on a report by the Mandal commission and therefore Mandal moment refers to the context of the 1990s. 19Vivek Dhareshwar, 'Caste and the Secular Self', Journal of Arts and Ideas, 25–6 (December 1993), 115– 126. 20B.N. Uniyal, 'Wanted, a Dalit Journalist', The Pioneer (30 January 2000). 21M.N. Srinivas, A.M. Shaw and B.S. Baviskar describe caste as divisive in their reply to Rajni Kothari. See Kothari, ' Rise of Dalits', 443. 22See Ayyappan's story ' Madness' in No Alphabet in Sight, Dossier 1, 363– 367. 23The Arunthathiyar and madiga movements are examples where a new meaning of caste identity is invoked. 24Sunny Kapikkad uses this formulation in his 'Kerala Model – A Dalit Critique', in No Alphabet in Sight. Kapikkad is describing caste as cultural capital with reference to the upper castes. He is also arguing for reworking caste as capital of the dalits. See No Alphabet in Sight, Dossier 1, 464– 474. 25For a detailed discussion of Karamchedu and other massacres, see K. Srinivasulu, ' Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh: Mapping Differential Regional Trajectories' (London: Overseas Development Institute, September 2002, 20 June 2007; http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2692.pdf. 26Ibid, 30. 27An autonomous dalit organisation, Dalit Mahasabha, was formed. See Srinivasulu, ' Caste, Class', for these developments. 28View the Act at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-18.htm#P2832_556403. 29Dr B.R. Ambedkar Students Association in University of Hyderabad and United Dalit Students' Forum (UDSF) in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, came into existence in 1991. 30S.V. Srinivas analyses 'The Politics of Failure' in Srividya Natarajan et al., ' The Anatomy of a White Elephant: Notes on the Functioning of English Departments in India', in Subject to Change, ed. Susie Tharu (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998), 72– 84. 31 Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee, 'Caste, Higher Education and Senthil's "Suicide" ', Economic & Political Weekly, 43:33 (16 August 2008), 10– 12. 32Gundimeda Sambaiah, 'Democratisation of the Public Sphere: The Beef Stall Case in Hyderabad's Sukoon Festival', South Asia Research, 29:2 (2009), 127– 149. 33Cited in 'Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee Report'. 34Gopal Guru (2002) analyses the crisis in the social sciences from a dalit point of view. See Gopal Guru, 'How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India?', Economic & Political Weekly, 37:50 (14 December 2002), 5003– 5009. 35For a detailed discussion of the madiga movement, see Balagopal, Ear to the Ground, 427– 444. 36See K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu (eds), From Those Stubs, Steel Nibs Are Sprouting (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2013), Dossier 2, 590– 592. 37See essays by Krupakar Madiga and P. Muthiah in K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu (eds), From Those Stubs. 38The much-publicised beef festival in Osmania University, Hyderabad, in April 2012 is one example. There dalit, OBC and Left student activists questioned the exclusion of dalit food cultures from hotel menus, restaurants and other public spaces. The public beef eating was not just an assertion of the right to food or a celebration of India's divers food cultures. For a news report, view this link: http://www.sunday-guardian.com/investigation/the-beef-eaters-of-osmania. 39See K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu (eds), From Those Stubs, for a sample of these writings. 40Ibid., 593– 597. 41See, for a detailed account of these developments, Sukhadeo Thorat and Umakant (eds), Caste, Race and Discrimination: Discourses in International Context (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2004). Citing Literature Volume56, Issue3Special Issue: Indian Cultural Studies: Essays from HyderabadOctober 2014Pages 46-61 ReferencesRelatedInformation
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
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