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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-2, Issue-6, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in Historiography of Depressed Movement in India Dr. Kavalamma Associate professor In History Government Arts College,Bangalore-1 Karnataka, India. Abstract: In India, the urge for the democratic socialism to have a just order has come from Marxist socialist tradition with influence of Marx and Gandhi. Jawahar lal Nehru (1889-1964), Jay Prakash Narayan (1902-1979), Acharya Narendra Dev (1889- 1956), Ram Manohar Lohia (19101967), Ashok Mehta and Minoo Massani were all influenced by democratic socialism and strove hard for the dissemination and inculcation of those values. Nehru was seen as the champion of socialism in India. He was an ideologue of socialism, secularism and economic development. He is also seen as the champion of equality, social justice and freedom. Ram Manohar Lohia highlighted the concepts of equality, freedom and social justice. He insisted on the democratic decentralization of economic and political power. It was he who for the first time raised the demand of preferential treatment for the backward castes in Independence India. He advocated that democratic planning would root out the differences and disparities. Ashok Mehta put emphasis on economic planning to remove social and economic disparties from our society. He also emphasized on planned development, social reforms and democratic decentralization to attain social justice. i 1. INTRODUCTION The lower caste movement in the Southern and Western India started much before independence. Polarisation of caste affiliations was easier in the south, given the absence of a complex caste middle order in the region. Also, the anti-brahmin movement coincided with an anti-Aryan movement. Primarily an idea floated by the British, the association of brahmins with Aryans and nonbrahmins with Dravidianism allowed for an alternative ethnic identity to emerge. Caste differences were equated with racial and ethnic differences. Lower castes were the autochthones, forced into the Hindu fold by the Aryan invaders. The category 'non-brahmin' gained administrative legitimacy under the British policy of positive discrimination for lower castes in education as early as the 1880s when the Madras education department classified the population into 'brahmins' and 'non-brahmins'. This further consolidated the movement, where in a number of dominant Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) cultivating and merchant castes sought cover under the umbrella notion of the 'non-brahmin'. The composition of the Congress Party in Tamil Nadu reflected the anti-brahmin sentiments of the times. As early as the 1950s, brahmins represented only 5 per cent of the MLAs in the Congress government as against 17.2 per cent in 1937.he lower caste movement in the Southern and Western India started much before independence. Polarisation of caste affiliations was easier in the south, given the absence of a complex caste middle order in the region. Also, the anti-brahmin movement coincided with an anti-Aryan movement. Primarily an idea floated by the British, the association of brahmins with Aryans and nonbrahmins with Dravidianism allowed for an alternative ethnic identity to emerge. Caste differences were equated with racial and ethnic differences. 2. CLASSIFICATION BY COLONIALS B.S.Cohn ii argues that colonial state pursued the policy “introduction by classification”, i.e., colonial state classified through the systems of census, reservation, separate electorate etc., thereby, dividing the sections along lines of caste, religion etc., thus colonial state through the system of census, reservation and separate electorates etc. challenged the homogenous Hindu identity and paved the way not only for emergence of caste ideology but also communal ideology. During the colonial period, the issue of casteism fall under the notion of secondary contradiction and the primary motive during the colonial period was not in real terms to truly address the grievances of untouchables but to prepare them for being part of the Indian national movement. The neglect of social development in UP is closely related to the entrenched class structure of the state, particularly the uncompromising character of its upper class elite. This elite has proved resilient to social compromises. It has not shown the foresight to ease its dominant political position in order to accommodate the new social groups that emerged on the political scene. The Zamindari Abolition followed by the Green Revolution was a turning point in the caste rivalries Page 203 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-2, Issue-6, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in in as much as the economic power in rural India passed in the hands of certain agriculturist castes, who were educationally backward and consequently underrepresented in government services. They have been called as Kulaks, Bullocks cart capitalist by various Scholars. This new rural elite has had assumed the leadership of the so-called backward classes and claims a larger share in political power. This new elite has had a vested interest in caste-based reservations because it was able to corner all the benefits made available to the backward caste. 3. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND CASTE BASED RESERVATION The label of social justice given to the demand for caste-based reservation has given an ideological edge to what is basically a struggle for greater share in power and jobs. While it is difficult to deny altogether the legitimacy of the demand of the hitherto deprived for a better deal, this demand has to process in a rational and democratic manner. It is significant that the demands made by backward castes are meeting with stiff resistance from the ‘forward castes’ giving rise to a conflict situation. The expansion of political participation in the 1970s and 1980s has placed historically disadvantaged and marginalized groups at the centre of the political system and governance at all levels. The rapid politicization and accelerated participation of groups such as the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Dalits raise question about inclusion, exclusion and varied patterns of empowerment and the impact of the latter on the growth and consolidation of democracy. One aspect of these changes has to do with the processes and strategies that have inspired the induction of marginal groups into the political decision-making process. The second concerns an assessment of the significance of political empowerment for the disadvantaged groups. In Western India, Phule (1827-1890), Ambedkar (1891-1956), Prakash Ambedkar presents the Dalit Movement in strong way, in southern India anti Brahmin movement started in colonial era and in Eastern India like Bengal raised up the Namasudra Movements. The subject has been explored comprehensively by the Scholars like Susan Bayly (1999), K.C. Yadav (1994), Christophe Jaffrelot (2003), Mendelson and Vicziany (1998) etc., who have worked on the rise of Dalits and Other Backward Castes mainly in north India. But such studies are not focusing specifically on Uttar Pradesh, Zoya Hasan (1998) has also worked but only on certain aspects of the subject which focuses more on the decline of the Congress in U.P. that too Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) only in late 1980s, and hers is not a work of history. This study, therefore, attempts to explore this aspect focusing exclusively on Uttar Pradesh, with a historical continuum from 1930 to 1990. 4. IDENTITY OD DALITS The issue of identity of untouchables has been a recurrent theme especially during the colonial and post-colonial period. Frequent change in the nomenclature or identity is characteristic of “untouchables” history than any other community in India and intertwined with the intellectual developments in the wider milieu. In addition to their caste or sub-caste (or jati) identity, homogenous categories expressing generic identity of untouchables cutting across regional and intra untouchable distinctions have been deployed by various agencies during the colonial period. For instance, they have been categorized as Depressed Classes, Harijans and Scheduled Castes serving multifarious contexts, ranging from official documentation necessitated by the colonial structure to the cultural movements of the caste Hindu and untouchable communities. The following section seeks to understand in a historical context as to how these multiple identities/nomenclatures evolved from time to time. 5. CONSTITUTION CONCEPT OF DALIT AND THE During the 1930s emerged a new set of British official euphemisms for Dalits, such as Depressed Classes, Exterior Castes, Scheduled Castes. In 1930, the Indian Statutory Commission defined that in origin, these castes seem to be partly functional comprising those who followed occupations held to be unclean or degrading. Such as scavenging, leather working and partly tribal i.e., aboriginal tribes absorbed into Hindu fold and transformed into an impose caste. iii The term “exterior castes’ appeared for the first time in the census of India, 1931, finally all these untouchable groups were listed (i.e., scheduled) in 1936 for the purposes of giving effect to the provisions for special electoral representations in the Government of India Act, 1935. These Scheduled Castes, adopted by the Indian Constitution, which legalized the term to use its all official purposes. The concept Dalit is comparatively more recent appearance, although is not very recent coinage as some of the scholars suggests. But the recent theological research shows that the concepts such as Dalit, dal, dalah etc., have been extensively used in the Hebrew Language. iv But in Indian case, the concept Dalit came into vogue in 1972 in Maharashtra with the formation of the Dalit Panthers movement. Page 204 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-2, Issue-6, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in 6. THE PROBLEM OF DALIT The Dalit-problem at once became an old question and a new challenge. It has been with us as an existential social reality, but the magnitude of the crisis assured by it is relatively a new occurrence. Several social reformers and concerned intelligentsia, both Dalit and non-Dalit, have tried their best to eradicate it from the social fabric. The study of Dalits has often been left to anthropologists and sociologists. They do valuable studies, but the historical point of view is often incomplete and incoherent. Lower caste history has not yet become a part of Indian historiography, even though the study is of immense importance with regard to its inherent radical democratic identity and its inter-relation with the contemporary movements. Available studies on Dalit history in India suffer from lack of historical and written documentation, providing scope for ambiguity. Mainstream historical works suffer from apathy to the Dalit consciousness and manoeuvrings in different parts of the country during the colonial period. Many works dealing with the stratification of Indian society, do give a chapter or a section on Dalits of a particular region or of a country as a whole as historical antecedents. Dalits have always been a subject of interest for missionaries, social historian and social anthropologists, Studies on Dalits started as early as the late nineteenth century. They mostly emerged as the outcome of missionaries’ travel records and personal accounts, v official papers, district Gazetteers, ethnographic notes, census reports and such sources. These sources provide some account of the conditions of these communities. Perhaps the earliest exhaustive and systematic work on any Dalit caste was by G.W. Briggs. vi Drawing from variety of sources he examined in detail the socioeconomic and religious life while also focusing on the private or what he terms the ‘domestic’ sphere of Chamars, the leather-workers in United Provinces. Other significant contributions to studies on social change and works of Epstien, vii Beteille, viii Alexander, ix Lynch, x and Zelliot. xi They have described the impact of social change among Dalits. While Esptein shows the impact of economic development in the overall political structure in two Mysore villages, Beteille describes the process of Sanskritization among Dalits that resulted in renounciation of their traditional occupations. Alexander analyzes the multi-faceted impacts of economic independence, modern Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) education and various public welfare programmes on the Pulayas, an important Dalit community of Kerala, similarly Lynch describes the process of social mobility among the Jatavs of Agra (U.P.), Zelliot depicts the process of Dalit utilization of emerging political change in Maharashtra. 7.POST DALITS COLONIAL STUDIES ON Many studies in the era of post colonial societal development concentrated primarily on assessing the impact of Constitutional safeguards and various public welfare measures and programmes to bring about change in the position of Dalits, need specific mention. Locating change in his specific context, Oommen xii perceives that they have so far served a “negative purpose” of creating ‘caste consciousness’. Ramaswamy xiii concludes that they led to the establishment of a separate identity as helpless, dependent and destitute community rather than integrating them into the rest of society. She argues that provisions like reservations and educational facilities have benefited only the urban and semi-urban dwellers while the lots of rural Dalits remain, more or less the same as centuries ago. None of the above studies mentioned are, however, concerned about the Dalit Political Movement. Dalits were often categorized either as marginal people without a history of their own or as objects, rather than subjects of the history of India as a whole. The Dalit movements have not fared much better in the histories of modern India by Indian historians, who generally relegate Dalits to chapters on social reform and portray them as passive victims, recipients and beneficiaries rather than active participant in their own struggles. xiv This brief survey would seem to strongly suggest that there was no such thing as a Dalit movement, particularly during the colonial period. The Indian historians by and large do not acknowledge the positive role of the Dalits either in their own movements or in anti-colonial struggles. The only paragraph that Mazumdar xv devoted to Dalits, describe them as objects of philanthropic and social work conducted by others. In his later work xviMazumdar refers to Ambedkar and Dalits as mere political bargainers of the 1930s and 40s struggles which ultimately led to independence. However his long depiction of Dalits portrayed social reformers Congress and Gandhi as the prime movers while Ambedkar is caste in the role of perceptive critic. xvii R. R. Sethi refers to the Dalits only in connection with the Communal Award of 1932 and as objects of ‘uplift’ work. xviii Bipan Chandra confines his treatment of Dalits to a three Page 205 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-2, Issue-6, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in page section on the struggle against caste in his textbook, xix but he gives them a more activist role his predecessors. However this cannot be said of his recent work xx which is concerned only with Gandhi’s “Harijan uplift movement”. Finally, Sumit Sarkar reluctantly includes a brief treatment of the Mahar movement but in his discussion of the 1930s only the Gandhian Harijan campaign is highlighted. xxi 8. DALIT WRITINGS PARTITION YEARS DURING The few writings which are especially concerned with the history of Dalits in the partition years also tend to ignore their history. Jurgensmeyer’s account of the struggles of Ad-Dharmis in the Punjab is one such study. In ‘the final struggle for independence’ he writes, ‘issues regarding the lower castes were all but forgotten’. xxii But, forgotten by whom? Only by caste Hindu leaders and historians, it seems to me. The politics of the Congress, the Muslim League, the Sikhs, the princely states and the British during these years have received extensive scholarly attention. The dynamics of Dalit politics have largely been ignored. Sekhar Bandyopadhyaya’s study of Namasudras of Bengal from 1937 to 1947 is ‘one’ of the few works that address the issue of partition and independence. xxiii He argues that Namasudras politics moved away from a position of ‘alienation’ in the 1920s and 1930s to one of ‘integration’ with the Congress and the nation in the 1940s. xxiv The term ‘alienation’ is defined with reference to the Congress and the position of the Namasudras towards it. In the context of Bengal, Bandyopadhyay has argued that until the 1930s Namasudras remained indifferent towards the Congress and in fact supported the policies of Colonial power and in the process earned safeguards from them. In the 1940s, claims their politics moved towards integration with the Congress and the nation. Joya Chatterji identifies another similar stream of integration, the Namasudras’ participation in the ‘communal battles over their religious right as Hindus’. Virtually, all in the works of the above mentioned historians dalits were not significant and even if they were referred to, Dalits were not seen as acting on their own but in the wake of socially concerned members of the dominant castes. Dalit maneuvering and consciousness was perceived as mundane or at most selfish and negative. Such interpretations of Dalits as passive indicate a failure of these scholars to get into the intricacies of Dalits is elitist and often patronizing. Metaphorically speaking, nationalist historians and caste Hindu Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) sociologists, visited village India while the Marxist and subaltern historians visited Dalit hut and wrote about their history. But reality of the Dalit history is yet to come. Beginning with the pioneering effort of Eleanor Zelliot xxv a growing number of historical monographs have recently offered a necessary corrective. These provide ample evidence of a dalit movement prior to the enactment of the 1919 constitutional reforms which grew in proportion and political significance throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Dalits may not have had a single organization parallel to the Muslim League or the Hindu Mahasabha but they did have strong grassroot organizations with common demand for their own political representation as well as for dignity, equality, and justice and a recognized leadership Pre-eminent among them was Babasaheb Ambedkar. 9. ORGANISTIONAL DALIT LEADERS EFFORTS OF The Dalit struggle in colonial India understood in the simplest possible terms is the organizational or institutional efforts made by Dalit leaders for the liberation of untouchables. xxvi At a time when profound economic and political changes were opening, new critical perspective to review the situation of various movements for the empowerment of Dalits, not many works are available by the Indian intelligentsia. The available sources reveal the fact that the positive roles of Dalits in their movements, especially during colonial times, were acknowledged only by western scholars and Dalits themselves. One of the common denominators of this new reality is the Dalit assertion that the time has come to delineate social, economic and political realities from a Dalit perspective continues to be highly brahminical both in its approach to social sciences as well as in the formulation of various state policies. It is therefore a question of projecting a new Dalit vision capable of providing a new and more realistic understanding of tradition history and culture. The purpose of S.K. Gupta’s study xxvii was to present a detailed and analytical account of the multi faceted struggle of the Scheduled caste the odyssey of the transformation occurring between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the Government of India Act of 1935, the precursor for Dalits of the constitution of India in the post colonial era. He analyzes with painstaking data to prove his point that this transformation passed through three stages. The Dalits initiation into politics by 1916; their establishing a political identity by 1927; and a marked changed in their Page 206 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-2, Issue-6, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in political status secured by the 1935 Act. A.C. Pradhan xxviii tells essentially the same story but with a different frame work. Pradhan considers the developments prior to 1917 to be preparatory and treats them in a very summary form but he then extends his period beyond 1935 to 1947. Another significance of his framework is the manner in which he organized his account less around the various British initiated announcements mission and commissions than around the three key parties to the emergence of Depressed classes as a social reality and a political force to be taken increasingly serious by these parties were the British policy makers the Congress Gandhi and caste Hindu religious organizations and the Depressed Classes leaders and their organizations. Later on, the birth centenary year of Babasaheb Ambedkar (1991) has seen a plethora of publications adding to the growing literature on Ambedkar on the one hand and Dalit politics and Dalit movement on the other. Though the number of monographs written on the Dalit movement in the 1990s is small in the quantitative terms it gives us much more in qualitative terms. The whole decade of the 1990s saw more of micro-level studies on the various aspects of dalit life. Often they are either related to the post colonial era Dalits in general or centered around Ambedkar. A holistic interpretation is offered by Gail Omvedt, who locates the Dalit movement in the frame work of Immanuel Wallerstein, xxix as “anti systematic”, which in the language of functionalist sociological theory indicates a “value oriented movement” as opposed to “norm oriented movements”. xxx Among sociologists it is possible to discern a dominant ideological current that has bearing on the study of Dalit movements. There is a “Liberal” trend among a group of scholars, who believe that it is the ancient Hindu reactionary traditions and the deeprooted prejudice against Dalit by the caste-Hindu that has led to the protest from the Dalits. This trend views Dalit protest as a necessary outcome of an obscurantist Hindu traditions. This liberal views also has a strong tendency to assume that the Dalit movement is limited to achieving the partial advance that it has in the socio-economic, civic and political fields within the existing social order, without any thought regarding its radical transformation in order respects. It is due to this ideological position that concepts like “social mobility”, “reference group” and “relative deprivation” figure so prominently in their writings on Dalit movement, xxxi becoming a major frame of reference for studying Dalit movement. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) 10. TYPOLOGY OF DALIT MOVEMENTS While analyzing the typology of Dalit movements, Ghanshyam Shah classifies them into (a) reformative and (b) alternative movements. The former tries to reform the caste system to solve the problem of untouchability and the alternative movement attempts to create an alternative sociocultural structure by conversion to other religions or by acquiring education, economic status and political power. Both types of movements use political means to attain their objectives. The reformative movements further divided into; (i) bhakti movements; (ii) neo-vedantic movements; and (iii) sanskritization movements. The alternative movements are divided into: (i) conversion movements, and (ii) religious or secular movements. CONCLUDING REMARKS The historiography of the freedom struggle maintains a peculiar silence about Dalit society and politics of the partition years. The questions raised by Dalit leaders like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, P.N.Rajbhoj, J.N.Mandal and Jagjivan Ram (19081986) and by provincial leaders are not even noted or acknowledged. Especially worth noting here is Dr. Ambedkar’s pointed criticism of both the Cabinet Mission plan and moves initiated by the Congress. The coming of Independence along with the Constitution and the Republic has a particular understanding of its liberating potentialities for the deprived sections of Indian society. The key role played by Dr. Ambedkar in drafting the Indian constitution is taken as one generous interpretation of the role of the Congress and the incipient nation state towards the welfare of the Dalits in India. Achhut concerns are reduced to a footnote in a grand master narrative; more seriously, the many alternative strategies with which they experimented have disappeared from historical accounts. REFERENCES 1 Bagchi,Santanu, Ideas on Socialism and Social Justice, 2002, p. 182 1 Cohn, B.S., An Anthropologist among the Historian and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, 1987 1 Indian Statutory Commission, Report, 1931, Vol. 1, Calcutta 1930, p. 37 1 Massey, James, Towards Dalit Hermeneutics: Rereading the text, the history and the Literature, Dalhi, 1994. 1 Perhaps first in its kind was of Abbe J.A. Dubois a French Missionary’s experiences of early decades of 19th century of Indian people, society and culture. In Chapter five of his work contains one of the earliest documented description of Dalits. This was originally written in 1815, Page 207 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-2, Issue-6, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in translated by Henry K. Beauchamps, See Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, London, 1953, third edition, 1906 1 Briggs, George Weston, The Chamars, London, 1920 1 Epstein, G. Scarlett, Economic Development and Social Change in South India, Manchester, 1962 1 Beteille, Andre, “The Future of the Backward classes: The Competing Demands of Status and Power” in Philip Mason, (ed.), India and Ceylone: Unity and Diversity, London, 1965, pp. 83-120 1 Alexander, K.C., “Channging status of Pulaya Harijans of Kerala”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. III, July, 1968, Special Number, pp. 1071-74 1 Lynch, Owen M., The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a city of India, New York, 1969. 1 Zelliot, Eleanor, Learning of the Use pf Political Means: The Mahars of Maharashtra” in Rajni Kothari (ed.), Caste in Indian Politics, New Delhi, 1970, pp. 2969 1 Oommen, T.K., “Strategy for Social Change: A Study of Untouchability”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. III, no. 25, 1968, pp. 1959-1964 1 Ramaswamy, Uma, “Scheduled Castes in Andhra: Some Aspects of Social Change”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 29, 1974, pp. 1153-1158; “Self-Identity Among Scheduled Castes: Study of Andhra”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 47, 1974, pp. 1959-1964. 1 Webster, C.B. John, “Understanding the Modern Dalit Movement”, Sociological Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 2, September 1996, pp. 189-204 1 Mazumdar, R.C., ed., An Advanced History of India: Modern India, part III, London, 1958, pp. 959-960 1 Mazumdar, R.C., The History and Culture of the Indian People: Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, 1969, pp. 479, 494, 521, 696, 731 1 Ibid., pp. 523-525 and 1000-1012 1 Sethi, R.R., “The Last Phase: 1919-1947” in H.H. Dodwell, The Indian Empire, 1858-1918, vol. VI, Delhi, 1958, pp. 630-32, 685-686. 1 Chandra, Bipan, Modern India: A Text book of History for Secondry Schools, NCERT, New Delhi, 1971, pp. 231-233. 1 Chandra, Bipan, ed., India’s Struggle for Independence, op.cit. 1 Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India, 1885-1947, Delhi, 1983, pp. 56, 243, 328-330 1 Juergensmeyer, Mark, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab, Berkeley, 1982, p. 164 1 Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of Bengal, 1872- 1947, London, 1997. See his article, ‘From Alienation to Integration: Changes in the Politics of Caste in Bengal, 1937-47’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, 1994 1 Bandyopadhyay, ‘From Alienation to Integration’, p. 350. Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity, p. 174 1 Zelliot, Elearnor, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement, New Delhi, 1992. 1 Kshirsagar, R.K., Dalit Movement in India and its Leaders, 1857-1956, New Delhi, 1974, pp. 4-5 1 Gupta, S.K., The Scheduled Caste in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as Political Power, Delhi, 1985 1 Pradhan, A.C., The Emergence of the Depressed Classes, Bhubaneswar, 1986 1 Wallerstein, Immanuel, “Anti-Systematic Movements and the Three Worlds”, Lanka Guardians, June 1, 1985, cited in Gail Omvedt, Ibid., p. 10 1 For details see Neil Smelser, A Theory of Collective Behaviour, New York, 1963 1 Among those notable scholars who fall into this liberal category is M.S.A. Rao, who has used similar concepts for understanding the emergence of the protest movements among Dalits and Backwards. See M.S.A. Rao, Social Movements in India, Delhi, 1982, Vol. I, p. 4 REFERENCES iii Indian Statutory Commission, Report, 1931, Vol. 1, Calcutta 1930, p. 37 iv Massey, James, Towards Dalit Hermeneutics: Re-reading the text, the history and the Literature, Dalhi, 1994. v Perhaps first in its kind was of Abbe J.A. Dubois a French Missionary’s experiences of early decades of 19th century of Indian people, society and culture. In Chapter five of his work contains one of the earliest documented description of Dalits. This was originally written in 1815, translated by Henry K. Beauchamps, See Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, London, 1953, third edition, 1906 vi Briggs, George Weston, The Chamars, London, 1920 vii Epstein, G. Scarlett, Economic Development and Social Change in South India, Manchester, 1962 viii Beteille, Andre, “The Future of the Backward classes: The Competing Demands of Status and Power” in Philip Mason, (ed.), India and Ceylone: Unity and Diversity, London, 1965, pp. 83-120 ix Alexander, K.C., “Channging status of Pulaya Harijans of Kerala”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. III, July, 1968, Special Number, pp. 1071-74 x Lynch, Owen M., The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a city of India, New York, 1969. xi Zelliot, Eleanor, Learning of the Use pf Political Means: The Mahars of Maharashtra” in Rajni Kothari (ed.), Caste in Indian Politics, New Delhi, 1970, pp. 29-69 xii Oommen, T.K., “Strategy for Social Change: A Study of Untouchability”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. III, no. 25, 1968, pp. 1959-1964 xiii Ramaswamy, Uma, “Scheduled Castes in Andhra: Some Aspects of Social Change”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 29, 1974, pp. 1153-1158; “Self-Identity Among Scheduled Castes: Study of Andhra”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 47, 1974, pp. 1959-1964. xiv Webster, C.B. John, “Understanding the Modern Dalit Movement”, Sociological Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 2, September 1996, pp. 189-204 xv Mazumdar, R.C., ed., An Advanced History of India: Modern India, part III, London, 1958, pp. 959-960 xvi Mazumdar, R.C., The History and Culture of the Indian People: Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, 1969, pp. 479, 494, 521, 696, 731 xvii Ibid., pp. 523-525 and 1000-1012 xviii Sethi, R.R., “The Last Phase: 1919-1947” in H.H. Dodwell, The Indian Empire, 1858-1918, vol. VI, Delhi, 1958, pp. 630-32, 685-686. xix Chandra, Bipan, Modern India: A Text book of History for Secondry Schools, NCERT, New Delhi, 1971, pp. 231-233. xx Chandra, Bipan, ed., India’s Struggle for Independence, op.cit. xxi Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India, 1885-1947, Delhi, 1983, pp. 56, 243, 328-330 xxii Juergensmeyer, Mark, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab, Berkeley, 1982, p. 164 xxiii Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of Bengal, 1872- 1947, London, 1997. See his article, ‘From Alienation to Integration: Changes in the Politics of Caste in Bengal, 1937-47’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, 1994 xxiv Bandyopadhyay, ‘From Alienation to Integration’, p. 350. Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity, p. 174 xxv Zelliot, Elearnor, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement, New Delhi, 1992. xxvi Kshirsagar, R.K., Dalit Movement in India and its Leaders, 1857-1956, New Delhi, 1974, pp. 4-5 xxvii Gupta, S.K., The Scheduled Caste in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as Political Power, Delhi, 1985 xxviii Pradhan, A.C., The Emergence of the Depressed Classes, Bhubaneswar, 1986 xxix Wallerstein, Immanuel, “Anti-Systematic Movements and the Three Worlds”, Lanka Guardians, June 1, 1985, cited in Gail Omvedt, Ibid., p. 10 xxxFor details see Neil Smelser, A Theory of Collective Behaviour, New York, 1963 xxxi Among those notable scholars who fall into this liberal category is M.S.A. Rao, who has used similar concepts for understanding the emergence of the protest movements among Dalits and Backwards. See M.S.A. Rao, Social Movements in India, Delhi, 1982, Vol. I, p. 4 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Page 208