Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Gendering Dalits

1. Dirty “Other” Vamp: (Mis)Representing Dalit Women

2. Paradoxes of Victimhood: Iconographies of Suffering, Sympathy, and Subservience

3. Dalit Viranganas: (En)Gendering the Dalit Reinvention of 1857

4. Feminine, Criminal, or Manly? Imaging Dalit Masculinities

5. Intimate and Embodied Desires: Religious Conversions and Dalit Women

6. Goddesses and Women’s Songs: Negotiating Dalit Popular Religion and Culture

7. Caste, Indentured Women, and the Hindi Public Sphere

Conclusion

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Charu Gupta is associate professor of history at the University of Delhi. She is the author of Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India and editor of Gendering Colonial India: Reforms, Print, Caste, and Communalism.

Reviews

"The significant impact of this book is that it has not only sharpened gender sensitivity but also heightened awareness of the immensely complex challenges of diversity management in India as a whole. . . . It will be a reference point for much future research."
*South Asia Research*

"Gupta adds to overall Dalit and global feminist scholarship a rich and dense analysis of texts and contexts to unpack the 'biopolitics of caste.' It is an engaging example of interdisciplinary work focused on close readings of print and popular culture representations from colonial India, including present-day representations, that construct, contest, revise, and influence narratives of gender and caste."
*Journal of Asian Studies*

"Charu Gupta has made her contribution in the field of historical research at the intersection of gender and caste in India widely acclaimed. . . .This book serves as a timely reminder for gender scholars working on colonial India that gendering is experienced by all bodies, and hence the time has come to question the central subjectivity of women in most works."
*Religion and Gender*