The Pariah Problem

Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-0-231-16306-4
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 416 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 695 g

Reihe: Cultures of History

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Viswanath, Rupa (University of Goettingen)

Viswanath, Rupa

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Hinduismus Hinduismus: Leben & Praxis, Soziale Aspekte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Sozialethnologie: Familie, Gender, Soziale Gruppen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction1 Land Tenure or Labor Control? The Agrarian Mise-en-Scène2 Conceptualizing Pariah Conversion: Caste3 The Pariah;Missionary Alliance: Agrarian Contestation and the Local State4 The State and the Ceri5 Settling Land6 The Marriage of Sacred and Secular Authority: New Liberalism7 Giving the Panchama a Home: Creating a Friction Where None Exists8 Everyday Warfare: Caste9 The Depressed ClassesConclusion: The Pariah Problem's Enduring LegaciesGlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex

Leseproben

Read the introduction to The Pariah Problem:

Über Autor(innen)

Rupa Viswanath is professor of Indian religions at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies at the University of Göttingen. She has held positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge. Her interests include national minorities and practices of minoritization, comparative secularisms, slavery and race, transnational religious movements, religions and representative democracy, and political theory and the global south.