'The authors really come into their own when they take a long, hard look at public policy, and when they take up case studies which reveal indepth fieldwork. [They] offer a penetrating insight into reservation policies. The effort that has gone into the case studies is evident … It is of great value because it provides an understanding of the phenomenon of 'new poverty'. More importantly, it throws light on the fight over bonded labour and working conditions, expressed in political, legal and industrial forms.' The Telegraph (India)

• Glossary; 1. Who are the Untouchables?; 2. The question of the 'Harijan atrocity'; 3. Religion, politics and the Untouchables from the nineteenth century to 1956; 4. Public policy I: adverse discrimination and compensatory discrimination; 5. Public policy II: the anti-poverty programs; 6. The new Untouchable proletariat: a case study of the Faridabad stone quarries; 7. Untouchable politics and Untouchable politicians since 1956; 8. The question of reservation: lives and careers of some scheduled castes MPs and MLAs; 9. Subordination, poverty and the state in modern India; Bibliography; Index.