The vulgarity of caste : Dalits, sexuality, and humanity in modern India / Shailaja Paik.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paik, Shailaja, author.

Series:

South Asia in motion

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dalit women--India--Maharashtra--History--20th century.

Dalit women.

Women entertainers--India--Maharashtra--History--20th century.

Women entertainers.

Tamasha (Theater)--Social aspects--History--20th century.

Tamasha (Theater).

Tamasha (Theater)--Political aspects--History--20th century.

Vulgarity--India--Maharashtra--History--20th century.

Vulgarity.

Caste--India--Maharashtra--History--20th century.

Caste.

Patriarchy--India--Maharashtra--History--20th century.

Patriarchy.

India--Maharashtra.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xix, 400 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Summary:

"Drawing on an extensive archive of Marathi sources, from publications to music to state documents, Shailaja Paik provides a social and intellectual history of Dalit women's stigmatized sexuality in the 20th century and the patriarchal efforts to sanitize it. The Vulgarity of Caste is the first work of South Asian history to examine the vernacular concepts of vulgarity and disgust and the roles they played in developing the socio-political landscape of western India in the 1900s. Paik uses the Dalit theatre performance of Tamasha as a lens through which to analyze the processes and politics of vulgarity, as defined and shared by men in the colonial British government, in the dominant castes, and in the Dalit communities alike. She argues that, although the boundaries of vulgarity are fluid, it works through sexual and social differentiation (including food, language, music, and dance) to actually extend and re-generate caste hierarchy, class inequality, and Dalit subalternity. Her study revolves around Dalit performers she calls "vulgar public women" who negotiated with patriarchal pressure both inside and outside the Dalit community, and bent it to suit their own purposes. With their accounts at the core, Paik traces how a range of dominant social actors facilitated the construction and consolidation of caste patriarchies by attempting to authoritatively define the modern public sphere and regional Marathi identity across the twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : Performing precarity: sex-gender-caste/Ashlil-Manuski-Assli

Part I. : 1. Policing untouchables and producing Tamasha in Maharashtra

2. Constructing caste, desire, and danger

Part II. : 3. Ambedkar, Manuski, and Reconstructing Dalit life-worlds, 1920-1956

4. Singing resistance and rehumanizing poetics-politics, post-1930

Part III. : 5. Claiming authenticity and becoming Marathi, post-1960

6. Forging new futures and measures of humanity

Conclusion : Queering the "vulgar": Tamasha without women.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [381]-386) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Paik, Shailaja. Vulgarity of caste.

ISBN:

9781503632387

1503632385

9781503634084

1503634086

OCLC:

1300755257