THE PARIAH PROBLEM. Cultures of History. Unauthenticated Download Date 11/29/18 8:36 PM

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1 THE PARIAH PROBLEM Cultures of History

2 CULTURES OF HISTORY Nicholas Dirks, Series Editor The death of history, reported at the end of the twentieth century, was clearly premature. It has become a hotly contested battleground in struggles over identity, citizenship, and claims of recognition and rights. Each new national history proclaims itself as ancient and universal, while the contingent character of its focus raises questions about the universality and objectivity of any historical tradition. Globalization and the American hegemony have created cultural, social, local, and national backlashes. Cultures of History is a new series of books that investigates the forms, understandings, genres, and histories of history, taking history as the primary text of modern life and the foundational basis for state, society, and nation. Shail Mayaram, Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics Ahmad H. Sa di and Lila Abu-Lughod, editors, Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, Laura Bear, Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia Bernard Bate, Tamil Oratory and the Dravidian Aesthetic: Democratic Practice in South India Partha Chatterjee, Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy

3 The Pariah Problem Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India RUPA VISWANATH Columbia University Press New York

4 Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright 2014 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Viswanath, Rupa. The pariah problem : caste, religion, and the social in modern India / Rupa Viswanath. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN (ebook) 1. Pariahs History. 2. Pariahs Social conditions. 3. Caste India History. 4. India Social conditions. 5. India History. I. Title. DS432.P25V ' dc Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c Cover Photo: Bridgeman Art Library Cover Design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

5 For the Dalit women, children, and men who were the targets of the official policies and unofficial strategems this book describes, and for their descendants

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7 Mitunter aber verlangt eben dasselbe Leben, das die Vergessenheit braucht, die zeitweilige Vernichtung dieser Vergessenheit; dann soll es eben gerade klar werden, wie ungerecht die Existenz irgend eines Dinges, eines Privilegiums, einer Kaste, einer Dynastie zum Beispiel ist, wie sehr dieses Ding den Untergang verdient. Dann wird seine Vergangenheit kritisch betrachtet.... Denn da wird nun einmal die Resultate früherer Geschlechter sind, sind wir auch die Resultate ihrer Verirrungen, Leidenschaften und Irrthümer, ja Verbrechen... Sometimes this same life that requires forgetting demands a temporary destruction of this forgetfulness; it wants to be clear as to how unjust the existence of something a privilege, a caste, a dynasty, for example is, and how greatly this thing deserves to perish. Then its past is regarded critically.... Since we are the outcome of earlier generations, we are also the outcome of their aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes... FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE The epigraph is taken from the R. J. Hollingdale translation of Nietzsche s Untimely Meditations (ed. Daniel Breazeale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 76. I have slightly altered the translation.

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