Dalit Visions

by Gail Omvedt

Dalit Visions explores and critiques the sensibility which equates Indian tradition with Hinduism, and Hinduism with Brahmanism; which considers the Vedas as the foundational texts of Indian culture and discovers within the Aryan heritage the essence of Indian civilisation. It shows that even secular minds remain imprisoned within this Brahmanical vision, and the language of secular discourse is often steeped in a Hindu ethos. The tract looks at alternative traditions, nurtured within dalit movements, which have questioned this way of looking at Indian society and its history. While seeking to understand the varied dalit visions that have sought to alter the terms of the dominant order, this tract persuades us to reconsider our ideas, listen to those voices which we often refuse to hear and understand the visions which seek to change the world in which dalits live.

300 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 1998

About the author

Dr. Gail Omvedt is an American-born Indian scholar, sociologist and human rights activist. Omvedt has been involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements.

She was born in Minneapolis, and studied at Carleton College, and at UC Berkeley where she earned her PhD in sociology in 1973. She has been an Indian citizen since 1983.

In recent years she has been working as a consulting sociologist on gender, environment and rural development, for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Oxfam Novib (NOVIB) and other institutions.

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