Mata Prasad’s 2002 autobiography attributes the emergence of Indian na-tionalism to the everyday humiliation experienced by the English-educated Indian elite under colonial rule. Like earlier Dalit authors, Prasad argues that the origins of Indian nationalism must be located in the nationalist leaders’ personal experiences of colonial humiliation, during which they were treated s s…
How significant is the history of untouchability for an understanding of South Asia’s early modern past? Studies that approach early modern caste as a whole tend to represent the “untouchable” castes as being at the bottom-most rung of a graded order and untouchability as part of the larger complex of caste practices. But the exclusion and discrimination that those deemed “Untouchable…