Modernization in India was initiated by Britain's East India Company through its educational policy. When the British left India, there were three modernist education projects in operation. A man by the name of Baba Saheb Ambedkar also developed his own vision of an education movement for the people of India. Ambedkar asserted that British education did not help Dalits, a marginalized group in Indian society. Modernization and Dalit Education is devoted to the major contributions of Ambedkar in education, the theory of Dalit development, and the need for industrialization. The natural corollary of modernization in India includes, according to Ambedkar, the translation of democratic values not only in social life but in economic life too, through the promotion of the public sector. The book also examines Ambedkar's ideas about the contemporary educational problems of Dalits, such as the equality of opportunity in education, the empowerment of Dalits through education, and the marginalization of Dalits in emerging areas of study in higher education. It concludes with a retort that development in general, and the emancipation of Dalits in particular, is possible only through parliamentary democracy.

Inspired by egalitarian doctrines, the Dalit communities in India have been fighting for basic human and civic rights since the middle of the nineteenth century. In this book, Shailaja Paik focuses on the struggle of Dalit women in one arena - the realm of formal education – and examines a range of interconnected social, cultural and political questions. What did education mean to women? How did changes in women’s education affect their views of themselves and their domestic work, public employment, marriage, sexuality, and childbearing and rearing? What does the dissonance between the rhetoric and practice of secular education tell us about the deeper historical entanglement with modernity as experienced by Dalit communities? Dalit Women's Education in Modern India is a social and cultural history that challenges the triumphant narrative of modern secular education to analyse the constellation of social, economic, political and historical circumstances that both opened and closed opportunities to many Dalits. By focusing on marginalised Dalit women in modern Maharashtra, who have rarely been at the centre of systematic historical enquiry, Paik breathes life into their ideas, expectations, potentials, fears and frustrations. Addressing two major blind spots in the historiography of India and of the women’s movement, she historicises Dalit women’s experiences and constructs them as historical agents. The book combines archival research with historical fieldwork, and centres on themes including slum life, urban middle classes, social and sexual labour, and family, marriage and children to provide a penetrating portrait of the actions and lives of Dalit women. Elegantly conceived and convincingly argued, Dalit Women's Education in Modern India will be invaluable to students of History, Caste Politics, Women and Gender Studies, Education Studies, Urban Studies and Asian studies.

This book addresses the familiar issue of unequal access to education in a new perspective. In this regard, whether one looks at gender or caste or tribes or class differences, the gap between the privileged and the dispriviliged is a matter of everyday experience. In what manner and form are these asymmetries reflected in the domain of education is the question at the core of this collection of essays. This volume is likely to be useful to those interested in understanding the interface between education and society in India as well as in other developing countries.