Dalit Studies in Higher Education

vision and challenges

edited by Arun Kumar and Sanjay Kumar

foreword by Imtiaz Ahmad

Publisher: Deshkal

ISBN: 81-902865-0-1

Publication Date: 2005

Price: Rs.595, $ 14

Cover photograph: Vinay Ranjay

Cover Design: Bindiya Thapar

Page Design: Bibhas Das

Extent: 146 pages

About the Book

Knowledge has intricate linkages with forces that govern our social life. Invariably, the production and denial of knowledge are akin to the production and denial of power. For centuries, caste system in the Indian subcontinent has controlled, regulated and hierarchised knowledge. Brahmanism, as it evolved over a period of time, has sought to legitimate the servitude of Dalit castes through its hegemony over the social universe of knowledge.

Of course, the hegemony has seldom been complete or gone uncontested. Today dalits claim a stake, both in knowledge and the power that it serves more strongly than ever before. Right from the nineteenth century, dalit discourses have emerged as challenges to the Brahmanic-national-universal with distinct and dissenting imageries of future and the quotidian, the community and the nation. Violence and at times token concessions have been the usual response of the powers that be to such dissents. It was a ploy of the dominant and not really commitment to incorporate dalit thinkers, ideologues and fighters in Social Sciences. A programme of Dalit Studies that aspires to be emancipatory, seeks to challenge and change the very edifice of Social Sciences. In its efforts it must resemble the de-Brahmanisation of knowledge. It cannot be just an addendum to the existing system of knowledge. The Report engages with this issue and attempts to draw the contour of Social Sciences of the future.

Based on year-long discussions and deliberations with hundreds of university teachers, vice-chancellors, intellectuals, social-political activists and government officials, the Report presents the case, problems and challenges in introducing Dalit Studies in the higher education of Bihar. It is useful for scholars, researchers, policy makers and educationists working in the field of pedagogy.

About the Series

This series on Dalit Studies attempts to intervene in the pedagogic discourses of the system of higher education and contemporary socio-political discourses at large in order to sensitize them to the issues of the marginalized sections of society. The principle behind the venture is to attempt to "de-normalize" caste as the lasting category of Indian society t5hat gets easy acceptance in the categories of Indian social sciences, either in the form of universal or national. It is to retrieve and 'sustain the rational emanicipatory articulation' of such discourses in the course of reconstruction. Further, we work on the principle that the meanings and experiences of caste have fundamentally changed, which necessitate a relook at contemporary discourses with the perspective of changing experiences of Dalits.

This series has been the result of our effort, in the last two years, at developing a new perspective to reread the pedagogic discourses of higher education and as a critique-cum-restructuring of existing disciplines in social sciences and humanities. This publication seeks to make available the best and most relevant social sciences writings in India and abroad to individuals, groups and institutions.

In a sense books being a material product publication is inherently an entrepreneurial exercise. In this context, any sustainable publishing strategy gathers strength from taking better care of all the economic dimensions of distribution, network and return from sales.