This important book presents systematic evidence of the incidence and extent of the practice of untouchability in contemporary India. It is based on the results of a very large survey covering 560 villages in eleven states. The field data is supplemented by information concerning associated forms of discrimination which Dalits face in their daily lives./-//-/This study finds that untouchability is practised in one form or another in almost 80 per cent of the villages surveyed. It is most prevalent in the religious and personal spheres. While the evidence presented in this book suggests that the more blatant and extreme forms of untouchability appear to have declined, discrimination is still practised in one form or another. The most widespread manifestations are in access to water and to cremation or burial grounds, as also when it comes to the major life cycle rituals. The survey also found that the notion of untouchability continues to pervade the public sphere, including in a host of state institutions and the interactions that occur within them.

"For years Ambedkar battled alone against the Indian political establishment, including Gandhi, who resisted his attempt to formalize and codify a separate identity for the Dalits. Nonetheless, he became law minister in the first government of independent India and, more important, was elected chairman of the committee which drafted the Indian Constitution. Here he modified Gandhian attempts to influence the Indian polity. He then distanced himself from politics and sought solace in Buddhism, to which he converted in 1956, a few months before his death." "Jaffrelot focuses on Ambedkar's three key roles: as social theorist, as statesman and politician, and as an advocate of conversion to Buddhism as an escape route for India's Dalits. In each case he pioneered new strategies that proved effective in his lifetime and still resonate today."--BOOK JACKET.

Women and the Law.

“What the Communist Manifesto is to the capitalist world, Annihilation of Caste is to India.” —Anand Teltumbde, author of The Persistence of Caste The classic work of Indian Dalit politics, reframed with an extensive introduction by Arundathi Roy B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important, yet neglected, works of political writing from India. Written in 1936, it is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and its caste system. Ambedkar – a figure like W.E.B. Du Bois – offers a scholarly critique of Hindu scriptures, scriptures that sanction a rigidly hierarchical and iniquitous social system. The world’s best-known Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, responded publicly to the provocation. The hatchet was never buried. Arundhati Roy introduces this extensively annotated edition of Annihilation of Caste in “The Doctor and the Saint,” examining the persistence of caste in modern India, and how the conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi continues to resonate. Roy takes us to the beginning of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa, where his views on race, caste and imperialism were shaped. She tracks Ambedkar’s emergence as a major political figure in the national movement, and shows how his scholarship and intelligence illuminated a political struggle beset by sectarianism and obscurantism. Roy breathes new life into Ambedkar’s anti-caste utopia, and says that without a Dalit revolution, India will continue to be hobbled by systemic inequality.