Caste Politics and Partition in South Asian History

Sen, Dwaipayan

doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2012.00860.x

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Such issues have also shaped controversies on women and Hindu nationalism, and have been explored by Amrita Basu and others (see, e.g., Jeffery and Basu 1998). For an overview, see also Sen (2012a). Still, there is a substantial amount of literature that stresses the hardening of religious boundaries that resulted from the wide range of religious reform movements marking the last century of colonial rule, movements fed by the expanding world of polemics and print under the colonial regime.…”

Section: Searching For Partition's Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Historiography of India's Partition: Between Civilization and Modernity

Gilmartin¹

2015

J of Asian Stud

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More than sixty-five years after the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, controversy about partition, its causes and its effects, continues. Yet the emphases in these debates have changed over the years, and it is perhaps time, in the wake of India's recent elections, to take stock once again of how these debates have developed in the last several decades and where they are heading. What gives these controversies particular significance is that they are not just about that singular event, but about the whole trajectory of India's modern history, as interpreted through partition's lens—engaging academic historians, even as they continue to be deeply enmeshed in ongoing political conflict in South Asia, and, indeed, in the world more broadly.

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Section: Searching For Partition's Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Historiography of India's Partition: Between Civilization and Modernity

Gilmartin¹

2015

J of Asian Stud

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“…Dwaipayan Sen has shown how the links between Partition, caste and untouchability have been deeply understudied. 4 After seventy years, the historical knowledge of Dalit experiences in the years prior to Partition and its aftermath is very limited. 5 This gap may be explained in two ways.…”

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‘Bound hand and foot and handed over to the caste Hindus’: Ambedkar, untouchability and the politics of Partition

Cháirez-Garza

2018

The Indian Economic & Social History Review

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This article examines B. R. Ambedkar’s dramatically shifting politics in the years prior to Partition. In 1940, he supported the creation of Pakistan. In 1946, he joined Winston Churchill in his demands to delay independence. Yet, in 1947, Ambedkar rejected Pakistan and joined the Nehru administration. Traditional narratives explain these changes as part of Ambedkar’s political pragmatism. It is believed that such pragmatism, along with Gandhi’s good faith, helped Ambedkar to secure a place in Nehru’s Cabinet. In contrast, I argue that Ambedkar changed his attitude towards Congress due to the political transformations elicited by Partition. Ambedkar approached Congress as a last resort to maintain a political space for Dalits in independent India. This, however, was unsuccessful. Partition not only saw the birth of two countries but also virtually eliminated the histories of resistance of political minorities that did not fall under the Hindu–Muslim binary, such as Dalits. In the case of Ambedkar, his past as a critic of Gandhi and Congress was erased in favour of the more palatable image of him as the father of the constitution. This essay reconfigures our understanding of Partition by showing how the promise of Pakistan shaped the way we remember Ambedkar.

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‘Civis Indianus sum’?Ambedkar on democracy and territory during linguistic reorganization (and partition)

Godsmark¹

2019

Mod. Asian Stud.

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This article considers Ambedkar's ideas about the implementation of democracy in India, in the context of the linguistic reorganization of provincial administrative boundaries. In doing so, it looks to emphasize the importance of territorial configurations to Dalit politics during this period and, in particular, the consequences of ‘provincialization’, which has received little attention within the existing literature. Rethinking space by redrawing administrative territory provided Ambedkar with one potential avenue through which to escape the strictures of Dalits’ minority status. In this vision, linguistic reorganization (and partition) were harbingers of greater democratization and potential palliatives to the threat of Hindu majority rule at the centre. In turn, however, Ambedkar simultaneously came to perceive the creation of these new administrative spaces as marking a new form of provincial majoritarianism, despite his best efforts to form alliances with those making such demands. In this sense, the article also seeks to address some of the shared processes behind linguistic reorganization and partition as two related forms of territorial redrawing. In the face of these demands, and the failures of both commensuration and coalition politics, Ambedkar turned to the idea of separate settlements for Dalits, whereby they might themselves come to constitute a majority. Whilst such a novel attempt at separation and resettlement was not ultimately realized, its emergence within Ambedkar's thought at this time points towards its significance in any history of caste and untouchability in twentieth-century South Asia.

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Caste Politics and Partition in South Asian History

Cited by 7 publications

References 12 publications

The Historiography of India's Partition: Between Civilization and Modernity

The Historiography of India's Partition: Between Civilization and Modernity

‘Bound hand and foot and handed over to the caste Hindus’: Ambedkar, untouchability and the politics of Partition

‘Civis Indianus sum’?Ambedkar on democracy and territory during linguistic reorganization (and partition)

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