Course Title: Political Economy of Discrimination Couse Teacher: Kaustab Banerjee Topic: Stigma, Discrimination & Violence through the lens of Castes in Contemporary India; answering that through Assertion; Understanding Namasudra Movement in Bengal Name: Debottam Saha M.A. 3rd Semester, CSSS  `` We’ve passed countless days With tyranny and injustice Millions of lives victimized Still at our huts Staying thickened dark Yet we’ve not lost our dreams Unended……’’ ( Jatin Bala, We’ve Stood for Challenging, translated by Satya Debnath Source: www.museindia.com/viewarchive.asp? myr=2012 & issid=46 Accessed on 15/10/2014, 11:42 am) In this paper I am going to look at the concepts of `stigma’, `discrimination’ and `violence’ as associated with the larger caste question in India, within the apparent claim of advocating `casteless’ modern, contemporary India and as a response to these concepts, how Namasudras in Bengal both asserted and are asserting their positions in the context of Bengal ( from colonial Bengal to the post-partition situation). The paper begins from the theoretical premise as found in the introductory chapter in Aswini Despande’s book , `The Grammar of Caste’ , that caste still exists even in the context of contemporary modern India, where the mainstream, modernist claim is that caste does not exist in India. Within the section called `(Ir)relevance of Caste?’’, in the introductory chapter itself, Despande comes with an interesting argument that untouchability, as a form discrimination associated with caste question, is still prevalent in the urban sphere of India, where the metropolitan claim is that there is no such discrimination in urban sphere in India because it has been build up on the same logic of `anonymity’, but the actual reality is different. Untouchability is being practiced, even in the urban settings, despite it has been abolished after Independence, because large amount of such instances remain unreported and unpublished. Secondly, the book alters this apparent propaganda measures as claimed in post-LPG era in India, for that matter in labour market, where the employers of MNCs claim that `merit’ is the ultimate criteria for them, no place for caste & any other primordial ties, but the propaganda again gets challenged, because the real story remains different because discrimination exits based on the same caste lines. (SEE Despande, 2011) Hence, in a depressive mood one can argue that caste exits in casteless India, tied with discrimination, however, my paper tries to look at it from another `negative concept’ as Gopal Guru, would say `stigma’, ``a cultural construction which in turn is sustained by a subsidiary act of creation of the other (exception) and which then assigns a particular morally devastating attribution to other. Stigma as attribution consists of an elaborate list of descriptive words such as disgust, disgrace and derogation.’’ ( Guru, 2014) Along with that, I want to look at the concept of violence as well, in association with discrimination, both in `practical’ and `symbolic’ ways (SEE Das, 1986), where I would argue that violence is the processual reproduction of intimidation, which strengthens the magnitude of discrimination. However, the story doesn’t going to end with that, because assertions do come in response to that, because as Prof. Vivek Kumar would argue, ``Based on the existential and experiential reality located in the economic, political and social deprivation or in a word `cumulative deprivation’ the Dalit assertion has also expanded its horizon. The horizon has vast terrain. The terrain can be located from individual rights, to communitarian rights, from individual protests to protests through different organizations from local assertion to assertions at the national and international levels and so on and so forth. The Dalits in the beginning were interested in doing away with their personal misery, pain and agony but later on they started raising issues pertaining to whole Dalit community.’’ (Kumar, 2006) So Namasudras, the very prominent Dalit community of Bengal transformed themselves ``from an amphibious peripheral multitude into settled agricultural community; protesting against the age-old social disabilities and economic exploitation it suffered from, entering the vortex of institutional politics and trying to derive benefit out of it through an essentially loyalist political strategy.’’ ( Bandopadhyay, 2005) In the larger macroeconomic studies, the study of discrimination is mostly studied by looking at the discriminatory patters being found in the `outcome’ within the labour market. In this regard, some of the input measures as they would assume remain `unproblematic’ categories for them, even the very conception of `labour’ itself, which becomes very significant, when we try to understand the association of stigma with it, pertaining to certain kinds of labour ascribed to certain castes in the occupational structures and gradually, leading to discrimination, discrimination in the form of humiliation, particularly. This ignites an interesting debate on the co-relation between, `nature of the labour’ and `stigma’ as found in the caste structure. Furthermore, the argument on `nature of labour’ can be connected to another interesting debate pertaining to `dignity of labour’ , in a sense, which particular kind of labour gives the person dignity and which not, rather pushes that person into humiliation. In this respect, Gopal Guru argues, ``unalienated forms of labour provide the moral ground on which claims for dignity can be defended. Labour that is competitive and sustainable through the radical rotation of opportunity structures creates spaces for dignity…. in the Indian context of caste, certain professions like scavenging or leather work produce the notion of stigma. Specifically, considerations of purity-pollution generate the notions of labour that, in turn generate stigma. Thus mixing labour with soil per se may bring dignity, but mixing physical labour with night soil leads to stigma. Labour which exists outside the framework of considerations of purity-pollution would not raise questions of stigma.’’ (Guru, 2014) Similarly, if I argue that `skill’ for that matter also had certain essentialized attributes, where certain skills are always expected from a particular caste group, and these expectations are may be forceful, which in result, would reproduce that kind of labour, which already had an association of stigma. Like for instance, the children of scavengers are often forcefully expected to learn the skills of scavenging (now this is an unreported story of `casteless’ India, where scavenging is still now a common practice). Scavenging, as a form of labour, is associated with already existing stigma, within a rigid occupational structure, assigned to particular caste group, not all the children of other caste groups are expected to learn those skills. Eventually, those stigmatized `skills’, reproducing a particular `stigmatized’ labour, would forcefully push all those caste groups into the darkness of humiliation, who would be discriminated always in the labour market because they are not expected to learn any other skills which can provide them the scope for upward mobility, till they assert. For that matter, the idea of social justice( this originates from Ambedkarite idea), which can be a possible answer to the practice of discrimination also remains stigmatized, and because of that, the apparent `value-neutral’ modernist institutions like, `` the bureaucracy inflicts social stigma on certain institutions and their associated social constituencies. Thus the Social Justice Ministry or Social Welfare Board becomes an object of disgust and repulsion for many bureaucrats. The stigmatized identity is often expressed in the following language: an upper-caste officer’s transfer to the Social Justice Ministry is considered as deportation to `kala pani’ (cellular jail).’’ ( Guru, 2014) Hence, `` it is not only the institutions that are branded with stigma, but even the concept of social justice is rendered vulnerable to such stigmatized treatment…The act of assigning stigmatized meaning to the idea suggests an epistemological violence to the concept of social justice.’’ ( Guru, 2014) Violence and Discrimination Violence, as I have argued remains a processual reproduction of intimidation, both in terms of `practical’ as well as `symbolic’ violence, in a sense it helps the `discriminated’ to remain `discriminated’, so that they can never assert their equitable status and serve them (who have actually intimated them) who remain at the superior position. Why violence is needed? And why is it so that both intensity and magnitude are on the increasing line. This question can be answered by drawing an interesting illustration from Gopal Guru’s article. `` During the feudal times, the top ranks of twice-born always treated themselves as self-contained totality. In the flow of modernity, this self-contained totality begins to fragment into self-doubt and anxiety. It unfolds into limitations that occur fundamentally due to two factors. At the objective level, some members of the twice-born become vulnerable to inversion of the structural position effected by rotation in opportunity structures. At the subjective level, these limits are visible in the limited rise of the other: dalits in the Indian context and blacks in the American context are imposing limits on brahmins and whites respectively.’’ ( Guru, 2014) So, some way things are changing, for that matter, coming of affirmative action in the form of reservation ( of course, how much successful it is, can be debatable but the significant part is, after thousand years of wait, it has happened) lead to certain changes, even, Dalits are asserting different ways. This actually leads to the imposition of limits that historically deprived groups are asserting over the historically benefitted groups with the coming of modernity. But the story again gets a wrong turn, as soon as, these groups use the tool of violence, so that their position didn’t get shattered because any violence has two sides, on one side, there is a control of powerful ones over the power less ones, but on the other side, it is the outcome of sheer anxiety and fear from the powerful ones, that somehow their power is at threshold. So violence keeps the story same, `discriminated’ remains `discriminated’, in case of symbolic violence This particular concept was propounded by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, which simply means `` to account for the tacit almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination occurring within everyday social habits maintained over conscious subjects’’ ( Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_ Power Accessed : 15/10/2014, 11:14pm) One can argue that the intensity of symbolic violence becomes more powerful than practical or physical violence for that matter, because very often it reproduces such ideas of domination, where discrimination turns out to be naturalized. the nature of discrimination turns out to be complicated, in the sense, the discrimination turns out to be very obvious and the `discriminated’ for that matter didn’t get the sense that they are being discriminated actually, gradually, it gets naturalized. In explaining this, I want to move further in looking at the concept of social exclusion. Because I feel the discussion on discrimination remains incomplete, until and unless, we talk about social exclusion. Compared to discrimination, the exercise of exclusion becomes more complicated because, for that matter, by using the same mechanism affirmative action, the powerless, deprived group, as the Dalits, is being included in those spheres within the labour market, where earlier they didn’t have scope to enter. So affirmative action may ensure that deprived group’s inclusion in the `no-entry’ zones (for them) in the labour market, but, immediately, the process of exclusion gets to start, where symbolic violence plays significant role. The members of the group are made to understand that these particular spheres do not `belong’ to them, the possible symbolic violence that they have to go through, like anti-reservation jokes are being cracked in front of them by the upper caste, every time they are made to believe that they are `inefficient’, on the contrary, their efficiency will never be acknowledged, discriminatory practices would be practiced by the authority when it comes to promotion, where very often the lower castes are caricatured about their occupations etc. The magnitude of symbolic violence is such powerful that it curbs down the very `will for resistance’, where after the sometime, both domination and discrimination get naturalize, as the `discriminated’ starts to believe that this discrimination as `natural’, despite of the fact, that it is being socially and culturally constructed, even they start to think that there is no scope of mobility for them. So discrimination starts to spread its monstrous tentacles, where, there is no question of assertion, no voice of resistance because symbolic violence has made it internalized by the `discriminated’ as well. In this respect, there comes the naturalization of discrimination and domonation, where the `discriminated’ and `dominated’ starts to believe `discrimination’ and `domination’ as natural. This process of naturalization of discrimination can be linked with Gramsci’s conceptualization of `hegemony’ and how domination’ becomes natural. Famia analyzes this concept and argues by looking at the functionality of hegemony, through looking at the notion of `social control’, particularly, `internal control’, where, `` hegemony is the predominance obtained by consent rather than force of one class or group over other classes’’ (Ibid. pp. 24, 1981). He further argues that how Gramsci, in this conceptualization moves beyond the `domination’, as ``realized essentially through the coercive machinery of the state’’ ( Ibid. pp. 24, 1981), where, hegemony turns out to be, `` intellectual and moral leadership… mainly exercised through `civil society’, the ensemble of educational, religious and associational institutions. Hegemony is attained through myriad ways in which institutions of civil society operate to shape, directly or indirectly, the cognitive and affective structures, whereby men perceive and evaluate problematic social reality.’’ (Ibid. pp. 24, 1981). In other words, hegemony, as being perpetuated through domination and control, is not simply a direct coercive domination rather an ideological domination, where the legitimacy of such domination, interestingly, comes from the `dominated’ itself. So the consent comes from the dominated itself because all the institutions ( as he calls them civil society) within that dominating ideological framework reproduce the same ideology, so that the control remains unquestionable and internal. The domination works upon cognition, the exploitative reality turns out to be unquestionable, take-it-for granted reality for the `exploited’, in the same way, upper caste hegemony turns out to be natural for the marginalized castes, gradually, the exploitation, domination and discrimination turn out to be `unchangeable destiny’ for them. This also leads to the `voluntary elimination’ where they eliminate themselves from the space which they have got into, so in a way, it’s a `discriminatory inclusion’ resulting exclusion only. For instance, the highest drop-out rates that we get to see among Dalit children compared to upper-caste. Very interestingly, the upper- caste propaganda for this matter would be to question about the capability of Dalits, because within the mainstream upper-caste ruling paradigm, ``Dalit society is generally projected as dirty, drunkard and devoid of any merit collectivity professing an agenda of selfish demands.’’ (Kumar, 2006) Understanding Assertion; Re-assessing Namasudra Movement in Bengal Before going into re-assessment of Namasudra Movement in Bengal and locating the concept of assertion in it, I want to give a backdrop of looking at the caste question as found in electoral politics in Bengal because for Dalits participating in the electoral politics within parliamentary democracy is a form of assertion. Sarbani Bandopadhayay would argue, `` assertive `lower’ caste politics made its presence well felt in the domain of formal politics, it became necessary for the bhadralok to resist it.’’ (Bandyopadhyay, 2012: 71) This argument is intriguing in a sense , there has been a claim from upper-caste middle class `bhadralok’ Bengalis, that there is as such no caste-based in Bengal, for that matter, the apparent atmosphere in Bengal, as created by these `bhadraloks’ that caste question does not exist in Bengal. So Bandyopadhyay would argue, `` if one looks at histories and literatures of caste mobilizations during the colonial period in Bengal one would be obliged to confront and rethink the alleged lack of significance of caste in Bengal. In this period we find a hyper-visibility of caste. Although these movements began seeking higher varna status for their respective castes they soon began to claim special treatment from the colonial government arguing that their current economic and political oppression was inseparable from their caste oppression. That caste was marginal to Bengal politics was a nationalist/bhadralok myth but the sustenance of this myth becoming increasingly difficult as the Swadeshi movement began to show not only a clear lack of interest of the so-called lower castes but also their active resistance to it.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2012: 71) The similar situation can be found in the context of Namasudra movement, where very interestingly, calling themselves as `Namasudra’ includes an identity assertion by changing the derogatory term Brahmins used against them, known as `Chandals’. So ``the movement started sometime in late 1872. It had no political significance at that time and was only`an effort made by them to raise themselves in the social scale among the Hindus.’’’( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) So, in order to raise themselves in the social scale among Hindus, very interestingly, they brought certain changes in the activities of its members, these changes were again decided by the richer section among them, so `` the following resolutions were adopted: women must not in future visit hats and bazars; service of no kind whatever be taken with other castes; food prepared by all other Hindu castes, other than Brahmins was not to be partaken of.’’( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) Very interestingly, if one looks at these resolutions, the first resolution which was taken in a sense was to obstruct the women’s participation in public sphere, which in a way, I think the process of `sanskritization’, Sanskritization, a concept developed by M.N. Srinivas, where he argues that very often lower castes in order to raise their hierarchical position, they imitate different higher caste practices, in a way, it’s a way of getting mobility along the vertical axis. However, this can have negative impacts, particularly, for the Dalit women, who earlier had more chances of mobility and liberty, because of Sanskritization, it is being restricted. imposing restriction on women’s visibility in public sphere by imitating the way in which upper caste (particularly, Brahmin women) women are being treated. They also demanded the equal treatment of Chandal criminals and criminals of other castes in jail. The movement though got a momentum in a sense it ``spread rapidly over wide region comprising the swamp country south of Faridpur and northwest Bakargang as well as the adjoining areas of Jessore.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) However, Chandal or Namasudra, as a caste group was also marked by very prominent class lines, and as a result, the movement started to become weak because `` poorer Chandals found it difficult to sustain any longer. And as they returned one by one to their old jobs, they had to submit to worse terms than they had before the strike took place. Their main social grievances also remained unaddressed.’’ (Bandyopadhyay, 2005) So after this unsuccessful attempt in raising their social status `` by using pressure tactics, the Chandal leaders concentrated on internal organization for developing a community consciousness, more firmly rooted in the minds of all classes of their caste members. And this they tried to achieve initially through religion. Harichand Thakur ( originally Biswas), coming from a Vaishnavite Chandal rich peasant family of Orakandi in Gopalganj subdivision of Faridpur, organized a new sect known as Matua. Being a more liberalized form of Vaishnavism, it repudiated casteism, assumed a congregational nature and acknowledged equal rights for men and women…. The higher caste Vaishnavas refused to have any social interaction with the members of this new sect and this resulted in further solidarity within the latter group.’’( Bandhyopadhyay, 2005) Hence, this was a brief account about the way in which Namasudra initiated the movement in Bengal and also the formation of Matua, under this head particularly, the movement continued. After the demise of Harichand, his son Guruchand led the movement, who preached three prime principles to his disciples and these three became the mantra of gaining mobility for them,-1) Educating oneself, 2) Earning money and 3) to be Respectable. ( SEE Bandhyopadhyay 2005) Now, I am going to discuss certain major demands of the movement as a whole and how they have reacted to the colonialism and on the contrary, the upper caste led nationalism. Firstly, the foremost demand that is being articulated through this movement `` was for recognition of their more honourable appellation `Namasudra’ in the place of despised `Chandal’. Attempts at `Sanskritization’ initially took the shape of a claim to Brahmin origin and fabrication of legends that sought to explain their loss of Brahmin status in terms of evil manipulations of the Hindu kings. Later on they began to `appropriate’ social symbols that had previously been the hallmarks of high status of the purer caste.’’( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) Secondly, education became the platform of emancipation for them because `` Guruchand, a farsighted man as he was, could also understand that in order to be socially uplifted the Namasudras must have education, for education begets wealth and without surplus wealth no caste can move up in the social scale.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) By gaining education, a kind of consciousness developed among them, they started to realize that how the members of the higher castes have pushed them into the darkness of social discrimination and economic exploitation. An upwardly mobile educated class of Namasudra emerged and `` this bred a kind of political separatism among them and brought them closer to the British government. The educated Namasudras in this way began to drift away from mainstream of nationalist politics and the backwardness of the community was made into political capital by this upwardly mobile section, trying to carve out a place for themselves in the new world of professions and institutional politics.’’( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) Gradually, with the coming of Christian missionaries and their intervention in education, Namasudras started to feel the colonial as their rescuer who are going to rescue them from the social and economic vagaries that they are being subjected to historically by the upper caste. This understanding made them loyal to British, and colonialism came as a blessing for them, where they found their path of liberation and emancipation. Adding to that, English education also captivated them a lot, because, they felt that is the ultimate way of claiming one’s own status as opposed to already privileged upper caste’s position. Thirdly, Namasudras used to share a strong alignment with the Muslims, because `` the Dalits and the ordinary Muslims of Bengal were firmly attached to agriculture for their livelihood. Dalits belonged to the low caste Hindu Community and shared the same economic status with ordinary Muslims living in the villages……The upper caste Hindus, in general, used to appropriate the surplus of agricultural products keeping in Dalits, Adibasis and ordinary Muslims in perpetual penury, taking advantage of their illiteracy, poverty and low social position.’’ ( Halder, 2008) In a way, there remains an unity of subjective experiences of exploitation, discrimination, oppression and subjugation, in other words, one group remains as caste minority and other group as religious minority ( both in qualitative sense) and their common exploiters, the upper caste Hindu landlords. So both of these exploited groups came together in order to resist against the same exploiter, the upper caste Hindu gentry. As Sekhar Bandyopadhyay would argue, `` We learn from the poem ``Musalman’’, published in Pataka in the 1917, that the alliance between the Muslims and Namasudras was viewed as a union of two outcaste peasant communities equally despised and exploited by the high caste Hindu gentry. And this served as an adequate justification for their decision of offering a joint resistance to a movement which was led and supported by such high caste Hindu landlords and expressing in no uncertain terms their loyalty to the British government.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) So this is an interesting trait that we get to see at the inception of Namasudra, so this upper caste led nationalist or swadeshi movement didn’t inspire them at all. However, the nationalist leadership gradually realized that their movement would remain unsuccessful, ``unless they could mobilise this large agrarian caste… And this prompted them to undertake a series of attempts to secure their support, sometimes through persuasion and sometimes through the use of force’’ ( Bandyopadhyay 2005) In order to co-opt this Namasudras, whom they had discriminated historically, they took two interesting political strategies. On one hand, in order to destroy their loyalty to the British government, they first persuaded both Muslim and Namasudra peasants `` to use swadeshi goods and English courts. Simultaneously, rumours were systematically spread in these areas that the oppressive ``Assam laws’’ were going to be introduced soon, that the government would take over all lands, new taxes would be imposed on coconut and date trees, as well as on betel nut and plantain trees. Hindu widows would be forced to remarry and above all, people in large numbers would be packed off to Assam to serve tea garden coolies.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2005) But the strategy didn’t work out that much, because Guruchand made them to realize, this so-called nationalist movement actually serves the interests of the rich people only. As most of the Namasudras are poor, they can’t take this burden of purchasing swadeshi goods at higher price. Even he made them to realize, `` who were now trying to secure their support for the swadeshi movement, had not uttered single word in the past against zamindari oppression or against the inhuman treatment meted out towards them by the Brahmins and the Kayasthas.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2005)On other side, these nationalist leaders gradually started to instigate divisive policy between the Namasudras and Muslims, so that the solidarity between could be hampered and they can get co-opted within the `Hindu’ led nationalist movement. However, in this regard, the Morley Minto Reforms of 1909 added spark to it which was ``the demand of the Muslim community for separate representation, had stimulated similar aspirations for separate electorates in the minds of many other social groups. The Namasudras were among them.’’ (Bandyopadhyay, 2005) In this context of political separatism, the nationalist leaders made Namasudras to realize that how Muslims are opportunist and carving out their own interests, gradually, this shifted to a relationship of hostility between them. The hostility took such hyper form that it led to riots as well. ( SEE Bandyopadhyay, 2005) Sadly, the riots still take place between them in present Bangladesh. Post-partition situation in Bengal Partition, for that matter, a nationalist, `bhadralok’ outcome, which affected the caste question in the most devastated way in the context of Bengal. As Sarbani Bandyopadyay would argue that it was most frustrating moment for Dalit activists in Bengal, which produced the bhadralok myth of casteless Bengal, even for that matter, it affected the Dalits most, particularly, the poor section, who got the affected by being `refugee’ as well as `Dalit’. Gradulally, the bhadralok, middle class, mostly higher caste led left government came into power in Bengal, as she would argue the same claim that they made despite of the fact there were lots of Namasudras and other lower caste who remained below deprivation under the left `bhadraloks’. So much so the claim that as Sarbani Badyopadhyay would argue, `` In fact, the then Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, in his reply to the Mandal Commission stated that in West Bengal there were only two castes: the rich and the poor.’’ ( Bandyopadhyay, 2012:73) It was in the recent assembly election, the Matua Mahasabha got split, and this led to the prominence of caste politics in Bengal. Even Baroma, the present veteran woman leader, spoke out publicly against the left politics in making caste question dissolve, so that there wouldn’t be any assertion from their part. However, another interesting trend that came among a large portion of Namasudras, who are dissociating themselves from the Matua, because they felt that it is working as the same way, in which Brahmanical ideology works. But, the interesting part is that after a long time, there has been a political assertion that is coming from Namasudras, which was forcefully pulled under the cutain by the both Congress `bhadraloks’ and class-obsessed left `bhadroloks’. Conclusion It is indeed very difficult to draw conclusion in this discussion, these are just the glimpses that I tried to grab in my paper. But one very crude realistic argument, that we can decipher from this long discussion, that `casteless’ India, is simply mythical projection of so-called modernity, particularly, in the LPG era. Caste exists, of course, intersectionality is there, but along with that it still now remains as the dominant form of stratification, on which, very often, the lines of discrimination operate. However, another good part of the story, which intrigues me a lot is the assertion part from the marginalized caste groups, which again prove their response to the caste-based discrimination itself. Lastly, after describing the real story both historically and from the contemporary situation, about the Namasudras in Bengal, I feel satisfied that my apparent casteless Bengal does have caste and in the most prominent way. Even for that matter, I was quiet frustrated by seeing an academic silence on the question of Bengal. From my own experience, even after coming to the most premium institution of social science, I didn’t find any paper on the caste question in Bengal. Acknowledgement I am really debt to Sarbani Bandyopadhyay, for making a paper on this issue , who used to be my professor as well in St. Xavier’s college, Kolkata. Bibliography Bandyopadhyay, Sarbani (2012), `Caste and Politics in Bengal’, Economic and Political weekly,XLVII (50) pp 71-73 Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2005), `The Namasudra Movement’, Critical Quest, New Delhi Das, Veena (1987) `The Anthropology of Violence and the Speech of Victims’ Available at http:// www. jstor.org/ Stable/3033216 accessed on 15/10/2014 03:18 Despande, Ashwini (2011) `The Grammar of Caste; Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India, Oxford University Press, (pp 2-18) Femia, V. Joseph ( 1981). `Gramsci’s Political Thought, Hegemony, Consciousness and the Revolutionary Process, Oxford University Press, (pp. 24-26) Guru, Gopal (2014), `Two Conceptions of the Dignity of Labour’ in Akil Bilgrami (ed.), Marx, Gandhi and Modernity, pp(215-224) New Delhi, Tulika Books Halder, Dilip (2008), `Atrocities on Dalits since the Partition of Bengal- A Human Rights Question (pg.1-3), Mittal Publications, New Delhi Kumar, Vivek,(2006), `Dalit Assertion and New Horizons’ (pp 11-33), Gagandeep Publications, New Delhi