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  3. Deceptive Majority
  • Cited by 36
      • Joel Lee, Williams College, Massachusetts
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      15 February 2021
      15 April 2021
      ISBN:
      9781108920193
      9781108843829
      9781108826662
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108920193
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.58kg, 354 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.46kg, 354 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Area Studies, South Asian Government, Politics and Policy, Social and Cultural Anthropology, South Asian History, Asian Studies, History, Anthropology
      Series:
      South Asia in the Social Sciences (14)
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    Subjects:
    Area Studies, South Asian Government, Politics and Policy, Social and Cultural Anthropology, South Asian History, Asian Studies, History, Anthropology
    Series:
    South Asia in the Social Sciences (14)
    Information

    Book description

    The idea that India is a Hindu majority nation rests on the assumption that the vast swath of its population stigmatized as 'untouchable' is, and always has been, in some meaningful sense, Hindu. But is that how such communities understood themselves in the past, or how they understand themselves now? When and under what conditions did this assumption take shape, and what truths does it conceal? In this book, Joel Lee challenges presuppositions at the foundation of the study of caste and religion in South Asia. Drawing on detailed archival and ethnographic research, Lee tracks the career of a Dalit religion and the effort by twentieth-century nationalists to encompass it within a newly imagined Hindu body politic. A chronicle of religious life in north India and an examination of the ethics and semiotics of secrecy, Deceptive Majority throws light on the manoeuvres by which majoritarian projects are both advanced and undermined.

    Awards

    Honorable Mention, 2022 The Geertz Prize, Society for the Anthropology of Religion

    Reviews

    ‘… deeply informative and thought-provoking … has offered great insight into the wide variety of options and positionalities among Dalits in modern times.’

    Jon Keune Source: Reading Religion

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    Contents

    Contents
    • 1 - Introduction: Signs, the Census, and the Sanitation Labor Castes
      pp 3-30
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