Dalits in the New Millennium

Sudha Pai is retired Professor of Political Science, Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests are Dalit Politics, State Politics in India, Agrarian Politics, Globalization and Legislative Governance. She currently heads a research think tank PRAMAN (Policy Research and Management Network) that undertakes research on aspects of Public Policy such as Health, Education, Agriculture and India's foreign policy. D. Shyam Babu is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. His research interests are socio-economic mobility among Dalits, liberalisation and social justice, and the role of entrepreneurship in mobility. He collaborated with Devesh Kapur and Chandra Bhan Prasad to conduct socio-economic surveys to map social change and its linkages with public policies, and entrepreneurship among Dalits. Rahul Verma is Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. His research interests are voting behaviour, party politics, political violence, and media. He has co-authored Ideology And Identity: The Changing Party Systems of India(Oxford University Press, 2018).

• 1. Introduction: Dalit Discourse in the New Millennium Sudha Pai, Shyam Babu and Rahul Verma; Part I. Shifting Patterns of Electoral Politics: 2. Electoral Politics: Voting Patterns among Dalits Rahul Verma and Pranav Gupta; 3. On the peculiar absence of Dalit politics: Punjab and West Bengal Dwaipayan Sen; 4. Decline of the BSP: Dalit Politics under Right-Wing Hegemony Sudha Pai; 5. A Democratic Dilemma: Dalit parties, election finance, and coalition politics Michael A. Collins; 6. Why Dalits voted for the BJP in recent elections? Abhinav Prakash; Part II. Popular Culture, Discourse andd Protest: 7. Role of songs in the emergence of Bahujan identity Kalyani and Satnam Singh; 8. Anti-caste Music and Cinema Prashant Ingole; 9. Portrayal of Dalits in the Media: A Study of Select Newspapers from Uttar Pradesh Swadesh Singh; 10. Dalit Protest Politics Amit Aahuja and Rajkamal Singh; Part III. Transformations in Ideology and Identity: 11. Annihilation, Identity, Representation: Kanshi Ram and the Conundrums of Dalit Political Agency Surinder S. Jodhka; 12. Reading Caste and Class together: A Dalit-Bahujan-Left Alliance? Dwaipayan Bhattacharya; 13. Towards Radical Democracy: the Dalit-Bahujan Claim for Political Power Harish Wankhede; 14. Liberation Panthers and the Dalit Challenge to Hindutva in Tamil Nadu Meena Kandasamy and Hugo Gorringe; 15. Dalit-Bahujan Politics: Crisis and Future Badri Narayan; Part IV. Aspirations and Anxieties: 16. Role of Technology in Social and Political Life of Young Dalits Snigdha Poonam and Samarth Bansal; 17. Dalit Middle Class: Aspirations, Networks and Social Capital Gurram Srinivas; 18. Persisting Gap: A Case for Restitution and Reparations Amit Thorat; 19. Dalit Capitalism: Adversity, Opportunity and Agency? D. Shyam Babu; Part V. Discrimination and Representation: 20. The Effect of Dalit Representatives on the Community Francesca Jensenius and Simon Chauchard; 21. Dalit Legislators as Policy Makers Kaushiki Sanyal; 22. Why some MBCs want SC status? Arvind Kumar; 23. Measuring caste-based Discrimination Victoire Girard, Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche and Peter Mayer; 24. Suicide rates among Dalits Vikas Arya, Andrew Page, Gregory Armstrong and Peter Mayer; 25. Epilogue.