Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community | Vijay Prashad

Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community | Vijay Prashad | A shallow polemic!

books:

Untouchable Freedo...

	Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community Vijay Prashad Oxford University Press, USA, 2000 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews
	for more information click here

This volume is on the Balmikis of Delhi, who work as sanitation workers and keep the city clean. They live in poverty and face sustained discrimination. In response the Balmikis fight to liberate themselves. Untouchable Freedom is the first comprehensive study of this community and traces their struggles from the 1860s to the present, as they have moved from agricultural labor to urban work.

Prashad is a new leader

Vijay Prashad's book shows his versatility across topics. His other books look at race and immigration in the United States, as he successfully debunks the model minority myth for Asian Americans, but he can also trace the patterns of global capitalism in his book "Fat Cats..." This book is from a different perspective however. It is a grassroots look at the oppressive caste system through the eyes of a Dalit community. This is a relevant study because struggles like these are going on all around India today. Prashad is firmly in the vanguard of today's struggles against oppression.

for more information click here

A shallow polemic!

Vijay Prashad's new book is a polemic by a radical Marxist. It suffers from lack of judgment in the choice of data, and it pushes too hard to justify the Marxist thesis of class and caste warfare. In reality, the situation on the ground in India is much more complex.

history