The caste question : Dalits and the politics of modern India / Anupama Rao.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. 1. Caste radicalism and the making of a new politicals subject -- The problem of caste property -- Dalits as political minority -- Pt. 2. The paradox of emancipation -- Legislating caste atrocity -- New directions in Dalit politics : symbologies of violence, Maharashtra, 1960-1979 -- The sexual politics of caste : violence and the ritual-archaic -- Death of a kotwal : the violence of recognition.

This innovative work of historical anthropology explores how India's Dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens. Anupama Rao's account challenges standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western India in the colonial and postcolonial periods, she shines a light on South Asian historiography and on ongoing caste discrimination, to show how persons without rights came to possess them and how Dalit struggles led to the transformation of such terms of colonial liberalism