The Tamils' Self-Respect Movement of Malaysia that successfully preached rationalism and at the same time fought for temple entry for Dalits is a historical example of how contesting beliefs can…
In West Bengal, the symbolic violence of caste is more intense than physical violence. A university teacher describes the everyday exclusionary experiences of adivasis in education spaces and the…
Can an autobiographically-inclined social history reveal the role of English in shaping caste privilege, regulating class mobility and enabling individual agency? This essay risks an answer.
The story of the Vikassheel Insaan Party or VIP, a party of the Nishad community in Bihar, is important for understanding the positives and negatives of the rise of small caste-based political…
Ahead of the May elections, observers in Gorakhpur in eastern UP could sense a groundswell of support for the BJP. The old caste dynamics had broken down and the efficient delivery of welfare…
Complex societal transformations can be assessed through their changing normative structures. One can analyse the different social domains in India by focussing on the key concept of ‘transgression’…
The Swachh Bharat Mission has turned out to be a top-down programme in which villagers are often coerced into building latrines, with relatively little focus on latrine use. A field survey challenges…
