He theorizes the caste system as a mosaic of disputes about dignity, religiosity, and entitlement. Examining moments of caste defiance, he argues for a politics of cultural affirmation and creates a new cultural identity for Dalits. More significantly, he argues against self-pity and rage in artistic imagination, and for recreating the banished worlds of gods and goddesses.
Nagaraj’s importance lies in consolidating and advancing some of the ideas of India’s leading Dalit thinker and icon, B. R. Ambedkar. He suggests an inclusivist framework to build an alliance of all the oppressed communities of India.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Foreword to the Second Edition (2010)
Ashis Nandy
Preface to the First Edition (1993)
Editorial Note and Acknowledgements
Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi
Introduction: Khadgavagali Kavya (Let Poetry Become [a] Sword)
Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi
Part I: Gandhi and Ambedkar
1. Self-Purification vs Self-Respect: On he Roots of the Dalit Movement
2. The Lie of a Youth and the Truth of an Anthropologist: Two Tales in the Widening of Emotional Concern
3. Gandhi and the Dalit Question: A Comparison with Marx and Ambedkar
4. Two Imaginary Soliloquies: Ambedkar and Gandhi
Part II: Politics and Cultural Memory
5. The Cultural Politics of the Dalit Movement - Notes and Reflections
6. Threefold Tensions: Pre-Colonial History, Colonial Reality, and Post-Colonial Politics - Notes on the Making of Dalit Identity
7. Violence on Dalits and the Disappearance of the Village
8. The Problem of Cultural Memory
9. Misplaced Anger, Shrunken Expectations
10. The Pathology of Sickle Swallowing
Part III: Dalit Literature
11. Against the Poetics of Segregation and Self-Banishment
12. From Political Rage to Cultural Affirmation: Notes on the Kannada Dalit Poet-Activist Siddalingaiah
13. The Power of Poor People’s Laughter
14. Between Social Rage and Spiritual Quest: Notes on Dalit Writing in Kannada
15. Cosmologies of Castes, Realism, Dalit Sensibility, and the Kannada Novel
16. Social Change in Kannada Fiction: A Comparative Study of a Dalit and Non-Dalit Classic
Bibliography
Index