ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Search

Advanced Search

UntouchabilitySubscribe to Untouchability

Ethics in Ambedkar’s Critique of Gandhi

Vol. 52, Issue No. 15, 15 Apr, 2017
Gopal Guru

Among the political thinkers of modern India, Gandhi and Ambedkar have elicited an intellectual enthusiasm among scholars who remain arrested in debates on the pre-eminence of one thinker over the other. The Ambedkarite critique of Gandhi is centred on the latter’s fast unto death in opposition to the MacDonald Award of separate electorates for Dalits. Formalistic readings of Gandhi are not in the interest of the robust, associative and inclusive intellectual tradition at the core of Ambedkar’s emancipatory project. Ambedkar was a pathfinder who chose critique as a method of ethical persuasion to gently pull in and retain members of caste society in the interlocutory framework of conversation.

Social Stratification among Muslims

Vol. 52, Issue No. 5, 04 Feb, 2017
Bharat Chandra Rout

The article "Does Untouchability Exist among Muslims? Evidence from Uttar Pradesh" (EPW, 9 April 2016) fails at both the methodological and policy levels.

Clean India, Unclean Indians Beyond the Bhim Yatra

Vol. 51, Issue No. 26-27, 25 Jun, 2016
Paul D'Souza

The Safai Karamchari Andolan traversed 500 districts of the country with the message "stop killing us." The participants, manual scavengers who clean dry latrines, sewers and septic tanks, are forced to carry on this dehumanising work despite laws against it. Will the Swachh Bharat campaign succeed in addressing the issues connected with manual scavenging?

Baluta and Joothan amid Humiliation

Vol. 51, Issue No. 26-27, 25 Jun, 2016
Purnachandra Naik

Self-expression in the form of autobiographies by Dalits endeavours to expose the hierarchical sociocultural space that subjugates Dalits to the margins, in the literal as well as metaphorical sense. As injustice and violence are endemic in Dalit life, contestation and confrontation are synchronous in the Dalits' response to the same.

Does Untouchability Exist among Muslims?

Vol. 51, Issue No. 15, 09 Apr, 2016
Prashant K Trivedi, Srinivas Goli, Fahimuddin, Surinder Kumar

Untouchability forms a crucial criterion for inclusion in the list of Scheduled Castes. It is rarely discussed with reference to Muslims. A household survey was conducted in 14 districts of Uttar Pradesh to examine contradictory claims about the practice of untouchability by non-Dalit Muslims and Hindus towards Dalit Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. A section of Dalit Muslim respondents report existence of untouchability in dining relations, habitation, social interaction and access to religious places. Surprisingly, a higher proportion of non-Dalit Muslims corroborate these claims.

Oppression and Denial

Vol. 37, Issue No. 06, 09 Feb, 2002
Sukhadeo Thorat

Progressive legislation and constitutional safeguards have done little to rid the social order of the widespread evil of caste discrimination. As this paper argues, taboos imposed by tradition and belief still exert their stranglehold across most of India, impose social obligations and economic deprivation on several of those in the dalit category, and as borne out in surveys conducted across four Indian states.

Pages

Back to Top

EPW

Term & Policy

Circulation

Advertisement

Connect with us