Untouchable Pasts: Religion, Identity, and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780-1950

by Saurabh Dube

Saurabh Dube is Visiting Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at El Colegio de Mexico.

308 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1998

About the author

Saurabh Dube is an Indian scholar whose work combines history and anthropology, archival and field research, subaltern studies and postcolonial-decolonial perspectives, and social theory and critical thought. After teaching at the University of Delhi, since 1995 he is Professor of History – elected to the Distinguished Category of Professor-Researcher in 2009 – at the Centre of Asian and African Studies at El Colegio de México in Mexico City. Dube is a member also of the National System of Researchers (SNI), Mexico, in which since 2005 he holds the highest rank.
Saurabh Dube has been described recently as "one of the most generative, creative, and surprising thinkers of our time" ( Sunil Amrith) as well as "a thinker who in these times is fundamental to the Global South" ( Mario Rufer). He has been considered as having "long been one of the most interesting and perceptive scholars addressing the dilemmas of modernity in South Asia"; as issuing "excellent reminder[s] of the possibilities as well as the perils of modernity" at large; and as "bringing an electric urgency to the task of historiography of modernity", encompassing "the genealogies of the modern in Europe, the Americas, and South Asia".

Reviews

[Kavya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting exploration of "the constitution of the meanings of Hinduism and the articulations of Hindu identities" beyond geography specific devotional organizations. Could be complemented in the classroom with films about Sri Sai Baba, who is still worshipped widely among Dalits and non-caste Hindus.