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Review Reviewed Work(S): Religion and Dalit Liberation: an Examination of Perspectives by John C Review Reviewed Work(s): Religion and Dalit Liberation: An Examination of Perspectives by John C. B. Webster Review by: Balmurli Natrajan Source: The Journal of Asian Studies , Feb., 2002, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 2002), pp. 322-323 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2700281 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Association for Asian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Asian Studies This content downloaded from 149.151.1.30 on Tue, 22 Sep 2020 23:06:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 322 THE JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES Religion and Dalit Liberation: An Examination of Perspectives. By JOHN C. B. WEBSTER. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1999. 124 pp. Rs.150, $18.50 (cloth). In this short book, John Webster examines two related themes: the various strategies of religious conversion adopted by Dalits (the ex-untouchables of India's caste system), and the more theoretical question of what Dalit religions have to offer for the emergence of a liberation theology in India. Although Dalit strategies for liberation have taken many forms including political, economic, social, religious, and cultural (pp.12-13), this book focuses on religious strategies. What perspectives on religion aid Dalit liberation? Has religious conversion aided Dalits in their quest to free themselves from cultural, social, political, and economic oppression? What are the attempts at theorizing this problem, especially from within the religious traditions themselves, such as Christian Dalit theology? These are the main questions raised and answered in this book. Not surprisingly, the book is organized around the writings and theories advanced by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who was "a central figure in the twentieth century history of Dalit religion, as well as of most other aspects of Dalit life" (p. 13). As the author readily admits, Ambedkar was a towering figure for both the Dalit activist and the intellectual and remains so long after his death. The author uses the term "Dalit religion" very consciously. On the one hand, his usage follows a number of scholars who define a "Dalit religion" outside of, as an alternate to, and different from a resurgent Hinduism that seeks to include all lower castes and Dalits within its fold for political and legal gains. Here Dalit religion expresses resistance and points to alternate "folk traditions" that do not form part of a "great Hindu tradition." On the other hand, the author does not erase the diversity of traditions that exist within the constructed identity of "Dalit religion" (p. 14), many of which actually share basic aspects of a pervasive Hindu ethos (p. 25). Thus, Dalits are not viewed as "autonomous subalterns" -resisting subjects capable of detaching themselves completely from dominant ideologies of caste. The book starts with a brief chapter giving historical overviews of five different Dalit religious conversions from Hinduism: Chuhra religion (among sweeper castes in Punjab), Ad Dharm religion (among the leather worker caste in Punjab), Dalit Christians (in different parts of India, though overwhelmingly from the South), Dalit Buddhists (overwhelmingly from the caste of Mahars in Maharashtra), and finally, Satnami religion (among the leather worker caste in Chhattisgarh, central India). The next two chapters engage with Ambedkar's views on religion and the impact of his views on Dalit theology. A chapter that surveys the sociological, anthropological, and religious studies literature on Dalit religions after Ambedkar's death in 1956 follows this. In the final chapter the author explicates his own view on the role of religion in Dalit liberation. He argues that although merely converting one's religion does not automatically bring about the social, political, or economic changes needed by Dalits, religion still provides a much needed "depth experience" that offers a "therapeutic dimension" to the other, more materialistic, aspects of liberation (p. 118). This is largely a book about identity, a liberating model of identity accomplished by the breaking of old ones and the forming of new ones. The term Dalit itself means crushed, oppressed, or broken and is largely an identity that Dalits have themselves taken on. Yet the author steers clear of adopting a voluntarist concept of identity. He admits that the new identities of Dalits have not become accepted as such by the This content downloaded from 149.151.1.30 on Tue, 22 Sep 2020 23:06:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms BOOK REVIEWS - SOUTHEAST ASIA 323 larger society (p. 34), and argues that "Dalits do not live in isolation from the rest of Indian society and cannot remain unaffected by the moral lenses through which others have regarded them" (p. 103). The strategy he seeks calls for a space for a "community of moral formation" that allows Dalits to form their own morals against the dominant order where they suffer degradation, even while the struggle goes on for a larger change in that same dominant order. This is not dissimilar to the approaches of many Black activists in the United States who call for a temporary separate space to "heal and create self-respect" even while struggling for acceptance on equal terms. Throughout the book, the author argues for the need to start from and build upon Dalit "folk religious experiences," for the twin tasks of theorizing and enabling the truly transformative potential of religious conversion for Dalit liberation. His critique of much of Dalit Christian theology so far is that it has neglected this rich resource and focused more on the Christian dimension rather than the Dalit dimension of religion (p. 73), thus contributing to the continued presence of caste as an ideology and practice among converted Dalits. Yet, there is a contradiction in the fact that the author agrees with Ambedkar's insistence on the lack of potential for "folk religion" and the need for an "alternative 'great tradition"' that would "provide the basis for a moral consensus for. the divided Dalits" (p. 102). In my opinion, this contra- diction remains unresolved in this book and prevents the author from asking the fundamental question: If the "great traditions" in India are unable to shake off the bugbear of caste ideology and practice among Dalit clergy and laity, then what does it take for a truly different and radical Dalit religion which is not Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Islamic, or Christian in its origins and hence does not share the "problemat- ical . continuities from the past" (p. 32)? It may appear that until then, the local and the global remain in tension in Dalit religion, and even a radical Dalit theology modeled after a Christian liberation theology would occupy only a marginal position within a "great tradition" that refuses to accept its idea of liberation completely. This book is rich in ideas and resolutely uses social theory to inform a project of social change. It is timely due to the pervasive lack of understanding (popular and scholarly) of conversions of lower-castes and Dalits. Ever since the early 1900s there have been many public debates on the religious right to proselytize, and this debate has acquired more importance in the present sociopolitical climate in India. Here, the author's discussion of the debates between Christian missionaries, Gandhi, and Ambedkar almost seventy years ago is very useful to revisit (p. 56 ff.), although it needs to be extended much further than it is here. The book also acquires added significance in light of the mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism which took place in November, 2001. Its clear and crisp style makes it well suited for intermediate classes on religions of the oppressed. BALMURLI NATRAJAN Iowa State University SOUTHEAST ASIA The Indonesian Economy in Crisis: Consequences and Lessons. By HAL HILL. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. x, 153 pp. $49.95 (cloth). This content downloaded from 149.151.1.30 on Tue, 22 Sep 2020 23:06:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms.
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