Author: Oliver Mendelsohn
Marika Vicziany/
Publisher: Cambridge University press
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 289
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8175960744
Description
The Untouchables, who number some 150 million, are among the most subordinated and poorest people in India. In a sensitive and compelling account of the lives of those at the very bottom of Indian society, Oliver Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany explore the construction of the Untouchables as a social and political category, the historical background which led to such a definition, and their position in Indian society today. The authors argue that despite efforts to ameliorate their condition on the part of the state, and on the part of the new generation of political leaders who represent them, a considerable edifice of discrimination persists on the basis of a tradition of ritual subordination. Even now, therefore, at the end of the twentieth century, it still makes sense to categorise these people as Untouchables.
As the most comprehensive account available of the phenomenon of Untouchability, this book promises to make a major contribution to the literature, and in particular to the current social and economic debates on poverty within the global context. Its wide-ranging perspectives will ensure an interdisciplinary readership from historians of South Asia, to students of politics, economics, religion and sociology.
REWIEW
The authors really come into their own when they take a long, hard look at public policy, and when they take up case studies which reveal indepth fieldwork. They offer a penetrating insight into reservation policies. The effort that has gone into the case studies is evident. It is of great value because it provides an understanding of the phenomenon of ‘new poverty. More importantly, it throws light on the fight over bonded labour and working conditions, expressed in political, legal and industrial forms.
-The Telegraph (India)
Clearly written and lucidly argued, this book is an important study of a very sensitive subject.
-Journal of Asian Studies
Contents
LIST OF TABLES
GLOSSARY
PREFACE
Who are the Untouchables?
The question of the Harijan atrocity
Religion, politics and the Untouchables from the nineteenth century to 1956
Public policy I: adverse discrimination and compensatory discrimination
Public policy II: the anti-poverty programs
The new Untouchable proletariat: a case study of the Faridabad stone quarries
Untouchable politics and Untouchable politicians since 1956
The question of reservation: the lives and careers of some Scheduled Castes MPs and MLAs
Subordination, poverty and the state in modern India
Bibliography
Index