Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community [Hardcover]

Vijay Prashad (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2000

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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Vijay Prashad is an Assistant Professor of International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (May 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195650751
• ISBN-13: 978-0195650754
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,907,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vijay Prashad is George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He is the author of eleven books, most recently The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (2007). Two of his books, Karma of Brown Folk (2000) and Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting (2002), were chosen by the Village Voice as books of the year.[citation needed] The Darker Nations was chosen as the Best Nonfiction book by the Asian American Writers' Workshop in 2008 and it won the Muzaffar Ahmed Book Award in 2009.

His pieces of journalism frequently appear in South Asian periodicals (his monthly column "Letter from America" in Frontline magazine, his book reviews in the Kathmandu based Himal, for which he is a contributing editor), in North American periodicals (Z Magazine, ColorLines Magazine, The Indian American) or else on the web (regularly at CounterPunch and ZNET). He is a contributing editor at the online magazine Naked Punch and a member of the editorial boards of the scholarly journals Amerasia Journal and Left History.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prashad is a new leader, January 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community (Paperback)

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.

5 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A shallow polemic!, October 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community (Hardcover)

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.