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The Pariah Problem - Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India (Hardcover)
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The Pariah Problem - Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India (Hardcover)
Series: Cultures of History
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Once known as "Pariahs," Dalits are primarily descendants of unfree
agrarian laborers. They belong to India's most subordinated castes,
face overwhelming poverty and discrimination, and provoke public
anxiety. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped sources, this
book follows the conception and evolution of the "Pariah Problem"
in public consciousness in the 1890s. It shows how high-caste
landlords, state officials, and well-intentioned missionaries
conceived of Dalit oppression, and effectively foreclosed the
emergence of substantive solutions to the "Problem"-with
consequences that continue to be felt today. Rupa Viswanath begins
with a description of the everyday lives of Dalit laborers in the
1890s and highlights the systematic efforts made by the state and
Indian elites to protect Indian slavery from public scrutiny.
Protestant missionaries were the first non-Dalits to draw attention
to their plight. The missionaries' vision of the Pariahs' suffering
as being a result of Hindu religious prejudice, however, obscured
the fact that the entire agrarian political-economic system
depended on unfree Pariah labor. Both the Indian public and
colonial officials came to share a view compatible with missionary
explanations, which meant all subsequent welfare efforts directed
at Dalits focused on religious and social transformation rather
than on structural reform. Methodologically, theoretically, and
empirically, this book breaks new ground to demonstrate how events
in the early decades of state-sponsored welfare directed at Dalits
laid the groundwork for the present day, where the postcolonial
state and well-meaning social and religious reformers continue to
downplay Dalits' landlessness, violent suppression, and political
subordination.
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