The Caste Question : Dalits and the Politics of Modern India - Rao, Anupama (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2009)
This innovative work of historical anthropoligy explores how India`s dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens The author`s account challenges standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western indian 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 as rights, equality and personhood.
includes index and biblioraphy