DALIT MOVEMENT IN INDIA: LOCAL PRACTICES, GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

This work traces new ‘practices’ and discourses among Dalit activists since the 199s and shows how these practices both shaped and changed social relations. It is an anthropological attempt to reach behind the surface of the contemporary Dalit movement. Some of the topics discussed are the kind of discourses found among Dalit activists, the organizational structure of the movement, and the local practices among activists. This study also relates the method of anthropological fieldwork to theories about social movements. It offers a historical context as a prerequisite to understanding processes in the contemporary Dalit movement. It focuses on the heterogeneity and the geographical spread of the movement. The fieldwork moves from a small locality of Dalits in Lucknow to interaction with Dalit activists in Maharashtra to the life of Punjabi Dalit migrants in Birmingham.