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A Dalit Paradigm: A new narrative in South Asian historiography*

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Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India. By Ramnarayan S.Rawat. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011, pp. 298, US$28 (ISBN-13: 978-0253222626).
The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India. By AnupamaRao. Oakland: University of California Press, 2009, pp. 416, US$26.95 (ISBN-13: 978-0520257610).
Humiliation: Claims and Context. GopalGuru (ed.). Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 238, US$ 27. 95 (ISBN-10: 0198074921).

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2015

CHINNAIAH JANGAM
CHINNAIAH JANGAM*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Carleton University, Canada Email: chinnaiah.jangam@carleton.ca
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Abstract

This is the meaning of Negro History Week. It is not so much a Negro History Week as it is a History Week. We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice. There should be no indulgence in undue eulogy of the Negro. The case of the Negro is well taken care of when it is shown how he has influenced the development of civilization.1

Type
Review Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 399 - 414
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the editorial team at Modern Asian Studies and the two anonymous reviewers for their critical inputs which sharpened the arguments in this article. I am also indebted to Dr Mayurika Chakravorty for reading and commenting on several drafts of the article.

References

1 Woodson, C. G., The Celebration of Negro History Week, The Journal of Negro History, 12.2 (April), 1927, p. 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Seal, Anil, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Late Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Guha, Ranajit, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Durham: Duke University Press, 1999Google Scholar.

4 Mills, Charles, The Racial Contract, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997, p. 1Google Scholar.

5 Ilaiah, Kancha, ‘Productive Labour, Consciousness and History: The Dalitbahujan Alternative’, in Amin, Shahid and Chakrabarty, Dipesh (eds), Subaltern Studies IX: Writings on South Asian History and Society, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 165–200Google Scholar.

6 Sudras are located towards the bottom of the caste ladder but are not affected by the stigma of untouchability, that is, they are not considered untouchables (Dalits).

7 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Public Life of History: An Argument out of India, Public Culture, 20.1, 2008, p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Chakrabarty writes, ‘Dalit historians have not always cared for “evidence” in the way that we might expect them to if they were our colleagues or students in universities. Ilaiah, for instance, writes with a clear and explicit intention to eschew the use of “source” and “evidence” and to base his “history” on “experience” alone’ (p. 157).

8 Dharmanna, Kusuma, Makodhi Ee Nalla Dhorathanamu (We Do not Want This Black Landlordism), Cocanada: Dharmasadhani Press, 1922Google Scholar.

9 Srinivas, M. N., Caste in Modern India and Other Essays, Delhi: Asia Publishing House, 1962Google Scholar, and Remembered Village, Oakland: University of California Press, 1976, are considered seminal works on caste dynamics. He also formulated the concept of Sansritization to illustrate the dominant castes’ emulation of Brahmanism.

10 Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste and its Implication, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981Google Scholar.

11 du Bois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk, New York: Dover Publications, 1994, p. 9Google Scholar.

12 Jaffrelot, Christophe, India's Silent Revolution, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002Google Scholar, and Chadra, Kanchan, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007Google Scholar.

13 Hunt, Sarah Beth, Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation, Delhi: Routledge, 2014Google Scholar.

14 Brueck, Laura, Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit Literature, New York: Columbia University Press, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Guru, Humiliation: Claims and Context, p. 3.

16 A recent, and welcome, addition to the field is: Paik, Shailaja, Dalit Women's Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination, Delhi: Routledge, 2014Google Scholar.

17 Guha, Ramachandra, ‘The Moral that can be Safely Drawn from the Hindus’ Magnificent Victory: Cricket, Caste and the Palwankar Brothers’, in Mills, James H. (ed.), Subaltern Sports: Politics and Sport in South Asia, London: Anthem Press, 2005Google Scholar.