There is growing interest and belief in the effectiveness and efficacy of the traditional system of medicine and its sustainability within the health system. The domination and superiority of biomedicine over traditional medicine have been visible from postcolonial time to till date. At the same time, there is also an increased attempt to streamline and harmonize the diversity of the traditional system of medicine with the modern system of medicine. However, it has often resulted in detrimental outcomes for many traditional health practitioners, including the system of medicine they practice. The dominance and interplay of the power relationships and social structural inequalities are not discussed and deliberated extensively in the published literature as one of the crucial reasons for medical hegemony. Therefore, the essay’s objective is to address the hegemony in traditional medicine regulation, professionalization, commoditization and intellectual property rights. In doing so, an attempt has been made to argue for the traditional care providers such as bonesetters and Dais (Traditional Birth Attendants) whose services remain undermined due to their social identity, often overlooking the difficult conditions in which they provide care. This may give us a more inclusive and sustainable health system perspective. The traditional medicine system and the care providers, deserve the long denied respect from the medical care and health science community; and better recognition, preservation and protection of their skills.
{"title":"Addressing Hegemony within the System of Medicine for an Inclusive and Sustainable Health System: The Case of Traditional Medicine in India","authors":"N. Guite","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i2.446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i2.446","url":null,"abstract":"There is growing interest and belief in the effectiveness and efficacy of the traditional system of medicine and its sustainability within the health system. The domination and superiority of biomedicine over traditional medicine have been visible from postcolonial time to till date. At the same time, there is also an increased attempt to streamline and harmonize the diversity of the traditional system of medicine with the modern system of medicine. However, it has often resulted in detrimental outcomes for many traditional health practitioners, including the system of medicine they practice. The dominance and interplay of the power relationships and social structural inequalities are not discussed and deliberated extensively in the published literature as one of the crucial reasons for medical hegemony. Therefore, the essay’s objective is to address the hegemony in traditional medicine regulation, professionalization, commoditization and intellectual property rights. In doing so, an attempt has been made to argue for the traditional care providers such as bonesetters and Dais (Traditional Birth Attendants) whose services remain undermined due to their social identity, often overlooking the difficult conditions in which they provide care. This may give us a more inclusive and sustainable health system perspective. The traditional medicine system and the care providers, deserve the long denied respect from the medical care and health science community; and better recognition, preservation and protection of their skills.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46871930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay is an outcome of a long ethnographic account of an occupational group that remains low-paid, polluting in nature, and historically considered menial. In India, various names are used to refer to the people, but they are called Hadi/Hari caste in Bokaro, Jharkhand state. The essay examines the exclusionary process deeply rooted due to the occupational association with sanitation, cleaning of toilets, and all work that is not carried out by other castes and communities. The oral histories of the Hadi community brought in by intensive fieldwork demonstrate how occupational association brings a different level of social status by changing the workplace. In the last two hundred years (somewhat after 1802 A.D.), this community has not found the fruit of change that many other deprived groups could receive in reality; instead, they live in a dilemma to be urban but consistently remain at the margin. Further, there has not been a single study locating Hadis as one of the most marginalized and discriminated caste groups and they are never addressed in the policy framework except a few1 on the same caste groups of Chas town2 in Jharkhand. The services of Hadis played a pivotal role in the life of the new township in the sixties. Nevertheless, where and how they survived over a few decades is examined in India this research. Sociologically, communities and occupational groups like Hadis find an apt example of discrimination and exclusion even in twenty-first century India.
{"title":"Situating Hadis’ Occupation and Caste: Exclusionary Journey from Manual Workers to Sanitation Workers in India","authors":"K. Ziyauddin","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i2.443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i2.443","url":null,"abstract":"This essay is an outcome of a long ethnographic account of an occupational group that remains low-paid, polluting in nature, and historically considered menial. In India, various names are used to refer to the people, but they are called Hadi/Hari caste in Bokaro, Jharkhand state. The essay examines the exclusionary process deeply rooted due to the occupational association with sanitation, cleaning of toilets, and all work that is not carried out by other castes and communities. The oral histories of the Hadi community brought in by intensive fieldwork demonstrate how occupational association brings a different level of social status by changing the workplace. In the last two hundred years (somewhat after 1802 A.D.), this community has not found the fruit of change that many other deprived groups could receive in reality; instead, they live in a dilemma to be urban but consistently remain at the margin. Further, there has not been a single study locating Hadis as one of the most marginalized and discriminated caste groups and they are never addressed in the policy framework except a few1 on the same caste groups of Chas town2 in Jharkhand. The services of Hadis played a pivotal role in the life of the new township in the sixties. Nevertheless, where and how they survived over a few decades is examined in India this research. Sociologically, communities and occupational groups like Hadis find an apt example of discrimination and exclusion even in twenty-first century India. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48304248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay is based on an empirical study conducted in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh. It argues for the need of sub-caste level analysis among Dalits as regards their access to health resources. Making use of both quantitative and qualitative data, the disparities in the socio-economic standing of various sub-castes within scheduled castes are discussed. The perceptions about health, illness and disease provides the contextual information about the prevalence of various health conditions while the concentration curves reflect the disparities in out-of pocket expenditure, landholding and income among various sub-castes within Dalits. The case reports of the respondents facilitate an understanding of the intersection of social identity, economic status and spatial inaccessibility of health services as barriers in accessing health care services. The essay suggests that the differences in access to health resources among various sub-caste of Dalits is a function of intersection of social identity, socio-economic status and geographic location of health care services. There is a greater need to identify the differences and challenges within sub-castes to overcome the gap between their health needs and accessibility of health care services.
{"title":"Differences in Access to Health Resources: An Analysis of Disparities among Dalit Sub-castes in Uttar Pradesh, India","authors":"K. Kumar","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i2.449","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i2.449","url":null,"abstract":"This essay is based on an empirical study conducted in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh. It argues for the need of sub-caste level analysis among Dalits as regards their access to health resources. Making use of both quantitative and qualitative data, the disparities in the socio-economic standing of various sub-castes within scheduled castes are discussed. The perceptions about health, illness and disease provides the contextual information about the prevalence of various health conditions while the concentration curves reflect the disparities in out-of pocket expenditure, landholding and income among various sub-castes within Dalits. The case reports of the respondents facilitate an understanding of the intersection of social identity, economic status and spatial inaccessibility of health services as barriers in accessing health care services. The essay suggests that the differences in access to health resources among various sub-caste of Dalits is a function of intersection of social identity, socio-economic status and geographic location of health care services. There is a greater need to identify the differences and challenges within sub-castes to overcome the gap between their health needs and accessibility of health care services.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43484366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Covid-19 is the most consequential crisis in our memory and has affected everyone irrespective of class, caste, gender and ethnicity. The pandemic also exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, and those who were marginalised took the brunt of the unprecedented crisis. Inter-State Migrant Workers was one such community who were at the intersections of marginalisation. Mostly they belong to economically poor Scheduled Caste/Tribe and Backward Communities. Most of them are agriculture labour, and often due to poor rains and unemployment they migrate to other states for better employment and wage. This essay explores the confluence of elements that helped Kerala to manage the Covid-19 pandemic during the first wave, March to May 2020. The study adopted mixed method, about 132 migrant workers were interviewed using a structured schedule and 10 case studies were collected. The study finds that a majority, 92 per cent are SC/ST/OBC, education level less than high school and economically very poor. The study examined the measures taken by the government to address the crisis and how it helped to address the need and concerns of the migrant workers. It also captured the life, livelihood, healthcare utilisation and overall experience of interstate Dalit migrant workers who reside in Kerala.
{"title":"Impact of Covid-19 on Livelihood and Health Experiences of Migrant Labourers in Kerala, India","authors":"Dilip Diwakar G., Visakh Viswambaran, Prasanth M.K.","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i2.447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i2.447","url":null,"abstract":"Covid-19 is the most consequential crisis in our memory and has affected everyone irrespective of class, caste, gender and ethnicity. The pandemic also exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, and those who were marginalised took the brunt of the unprecedented crisis. Inter-State Migrant Workers was one such community who were at the intersections of marginalisation. Mostly they belong to economically poor Scheduled Caste/Tribe and Backward Communities. Most of them are agriculture labour, and often due to poor rains and unemployment they migrate to other states for better employment and wage. This essay explores the confluence of elements that helped Kerala to manage the Covid-19 pandemic during the first wave, March to May 2020. The study adopted mixed method, about 132 migrant workers were interviewed using a structured schedule and 10 case studies were collected. The study finds that a majority, 92 per cent are SC/ST/OBC, education level less than high school and economically very poor. The study examined the measures taken by the government to address the crisis and how it helped to address the need and concerns of the migrant workers. It also captured the life, livelihood, healthcare utilisation and overall experience of interstate Dalit migrant workers who reside in Kerala.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45087492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Immunology depends on culturing technique, practice, and procedure. Society depends on culture. The change in the enculturing technique has always got promoted and accepted, while a change in Indian society is discouraged and not accepted despite claims of change happening. The ‘Society of India’ heavily depends on casteism and ensures all mechanisms for keeping it functional without change. By accepting culturing techniques from immunology, privileged Indian society developed a new technique with the old ethos that may be called ‘culturing casteism’. It has a deep presence in both spheres of health: ‘Sociology of Sufferer’, namely, the healthcare seeker and ‘Sociology of Supremacy’, namely, the healthcare profession and professional. This essay explores the way casteism is cultured in both spheres. The essay’s main aim is to understand and define the existence of casteism in health. The data establishes that the domination of privileged castes exists and is nurturing casteism in health. Privileged castes have captured the whole (health) sector while the dispossessed and deprived have been trying hard to ‘catch’ the care.
{"title":"Enculturalising Casteism in Health Care in India","authors":"N. Narayan","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i2.442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i2.442","url":null,"abstract":"Immunology depends on culturing technique, practice, and procedure. Society depends on culture. The change in the enculturing technique has always got promoted and accepted, while a change in Indian society is discouraged and not accepted despite claims of change happening. The ‘Society of India’ heavily depends on casteism and ensures all mechanisms for keeping it functional without change. By accepting culturing techniques from immunology, privileged Indian society developed a new technique with the old ethos that may be called ‘culturing casteism’. It has a deep presence in both spheres of health: ‘Sociology of Sufferer’, namely, the healthcare seeker and ‘Sociology of Supremacy’, namely, the healthcare profession and professional. This essay explores the way casteism is cultured in both spheres. The essay’s main aim is to understand and define the existence of casteism in health. The data establishes that the domination of privileged castes exists and is nurturing casteism in health. Privileged castes have captured the whole (health) sector while the dispossessed and deprived have been trying hard to ‘catch’ the care.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47595159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay traces the impact of the Corona pandemic during 2020–21 and issues related to stigma, prejudices, marginalization as well as virulent forms of social inequality that arose thereafter. Social distancing fortified boundary maintenance on social, economic and even ethnic lines. The role of media during the spread of the Corona pandemic left a lot to be desired, especially in the portrayal of the marginalised groups. Had it acted responsibly, not only would the world have been able to grasp the do’s and don’ts pertaining to precautions with due diligence, the world would have been more harmonious and many fatalities could perhaps have been avoided.
{"title":"Media Coverage and Corona Induced Health Emergency: Understanding Prejudice, Stigma, and Social Inequalities in India","authors":"A. Tandon","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i2.445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i2.445","url":null,"abstract":"This essay traces the impact of the Corona pandemic during 2020–21 and issues related to stigma, prejudices, marginalization as well as virulent forms of social inequality that arose thereafter. Social distancing fortified boundary maintenance on social, economic and even ethnic lines. The role of media during the spread of the Corona pandemic left a lot to be desired, especially in the portrayal of the marginalised groups. Had it acted responsibly, not only would the world have been able to grasp the do’s and don’ts pertaining to precautions with due diligence, the world would have been more harmonious and many fatalities could perhaps have been avoided.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44683347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dravidian parties believe that changes to the economic structure will not lead to social justice if the upper/dominant castes continue to exclusively possess social capital. To them, and later, to the successive Dravidian party governments, economic justice was not possible without first ensuring social justice. This view was held by the stalwarts of the Dravidian movement such as Periyar E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar henceforth), the subject of this engagement, and actualised by leaders such as C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, whose electoral politics was a means to empower subaltern groups in Tamil society. We contend that Periyar was the chief aggregator of the ideas put forth by earlier social justice ideologues, and an effective disseminator of the Dravidian political ethos among the masses, making his contribution comprehensive and unique. Through an analysis of the approach of Dravidian party governments towards affirmative action, administrative reform and legislation, and through comparisons of the performance of Tamil Nadu in terms of development indicators with other states, we reveal the profound influence of Periyarist thinking on the Dravidian movement and State praxis. The quest of the Dravidian movement for social justice did not just focus on class inequalities but on caste inequalities, which it saw as a propagator of class inequalities.
{"title":"Caste, then Class: Redistribution and Representation in the Dravidian Model","authors":"V. Kr, Vishal Vasanthakumar","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i1.348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i1.348","url":null,"abstract":"Dravidian parties believe that changes to the economic structure will not lead to social justice if the upper/dominant castes continue to exclusively possess social capital. To them, and later, to the successive Dravidian party governments, economic justice was not possible without first ensuring social justice. This view was held by the stalwarts of the Dravidian movement such as Periyar E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar henceforth), the subject of this engagement, and actualised by leaders such as C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, whose electoral politics was a means to empower subaltern groups in Tamil society. We contend that Periyar was the chief aggregator of the ideas put forth by earlier social justice ideologues, and an effective disseminator of the Dravidian political ethos among the masses, making his contribution comprehensive and unique. Through an analysis of the approach of Dravidian party governments towards affirmative action, administrative reform and legislation, and through comparisons of the performance of Tamil Nadu in terms of development indicators with other states, we reveal the profound influence of Periyarist thinking on the Dravidian movement and State praxis. The quest of the Dravidian movement for social justice did not just focus on class inequalities but on caste inequalities, which it saw as a propagator of class inequalities.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43014859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Madras became home to a movement that anticipated Ambedkar’s turn to Buddhism by nearly half a century. Founded in 1898, the Sakya Buddhist Society was led by Iyothee Thass (1845–1914) and became the first Dalit Buddhist revival of its kind in late colonial India. In this article, I explore the global dimensions of Sakya Buddhism through an intertextual reading of its journal, Oru Paica Tamilan, and the work of Asian Buddhists like Henry Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala who were associated with the movement. I argue that Sakya Buddhism’s historical imaginaire of Dalits as indigenous Buddhists intersected with the political concerns that drove Asian Buddhist revivalist movements in important ways. I also show that the movement created a distinctly Tamil tradition of Buddhism for Dalits and attempted to reorient them towards the broader Buddhist world even as they had a notionally marginal presence within this landscape. In doing so, I propose the category of ‘pararegional’ as a way of thinking about seemingly uneven or unidirectional interactions between different spatial scales such as ‘global’ and ‘regional'.
{"title":"Between the Global and Regional: Asia in the Tamil Buddhist Imagination","authors":"Shrinidhi Narasimhan","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i1.356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i1.356","url":null,"abstract":"At the turn of the nineteenth century, Madras became home to a movement that anticipated Ambedkar’s turn to Buddhism by nearly half a century. Founded in 1898, the Sakya Buddhist Society was led by Iyothee Thass (1845–1914) and became the first Dalit Buddhist revival of its kind in late colonial India. In this article, I explore the global dimensions of Sakya Buddhism through an intertextual reading of its journal, Oru Paica Tamilan, and the work of Asian Buddhists like Henry Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala who were associated with the movement. I argue that Sakya Buddhism’s historical imaginaire of Dalits as indigenous Buddhists intersected with the political concerns that drove Asian Buddhist revivalist movements in important ways. I also show that the movement created a distinctly Tamil tradition of Buddhism for Dalits and attempted to reorient them towards the broader Buddhist world even as they had a notionally marginal presence within this landscape. In doing so, I propose the category of ‘pararegional’ as a way of thinking about seemingly uneven or unidirectional interactions between different spatial scales such as ‘global’ and ‘regional'.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46703161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The ten papers included in this special issue of J-Caste on ‘Freedom From Caste: AntiCaste Thought, Politics and Culture’ are a culmination of a long process of selection. We received fifty-five abstracts to a call for papers issued in February 2021. We had invited academic papers focusing on the anti-caste thought of important theorists, thinkers and movements in South Asia. In recent scholarship, new critical works have engaged extensively with the writings of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), the most celebrated of anti-caste theorists but to a lesser extent with Periyar E.V. Ramasamy (1879–1973), the iconoclastic anti-caste leader from the state of Tamil Nadu and a central figure in Dravidian politics. Their precursor, Mahatma Jotirao Phule (1827–1890), one of the most prominent anti-caste leaders in the colonial period and founder of Satyashodak Samaj in the state of Maharashtra in India, along with his wife Savitribai Phule, has also increasingly become the subject of academic study. Our aim was to invite new scholarship bringing their thought into conversation with each other, and beyond, to develop a deeper understanding of radical humanism embedded in anti-caste thinking and thus to understand the meaning of freedom from caste in its fullest sense. We were particularly interested in an exploration of lesser-known anti-caste thinkers especially from the ‘regions’, and marginalized communities in South Asia. Our leading questions were: How have anti-caste themes emerged in cinema, literature, and poetry, and how does anti-caste thought inform social and political movements and vice-versa? How have left, feminist and ecological movements dealt with caste? We
{"title":"Freedom From Caste: New Beginnings in Transdisciplinary Scholarship","authors":"Meena Dhanda, K. Manoharan","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i1.398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i1.398","url":null,"abstract":"The ten papers included in this special issue of J-Caste on ‘Freedom From Caste: AntiCaste Thought, Politics and Culture’ are a culmination of a long process of selection. We received fifty-five abstracts to a call for papers issued in February 2021. We had invited academic papers focusing on the anti-caste thought of important theorists, thinkers and movements in South Asia. In recent scholarship, new critical works have engaged extensively with the writings of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), the most celebrated of anti-caste theorists but to a lesser extent with Periyar E.V. Ramasamy (1879–1973), the iconoclastic anti-caste leader from the state of Tamil Nadu and a central figure in Dravidian politics. Their precursor, Mahatma Jotirao Phule (1827–1890), one of the most prominent anti-caste leaders in the colonial period and founder of Satyashodak Samaj in the state of Maharashtra in India, along with his wife Savitribai Phule, has also increasingly become the subject of academic study. Our aim was to invite new scholarship bringing their thought into conversation with each other, and beyond, to develop a deeper understanding of radical humanism embedded in anti-caste thinking and thus to understand the meaning of freedom from caste in its fullest sense. We were particularly interested in an exploration of lesser-known anti-caste thinkers especially from the ‘regions’, and marginalized communities in South Asia. Our leading questions were: How have anti-caste themes emerged in cinema, literature, and poetry, and how does anti-caste thought inform social and political movements and vice-versa? How have left, feminist and ecological movements dealt with caste? We","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47725147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article debunks the myth that Bengal is a casteless land or that Bengalis have no understanding of caste, by excavating, from within a Dalit historiographical framework, the rich and heterogeneous anti-caste politico-intellectual tradition launched and carried forward by the Dalits in colonial Bengal. Due to the paucity of space, it focuses only on three among sixty Dalit communities residing in Bengal and demonstrates the radical edge of five diverse anti-caste thinkers, namely, Harichand Thakur, Guruchand Thakur, Mahendranath Karan, Rajendranath Sarkar, and Mahendranath Mallabarman. Through a critical rejection of nationalist, Marxist and subaltern historiographies and interrogation of the Brahmanical appropriation of Bengal’s anti-caste tradition, it foregrounds the independent and self-critical intellectual history of the Dalits of colonial Bengal. It exposes the epistemic violence suffered by Dalit thinkers and reformers in the textbook historical narratives that glorify a Brahmanical Bengal Renaissance and highlights the neglected discourse of Dalit resistance and renaissance that had taken place at the same time in the same province. It shows how these anti-caste organic intellectuals fought the Brahmanical supremacists during the anti-British movement led by the Brahmins and upper castes, and how their agendas of self-respect and redistribution of wealth conflicted with the Swadeshi movement. Finally, the article demonstrates that while in the history of the anti-caste movement, Phule, Ambedkar, and Periyar justifiably occupy much of the discursive space, a significant and unacknowledged intellectual and political contribution was also made by their contemporary Bengali counterparts.
{"title":"Dalit Resistance during the Bengal Renaissance: Five Anti-Caste Thinkers from Colonial Bengal, India","authors":"M. Mandal","doi":"10.26812/caste.v3i1.367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v3i1.367","url":null,"abstract":"This article debunks the myth that Bengal is a casteless land or that Bengalis have no understanding of caste, by excavating, from within a Dalit historiographical framework, the rich and heterogeneous anti-caste politico-intellectual tradition launched and carried forward by the Dalits in colonial Bengal. Due to the paucity of space, it focuses only on three among sixty Dalit communities residing in Bengal and demonstrates the radical edge of five diverse anti-caste thinkers, namely, Harichand Thakur, Guruchand Thakur, Mahendranath Karan, Rajendranath Sarkar, and Mahendranath Mallabarman. Through a critical rejection of nationalist, Marxist and subaltern historiographies and interrogation of the Brahmanical appropriation of Bengal’s anti-caste tradition, it foregrounds the independent and self-critical intellectual history of the Dalits of colonial Bengal. It exposes the epistemic violence suffered by Dalit thinkers and reformers in the textbook historical narratives that glorify a Brahmanical Bengal Renaissance and highlights the neglected discourse of Dalit resistance and renaissance that had taken place at the same time in the same province. It shows how these anti-caste organic intellectuals fought the Brahmanical supremacists during the anti-British movement led by the Brahmins and upper castes, and how their agendas of self-respect and redistribution of wealth conflicted with the Swadeshi movement. Finally, the article demonstrates that while in the history of the anti-caste movement, Phule, Ambedkar, and Periyar justifiably occupy much of the discursive space, a significant and unacknowledged intellectual and political contribution was also made by their contemporary Bengali counterparts.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47728602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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