A New Paradigm in South Asia

Manu Bhagavan, Anne Feldhaus, eds.. Claiming Power from Below: Dalits and the Subaltern Question in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008. x + 222 pp. $25.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-569304-1. Reviewed by Chinnaiah Jangam Published on H-Asia (December, 2009) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Over the last two decades, the South Asian alternative world free of exploitation and inhu‐ landscape has experienced a resurgence of un‐ manity. However, the mainstream writings focus‐ touchable voices challenging the dominant social, ing on colonial and postcolonial South Asia did economic, political, cultural, and epistemological not integrate Dalit visions and their articulations structures, and questioning the traditional mecha‐ as part of the South Asian experience of colonial‐ nisms of oppression. Even though Indian society ism and modernity. Because of their own social lo‐ and its traditional institutional structures have cation and ideological limitations, even many been critically interrogated throughout its history, caste Hindu scholars refused to accept and dwell the perspectives from the most oppressed sections on caste-based oppression and exploitation. of the society, like the untouchables (Dalits), did The contemporary upsurge of Dalits in Indian not form a part of mainstream intellectual dis‐ cultural and political mainstream, therefore, not courses and analyses. Historically, criticisms of only challenges the existing historical and so‐ caste, gender, and other oppression and exploita‐ ciopolitical scholarship on South Asia, but also tion are as old as the institutions themselves--a tries to provide new epistemological alternatives fact that has often been discounted or glossed by bringing the ideas and articulations from the over by the dominant, largely Brahmanical, margins to the core in the rewriting of history, canon. To a certain extent, the colonial (mod‐ culture, and politics. Dalit articulations provide ernist) intervention provided a distinct ideologi‐ new ways of understanding and interrogating the cal and institutional framework for the op‐ notions of caste, colonialism, nationalism, democ‐ pressed, like the Dalits and women, to contest racy, equality, and freedom. The volume under re‐ their subordination and oppression, one in which view, Claiming Power from Below, edited by the most oppressed sections of society envisioned Manu Bhagavan and Anne Feldhaus, is a cogent anti-caste egalitarian ideas and strove to build an expression of rising Dalit aspirations and their H-Net Reviews critical role in redefining the South Asian cultural democracy as opposed to the nativist nationalist and political landscape. The volume honors a narrative, which blindly opposed any influence of most distinguished contemporary historian, modernism. Eleanor Zelliot, who not only sowed the seeds of Ramnarayan S. Rawat, while extending the Dalit studies in the North American academy but argument of evolution of Dalit identity outside the also dedicatedly carried the voice of the Dalits to Hindu Brahmanical world, brings out the fasci‐ international forums. Significantly, most contribu‐ nating history of Scheduled Caste Federation in tors have been influenced directly or indirectly Uttar Pradesh in which Ambedkar played an ac‐ (as is true for almost all of the contemporary tive role as both an organizer and an ideologue. scholars of Dalit studies anywhere in the world) His essay illuminates the historical nuances be‐ by Zelliot as a scholar and teacher. It is, therefore, hind the current upsurge of Dalits of Uttar not surprising that the essays in this volume are Pradesh in Indian political mainstream. Rajendra centered on the themes that were central to her Vora further complicates the evolution of identity writings, such as literature, politics, and specifi‐ politics in South Asia by showing multiple identi‐ cally the historic role of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar as an ties of Muslims and examining how the reality of activist and thinker. their everyday existence goes against the stereo‐ While acknowledging the seminal contribu‐ typed monolithic community. By extending the in‐ tion of Subaltern Studies in rethinking South clusiveness of Dalit experience and historical Asian history, culture, and politics, the volume affinity between lower-caste Muslims and Dalits, rightly points out the limitations of Subaltern Vora opens new ways of understanding the past Studies, especially its failure to integrate the dis‐ and current alliances between Muslims and Dalits tinct voice of Dalits in interrogating colonial in South Asia. modernity and challenging dominant theoretical Abigail McGowan powerfully indicts the colo‐ narratives. In particular, the volume represents nial education system in disempowering the arti‐ an uncomfortable reminder of the failure of sanal communities by pushing them back into the South Asian scholarship to delineate "caste" lap of traditional occupations, providing neither (unlike race in Western academia) as an analyti‐ the tools of technical innovation nor the capital to cal category in understanding the nuances of so‐ invest and compete with Western industrial ciocultural and political formations and their in‐ economies. Thus, colonialism covertly helped re‐ tricacies. Anupama Rao, in her essay "Who is the tain the Brahmanical social structure through its Dalit," powerfully brings out the notion of Dalit as industrial education policies, which adversely af‐ a political category with its claim on the history of fected the artisanal castes in two ways. First, by humiliation and suffering and also as a feld of not providing secular educational opportunities, contestation and significance. For her, Dalit as a it made them succumb to the caste-based occupa‐ political and ethical subject is the product of late tional social order. Second, it destroyed their eco‐ nineteenth- and twentieth-century struggles that nomic independence by denying them access to contested the dominant narratives of history, poli‐ technical innovations, thus making them uncom‐ tics, and culture. She analyzes the role of Jyotirao petitive vis-à-vis Western industrial goods. The es‐ Phule and Ambedkar in creating Dalit subjectivity say also rightly points out the role of artisanal as‐ outside the purview of Hindu Brahmanical hege‐ sociations in contesting Brahmanical domination. mony and anti-caste egalitarian ideology. She also Shailaja Paik's contribution narrates the grip‐ points out the significance of Dalit experience of ping stories of Dalit women's quest for education humiliation and degradation in renegotiating the as means for their emancipation. The gender di‐ relationship between colonial modernity and 2 H-Net Reviews mension complicates the Dalit experience of hu‐ tion of taxes on the local population of a taluk miliation and degradation by focusing on how (subdivision) in Bombay presidency, the essay en‐ Dalit women are victims of dual discrimination hances the understanding of the mechanisms of based on gender and caste. Vijay Prashad, in his colonial exploitation. insightful piece, debunks the myth of equating The uniqueness of Dalit literature perhaps caste with race, and echoing Ambedkar, he ar‐ lies in its ability to give meaning to and capture gues, "Dalits are not always distinguishable from the anger, oppression, and exploitation embodied other Indians and the apartheid like conditions in poignant and yet powerful literary and cultural can be imposed upon people who are marked by expression. Dilip Chitre's perceptive piece focuses history not by appearance" (p. 134). While placing on the powerful poetry of Namdeo Dhasal and its the caste problem in global context, he argues role in destabilizing the traditional Marathi liter‐ that caste is not a problem internal to India and it ary landscape while also galvanizing the Dalits to should be seen as part of other forms of discrimi‐ form the Dalit Panther movement in the Bombay nation elsewhere. However, the argument falls slums. Veena Deo's essay on Urmila Pawar's short flat when he tries to equate the problem of un‐ stories and autobiography not only complicates touchability to class struggle. In the South Asian the Dalit experience in terms of gender but also context, the mainstream Left has consistently brings to light the fascinating use of the pen by a failed to understand and incorporate the com‐ Dalit woman writer to tell the stories of oppressed plexity of caste into their agenda and they have women in their everyday relationships inside and paid the price for their dogmatism in recent elec‐ outside the family. Finally, Bali Sahota's contribu‐ toral politics. His overt political stands, such as de‐ tion theoretically locates the paradoxes of Dalits scribing the Bahujan Samaj Party as opportunistic in the larger context of liberal democracy in In‐ (p. 143) and portraying Communist Party of India dia. He rightly points out how the politics of the (Marxist) as the vanguard of the Dalits, makes a dominant not only excludes Dalits and other op‐ mockery of academic scholarship (especially if pressed people from the power structures but also one considers how in the recent general elections, makes them vulnerable to reactionary politics for Prakash Karat hastened to form the anti-Congress their survival. By using D. R. Nagaraj's remarkable and anti-Bharatiya Janata Party Third Front al‐ writings, which located the precolonial roots of an liance with Mayawati being projected as a key anti-caste indigenous tradition, and by linking leading figure). them to contemporary

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