"Challenges and revises our understanding of the historical and contemporary role of Dalits in Indian society. A pathbreaking book that rightfully restores the historical agency of and gives voice to Dalits in North India." --Anand A. Yang, University of Washington --

This book examines the transformation of untouchability into a political idea in India during the first half of the twentieth century. At its heart is Ambedkar’s role and the concepts he used to champion untouchability as a political problem. Ambedkar’s main objective was to comprehend the numerous avatars of untouchability in order to eradicate this practice. Ambedkar understood untouchability beyond aspects of ritual purity and pollution by stressing its complex nature and uncovering the political, historical, racial, spatial and emotional characteristics contained in this concept. Ambedkar believed the abolition of untouchability depended on a widespread alteration of India’s political, economic and cultural systems. Ambedkar reframed the problem of untouchability by linking it to larger concepts floating in the political environment of late colonial India such as representation, slavery, race, the Indian village, internationalism and even the creation of Pakistan.

This book provides a critical history of the distinctive tradition of Indian secularism known as Tolerance. Examining debates surrounding the activities of the Arya Samaj - a Hindu reform organization regarded as the exemplar of intolerance - it finds that Tolerance functioned to disengage Indian secularism from the politics of caste.

The People' and 'New India' are terms that are being invoked freely to both understand and govern India as she enters her 75th year of post-colonial nationhood. Yet, there is little clarity on who these people of India really are, what they do, their desires, histories and attachments to India. Similarly, the phrase 'New India' is used far too loosely to explain away a dangerously confounding politics. In this book, some of the most respected scholars of South Asia come together to write about a person or a concept that holds particular sway in the politics of contemporary India. In doing so, they collectively open up an original understanding of what the politics at the heart of New India are-and how best we might come to analyse them. This brilliant collection put together by Ravinder Kaur and Nayanika Mathur includes original and accessible essays by leading social science and humanities scholars of South Asia.

The contributors to this major intervention into Indian historiography trace the strategies through which Dalits have been marginalized as well as the ways Dalit intellectuals and leaders have shaped emancipatory politics in modern India. Moving beyond the anticolonialism/nationalism binary that dominates the study of India, the contributors assess the benefits of colonial modernity and place humiliation, dignity, and spatial exclusion at the center of Indian historiography. Several essays discuss the ways Dalits used the colonial courts and legislature to gain minority rights in the early twentieth century, while others highlight Dalit activism in social and religious spheres. The contributors also examine the struggle of contemporary middle-class Dalits to reconcile their caste and class, intercaste tensions among Sikhs, and the efforts by Dalit writers to challenge dominant constructions of secular and class-based citizenship while emphasizing the ongoing destructiveness of caste identity. In recovering the long history of Dalit struggles against caste violence, exclusion, and discrimination, Dalit Studies outlines a new agenda for the study of India, enabling a significant reconsideration of many of the Indian academy's core assumptions. Contributors: D. Shyam Babu, Laura Brueck, Sambaiah Gundimeda, Gopal Guru, Rajkumar Hans, Chinnaiah Jangam, Surinder Jodhka, P. Sanal Mohan, Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana

Providing a different approach to the history of India than previously advocated, this textbook argues that there was constant interaction between peoples and cultures. This interactive, dialogic approach provides a clear understanding of how power and social relations operated in South Asia. Covering the history of India from Mughal times to the first years of Independence, the book consists of chapters divided roughly between political and thematic questions. Topics discussed include: Mughal warfare and military developments The construction of Indian culture Indian, regional and local political articulation India’s Independence and the end of British Rule Women and governmentality The rise of the Dalit movement As well as a detailed timeline that provides a useful overview of key events in the history of India, a set of background reading is included after each chapter for readers who wish to go beyond the remit of this text. Written in an accessible, narrative style, the textbook will be suitable in courses on Indian and South Asian history, as well as courses on world history and South Asian studies.

An iconoclastic history of the first two decades after independence in India Nehru’s India brings a provocative but nuanced set of new interpretations to the history of early independent India. Drawing from her extensive research over the past two decades, Taylor Sherman reevaluates the role of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, in shaping the nation. She argues that the notion of Nehru as the architect of independent India, as well as the ideas, policies, and institutions most strongly associated with his premiership—nonalignment, secularism, socialism, democracy, the strong state, and high modernism—have lost their explanatory power. They have become myths. Sherman examines seminal projects from the time and also introduces readers to little-known personalities and fresh case studies, including India’s continued engagement with overseas Indians, the importance of Buddhism in secular India, the transformations in industry and social life brought about by bicycles, a riotous and ultimately doomed attempt to prohibit the consumption of alcohol in Bombay, the early history of election campaign finance, and the first state-sponsored art exhibitions. The author also shines a light on underappreciated individuals, such as Apa Pant, the charismatic diplomat who influenced foreign policy from Kenya to Tibet, and Urmila Eulie Chowdhury, the rebellious architect who helped oversee the building of Chandigarh. Tracing and critiquing developments in this formative period in Indian history, Nehru’s India offers a fresh and definitive exploration of the nation’s early postcolonial era.