MAPPING DALITS: Contemporary Reality and Future Prospects in Punjab

Based on empirical investigation of rural and urban Punjab, the book explores patterns of social mobility of dalits. Four dimensions, namely, education, empowerment, emigration and entrepreneurship, have been examined to map the changing character of dalits. In comparison to other states, Punjab is often considered free from acute caste-based inequalities and atrocities though caste system exists and prevails in the structure of everyday life of the Punjabis.

It has been argued that certain visible changes have occurred among the dalits of Punjab. Not all the castes among the dalits have been able to transform their social and economic conditions that could have altered their self-perception as well as their status. More mobile castes, particularly the Ad-dharmis, have constructed their own distinct and insulated world in which the dalit and self have become coterminous and all other dalit castes have been decentred from the discourse of caste equality.

The urban dalits have undergone rapid change in their conditions, which they transformed into political empowerment at the local level. Despite the changes, there are certain aspects of their social life, which have not undergone change. Much of this is related to the consciousness of the dalits. The existence and belief in the caste hierarchy could be gauged from the fact that they still are predominantly favouring caste endogamy. Moreover, the manifest emphasis on caste identity under the overarching influence of the politics of Bahujan Samaj Party has created conditions where the realisation of the goal of end of caste system seems a remote possibility.