This paper revisits earlier ethnographic writing and assumption as an “archive” in order to reconsider Dalit “religions.” It explores the nature of power in the caste order when viewed from Dalit positions and perspectives, the historical constitution of caste under the British empire by drawing on recent scholarship, the terms, at once, of the Dalit’s critical exclusion from and unequal inclusion in caste domains, Dalit responses to hierarchy and authority in everyday terrains, and, finally, the intimate intermeshing of religion and politics, both broadly understood.
