The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India

by Shailaja Paik

This book offers the first social and intellectual history of Dalit performance of Tamasha—a popular form of public, secular, traveling theater in Maharashtra—and places Dalit Tamasha women who represented the desire and disgust of the patriarchal society at the heart of modernization in twentieth century India.

Drawing on ethnographies, films, and untapped archival materials, Shailaja Paik illuminates how Tamasha was produced and shaped through conflicts over caste, gender, sexuality, and culture. Dalit performers, activists, and leaders negotiated the violence and stigma in Tamasha as they struggled to claim manuski (human dignity) and transform themselves from ashlil (vulgar) to assli (authentic) and manus (human beings).

Building on and departing from the Ambedkar-centered historiography and movement-focused approach of Dalit studies, Paik examines the ordinary and everydayness in Dalit lives. Ultimately, she demonstrates how the choices that communities make about culture speak to much larger questions about inclusion, inequality, and structures of violence of caste within Indian society, and opens up new approaches for the transformative potential of Dalit politics and the global history of gender, sexuality, and the human.

Genres: Nonfiction, India, History, Academic, Womens

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 25, 2022

About the author

Shailaja Paik is Associate Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of Dalit Women's Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (2014) and The Vulgarity of Caste Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (2022).

Reviews

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the book is welcome because it shows the internal contradictions between Ambedkar's reform: that he obviously wanted transformation of Dalit lives and livelihoods but also wanted Dalits to leave behind many of their earlier lifeforms due to their sexual nature. But I think the author really wants to swiftly come to Ambedkar's rescue. But I don't think there was any need for that. Every educated reader knows that people act within their context and due to the circumstances that they do. So there is no need to rush to defend Ambedkar or any historical figure because they do not conform to more recent developments in political ideology.

And more importantly I think - that Ambedkar opposed certain art forms on grounds that they were "vulgar" is not surprising. Or that he wanted a sexually sublimated modern urbane intellectually charged citizenry. This was a very mainstream position I think. Not only due to Brahminism or "Victorian Morality" (which is a reductive category) but the longer arc of rationalism and modernism. And Ambedkar's vision for Dalit society was very directly inspired from Enlightenment-based modern rationalism - this strand of Ambedkar is not given its due to contemporary literature because it is at odds with current Dalit politics (fortunately so) - and hence he was quite dismissive of alternate ways of life.

[Sameer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too much jargon that I found it almost impossible to go through and find out what I can learn from this.