Dalit Politics in Contemporary India : Routledge India : 9780815393023 : 0815393024 : 04 Dec 2017 : This book is a ground-breaking intervention on Dalit politics in India. Challenging received ideas, it uses a comparative framework to understand Dalit mobilisations for political power, social equality and justice. The monograph traces the emergence of Dalit consciousness and its different strands in north and south India ? from colonial to contemporary times ? and interrogates key notions and events. These include: the debate regarding core themes such as the Hindu?Muslim cleavage in the north and caste in the south; the extent to which Dalits and other backward castes (OBC) base their anti-Brahminism on similar ideologies; and why Dalits in Uttar Pradesh (north India) succeeded in gaining power while they did not do so in the region of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh (south India), where Dalit consciousness is more evolved. Drawing on archival material, fieldwork and case stud