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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRupa Viswanath has carried out an extraordinary feat of historical scholarship in the new field of Dalit studies. Skillfully negotiating two different archives-the official and the missionary-she grounds the cultural struggles of the untouchable castes of Tamil Nadu in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the political economy of land and labor. Viswanath powerfully argues that there was a government-missionary nexus that sought to turn the pariah from traditional forms of slavery to modern forms of dispossessed labor. Most remarkably, she shows that the initiative for conversion to Christianity came not from missionaries but from Dalits who were motivated not by abstract ideas of emancipation but by strategic considerations of material advantage in their daily struggles. The Pariah Problem is a breakthrough in modern South Asian studies. -- Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University and the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta The combination of historical depth and theoretical nuance makes The Pariah Problem both a brilliant scholarly achievement and a major political intervention. Taking the agrarian unfreedom that marked rural life in Madras Presidency as her starting point, Viswanath reconstructs with meticulous precision the problem of the 'Pariah'-hereditarily unfree Dalit laborers-that by the late nineteenth century compelled the reluctant attention of the colonial state and the elite indigenous public sphere. The Pariah Problem is most far-reaching in its implications, and at its devastating best, in documenting the 'caste-state nexus' that developed to contain-rather than to solve-this problem and continue to thwart genuine solutions today. This book will take its place justifiably among the best on the Dalit struggle for equality in India. -- Mrinalini Sinha, University of Michigan Essential... The volume is meticulous in its scholarship and written with great care and precision. A must read for South Asian specialists and general educated readers. CHOICE A remarkable feat in historical scholarship and a nuanced theoretical intervention in the new field of Dalit Studies. American Historical Review In this brilliant study, Viswanath traces the origins of the many myths that the social elite continue to spread...This book would be a valuable reference to those engaged in the study of colonial India as well as those interested in the study of modern missions. -- James Taneti Mission Studies Rupa Viswanath's The Pariah Problem is an important, insightful, and very likely lasting contribution to the burgeoning field of Dalit studies, and more broadly the study of Indian religion, caste, and the colonial state... Ground-breaking. Journal of Hindu Studies An outstanding work of historical scholarship. Pacific Affairs Journal An absorbing combination of scholarly erudition, analytical force, and lucid exposition. -- Arvind Sharma International Journal of Dharma Studies
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. Land Tenure or Labor Control? The Agrarian Mise-en-Scene 2. Conceptualizing Pariah Conversion: Caste 3. The Pariah-Missionary Alliance: Agrarian Contestation and the Local State 4. The State and the Ceri 5. Settling Land 6. The Marriage of Sacred and Secular Authority: New Liberalism 7. Giving the Panchama a Home: Creating a Friction Where None Exists 8. Everyday Warfare: Caste 9. The Depressed Classes Conclusion: The Pariah Problem's Enduring Legacies Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
