Dalits in Neoliberal India Mobility or Marginalisation? Exploring the Political in South Asia Series

India?s economic growth has brought opportunities for many but to what extent has it benefitted its ethnically-shaped underclass: the Dalits? Have Dalits fared better in a neoliberal India or have structural economic and social changes served to magnify Dalit disadvantage? This volume offers a varied picture of Dalit experience in different states in contemporary India. The essays draw on factual research in rural and urban areas by experts in the field. With case studies ranging from Dalit entrepreneurs in Bhopal to housewives in Tamil Nadu to ex-millworkers in Mumbai, the book contends that radically progressive change and advance is attended by discrimination and exclusion, as well as surprising new areas of stigma.

With contributions by political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and economists, the volume will be key reading for scholars and students of Dalit and subaltern studies, sociology, political science, and economics.

Maps, Figures and Plates.Tables. Abbreviations. Foreword Mukulika Banerjee. Acknowledgements. Dalits in Neoliberal India: An Overview Clarinda Still1.Dalit Entrepreneurs, Globalisation and the Supplier Diversity Experiment in Madhya Pradesh Sudha Pai 2. Trajectories of Dalits’ Incorporation into the Indian Neoliberal Business Economy Kaushal K. Vidyarthee3. Locating Caste in a Globalising Indian City: A Study of Dalit Ex-millworkers’ Occupational Choices in Post-industrial Mumbai Sumeet Mhaskar4. Legislating for Liberation? Dalit Electoral Politics and Social Change in Tamil Nadu Hugo Gorringe 5. A Book Also Travels: Circulating Small Booklets in Dalit Poorva Badri Narayan 6. Low Caste Elites and Re-traditionalised Responses: Status and Security in an Economically Uncertain Time Jordan C. R. Mullard 7. Dalit Women Becoming ‘Housewives’: Lessons from the Tiruppur Region, 1981–82 to 2008–09 Judith Heyer 8. Finding One’s Place among the Elite: How Dalits Experiencing Sharp Upward Social Mobility Adjust to Their New Social Status Jules Naudet. About the Editor. Notes on Contributors. Index.

Clarinda Still is Lecturer of Modern Indian Studies, University of Oxford; and Junior Research Fellow, Wolfson College.