On contemporary political, social, economic and cultural issues of Dalits in India.

INTRODUCTION DALITS IN INDIA: THE SCENARIO SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ISSUES IN EMPOWERMENT OF DALITS SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF DALITS MAJOR ANALYSIS—DALIT UPLIFTMENT – SUGGESTIONS STEPS AND MEASURES FOR DALIT UPLIFMENT Index

Bridging the Social Gap: Perspectives on Dalit Empowerment addresses four interrelated issues. It conceptualises exclusion-linked deprivation of excluded and indigenous groups in Indian society and elaborates the concept and meaning of social exclusion in general, and of caste-, untouchability- and ethnicity-based exclusion in particular. It then presents the status of disadvantaged groups of Dalit and Adivasi and captures inter-social group inequalities in the attainment of human development. It then goes on to analyse factors associated with high deprivation of these disadvantaged groups in terms of low access to resources, employment, education and social needs. Finally, it highlights the role of caste discrimination in economic, civil and political spheres in the persistence of group inequalities. All these issues have been explained using simple language; relevant and recent data; case studies; news highlights related to civil, social, economic and political rights violation for easy and better understanding of readers.

This book explores the relationship between mainstream and marginal or subaltern religious practice in the Indian subcontinent, and its entanglement with ideas of nationhood, democracy and equality. With detailed readings of texts from Marathi and Hindi literature and criticism, the book brings together studies of Hindu devotionalism with issues of religious violence. Drawing on the arguments of Partha Chatterjee, Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, the author demonstrates that Indian democracy, and indeed postcolonial democracies in general, do not always adhere to Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality, and that religion and secular life are inextricably enmeshed in the history of the modern, whether understood from the perspective of Europe or of countries formerly colonized by Europe. Therefore subaltern protest, in its own attempt to lay claim to history, must rely on an idea of religion that is inextricably intertwined with the deeply invidious legacy of nation, state, and civilization. The author suggests that the co-existence of acts of social altruism and the experience of doubt born from social strife - ‘miracle’ and ‘violence’ - ought to be a central issue for ethical debate. Keeping in view the power and reach of genocidal Hinduism, this book is the first to look at how the religion of marginal communities at once affirms and turns away from secularized religion. This important contribution to the study of vernacular cosmopolitanism in South Asia will be of great interest to historians and political theorists, as well as to scholars of religious studies, South Asian studies and philosophy.

This title addresses four interrelated issues. It conceptualizes exclusion-linked deprivation of excluded and indigenous groups in Indian society and elaborates the concept and meaning of social exclusion in general, and of caste-, untouchability- and ethnicity-based exclusion in particular