Untouchable Citizens

This book, the fourth in the series Cultural Subordination and the Dalit Challenge, examines the mode of organisation and engagement in politics of the Dalits in Tamil Nadu, and their contribution to the processes of democratisation and egalitarianism. Situating the Dalit movement in the context of socio-political changes in Tamil Nadu, the book covers the following issues:/-/- The current condition of the Dalits in Tamil Nadu, the reasons for their protests and the forms they take/-/- The consequences of the extra-institutional mobilisation of the Dalits for democratic politics in Tamil Nadu/-/- The articulation and implementation of the ideals and action concepts of the Dalit movement in everyday life at the local level/-/- The impact of the emergence and entry into electoral politics of the Dalit Liberation Panthers in Tamil Nadu

This book studies Dalit movements in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, their mode of organization, engagement in politics and contribution to processes of democratization and egalitarianism. Questions discussed include: How can democracy be preserved under conditions of extra-institutional mobilization? What is the current situation of Dalits in Tamil Nadu and why and in what manner do they resort to protest? How are egalitarian and democratic ideas initiated at the local level? How are the action concepts of social movements manifested in the everyday lives of their members? and What will be the impact of the entry of the Dalit Liberation Panthers into electoral politics on democracy in Tamil Nadu as well as India? Hugo Gorringe is Lecturer in Identity, Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh.

In Untouchable Bodies, Resistance, and Liberation Joshua Samuel engages in constructing an embodied comparative theology of liberation by comparing divine possessions among Hindu and Christian Dalits in South India.

Citizenship in Dalit and Indigenous Australian Literatures examines the difference in citizenship as experienced by the communities of Dalits in India and Aboriginals in Australia through an analysis of select literature by authors of these marginalised groups. Aligning the voices of two disparate communities, the author creates a transnational dialogue between the subaltern communities of the two countries, India and Australia, through the literature produced by the two communities. The Covid-19 pandemic has made the divide that exists between the performative citizenship rights enjoyed by the Dalits and the aboriginals and the respective dominant communities of their countries more apparent. The author addresses the issue of this disparity between discursive and performative citizenship through a detailed analysis of select Dalit and Australian aboriginal autobiographies, in particular the works by Dalit autobiographers, Baby Kamble and Aravind Malagatti and aboriginal autobiographers Alice Nannup and Gordon Briscoe. The book uses the dominant tropes of the individual autobiographies as a background to unfurl the denial of citizenship, both in the discursive and the performative form, using the parameters of equal citizenship. In doing so, the author also raises important, groundbreaking questions: How is the performativity of citizenship foregrounded by the Dalits and aboriginals in the literary counter-public? How does this foregrounding evoke violent retribution from the dominant sections? And does the continued violation of performative citizenship point to the dysfunctionality of the performative citizenship status accorded to the Dalits and the aboriginals? Questioning the liberal legacy of political, civil and social citizenship, this book will be of interest to researchers studying Dalit and Aboriginal Literature, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and World Literature, South Asian Studies and researchers dealing with the question of citizenship.

This innovative volume is focused on the impact of religion on the realization of democratic citizenship. The researchers contributing provide empirical evidence on how religion influences attitudes towards citizenship and democracy in different countries. The book also tackles the challenges and opportunities for citizenship education. Experts contributing from sociology, political science, theology, and educational science look at the impact of religious beliefs and practices on democratic attitudes and behavior. Chapters also concern how religion influences the recognition of others as citizens. The text appeals to graduates and researchers in these fields with a secondary market for the general interest reader.

Demonstrates the inadequacy of the category 'religion' by focusing on the Paraiyars of South India, exploring the complexity of religious belief in marginalized indigenous communities.

B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution, and M.K. Gandhi, the Indian nationalist, two figures whose thought and legacies have most strongly shaped the contours of Indian democracy, are typically considered antagonists who held irreconcilable views on empire, politics, and society. As such, they are rarely studied together. This book reassesses their complex relationship, focusing on their shared commitment to equality and justice, which for them was inseparable from anticolonial struggles for sovereignty. Both men inherited the concept of equality from Western humanism, but their ideas mark a radical turn in humanist conceptions of politics. This study recovers the philosophical foundations of their thought in Indian and Western traditions, religious and secular alike. Attending to moments of difficulty in their conceptions of justice and their languages of nonviolence, it probes the nature of risk that radical democracy's desire for inclusion opens within modern political thought. In excavating Ambedkar and Gandhi's intellectual kinship, Radical Equality allows them to shed light on each other, even as it places them within a global constellation of moral and political visions. The story of their struggle against inequality, violence, and empire thus transcends national boundaries and unfolds within a universal history of citizenship and dissent.