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Outcaste Bombay: City Making and the Politics of the Poor - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Outcaste Bombay: City Making and the Politics of the Poor

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Over the course of the twentieth century, Bombay’s population grew twentyfold as the city became increasingly industrialized and cosmopolitan. Yet beneath a veneer of modernity, old prejudices endured, including the treatment of the Dalits. Even as Indians engaged with aspects of modern life, including the Marxist discourse of class, caste distinctions played a pivotal role in determining who was excluded from the city’s economic transformations. Labor historian Juned Shaikh documents the symbiosis between industrial capitalism and the caste system, mapping the transformation of the city as urban planners marked Dalit neighborhoods as slums that needed to be demolished in order to build a modern Bombay.

Drawing from rare sources written by the urban poor and Dalits in the Marathi language—including novels, poems, and manifestos—Outcaste Bombay examines how language and literature became a battleground for cultural politics. Through careful scrutiny of one city’s complex social fabric, this study illuminates issues that remain vital for labor activists and urban planners around the world.

ISBN-13: 9780295748504

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Publication Date: 04-25-2021

Pages: 242

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Age Range: 18 Years

Series: Global South Asia

Juned Shaikh is associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

What People are Saying About This

Sheetal Chhabria

"Opens up remarkable new archives, astutely analyzing the political imagination of Bombay’s Dalits confronting colonialism and capitalism."

Nikhil Rao

"Offers valuable lessons in how the particularities of prejudice are reproduced in the universalizing language not only of planning but also, perversely, of class consciousness and revolution."

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 3

1 The Housing Question and Caste, 1896-1950 19

2 Marxism, Language, and Social Hierarchy, 1920-1950 46

3 Urban Planning and Cultural Politics, 1945-1971 85

4 Revolutionary Lineages of Dalit Literature, 1950-1972 115

5 Slums, Sex, and the Field of Power, 1960-1984 136

Conclusion 174

Notes 179

Bibliography 203

Index 219