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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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,
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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
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