Rupa Viswanath
Biographic Data
| ID | 308411 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rupa Viswanath |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rupa |
| FAMILY NAME | Viswanath |
| SIGNATURE | VISWANATH R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Göttingen |
| ORCID | 0009-0001-5658-0863 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The power to disempower
Why has political representation by Scheduled Castes in post-colonial India failed to improve the lives of the vast majority of this population? One common answer rests on the assumption that caste inequality is upheld by dominant social groups who effectively resist progressive state policy. Others point to the institution of joint electorates: though constituencies are reserved for Scheduled Caste legislators, Scheduled Caste voters form a mino…
A Roundtable on Rupa Viswanath'sThe Pariah Problem
In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book,The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour c…
Shailaja Paik. Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India
The two books under review here herald a transformation of signal importance to South Asian historiography. The last decade has seen a marked rise in historical studies of caste domination, and specifically the history of those most subordinated by caste, known today as Dalits. But it is only now that Dalit women and men as gendered subjects have become the primary focus of historical monographs. This brings historical attention to how the regula…
Economies of Offense
Commentary on the Doniger affair has focused overwhelmingly on the principle of freedom of speech and the illiberal character of censorship ( Shainin 2014 ). There is a degree of valuable analytic abstraction to this discourse, which allows scholars and free speech advocates to compare the Doniger case with instances of the censorship of writing and art earlier in Indian history (for example, with the Rushdie affair; Malik 2014 ), and with cases …
Nation and family
Commissioning Representation
Commissions of inquiry are unique tools of modern governance that represent ‘the people’, but in a manner quite unlike parliaments and other forms of elected political representation. Using as its example the 2007 Misra Report, this paper reveals how, in the production of a commission report, scores of non-state actors—‘stakeholders’ from a wide range of social strata—are enlisted to produce the policies that will then redound upon those very sta…
The Pariah Problem
Once known as “Pariahs,” Dalits are primarily descendants of unfree agrarian laborers. They belong to India’s most subordinated castes, face overwhelming poverty and discrimination, and provoke public anxiety. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped sources, this book follows the conception and evolution of the “Pariah Problem” in public consciousness in the 1890s. It shows how high-caste landlords, state officials, and well-intentioned missio…
Rethinking Caste and Class
This article follows the administrative usage of the term “labour” and its political effects in the period from roughly 1918–1924 in Madras Presidency, India. In this short period, I will argue, fundamental tensions in the ability of the concept to refer coherently to its object came violently to the surface. The prevailing tension in both governmental discourse and in the sphere of political representation concerned the extent to which either ca…
The Emergence of Authenticity Talk and the Giving of Accounts
In 2002, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu passed a law that illustrates the centrality of what may be called 'authentic religious selves' to postcolonial Indian statecraft. It banned religious conversions brought about by what it termed 'material allurement,' and it especially targeted those who might attempt to convert impoverished Dalits, descendants of unfree laborers who now constitute India's lowest castes. Conversion, thus conceived, is itsel…
Spiritual slavery, material malaise
Journal Article Spiritual slavery, material malaise: ‘untouchables’ and religious neutrality in colonial south India Get access Rupa Viswanath Rupa Viswanath Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Historical Research, Volume 83, Issue 219, February 2010, Pages 124–145, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2008.00464.x Published: 15 December 2009
Spiritual slavery, material malaise
Journal Article Spiritual slavery, material malaise: ‘untouchables’ and religious neutrality in colonial south India Get access Rupa Viswanath Rupa Viswanath Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Historical Research, Volume 83, Issue 219, February 2010, Pages 124–145, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2008.00464.x Published: 15 December 2009
Rethinking Caste and Class
This article follows the administrative usage of the term “labour” and its political effects in the period from roughly 1918–1924 in Madras Presidency, India. In this short period, I will argue, fundamental tensions in the ability of the concept to refer coherently to its object came violently to the surface. The prevailing tension in both governmental discourse and in the sphere of political representation concerned the extent to which either ca…
The Emergence of Authenticity Talk and the Giving of Accounts
In 2002, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu passed a law that illustrates the centrality of what may be called 'authentic religious selves' to postcolonial Indian statecraft. It banned religious conversions brought about by what it termed 'material allurement,' and it especially targeted those who might attempt to convert impoverished Dalits, descendants of unfree laborers who now constitute India's lowest castes. Conversion, thus conceived, is itsel…
Commissioning Representation
Commissions of inquiry are unique tools of modern governance that represent ‘the people’, but in a manner quite unlike parliaments and other forms of elected political representation. Using as its example the 2007 Misra Report, this paper reveals how, in the production of a commission report, scores of non-state actors—‘stakeholders’ from a wide range of social strata—are enlisted to produce the policies that will then redound upon those very sta…
A Roundtable on Rupa Viswanath'sThe Pariah Problem
In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book,The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour c…
Economies of Offense
Commentary on the Doniger affair has focused overwhelmingly on the principle of freedom of speech and the illiberal character of censorship ( Shainin 2014 ). There is a degree of valuable analytic abstraction to this discourse, which allows scholars and free speech advocates to compare the Doniger case with instances of the censorship of writing and art earlier in Indian history (for example, with the Rushdie affair; Malik 2014 ), and with cases …
Spiritual slavery, material malaise
Journal Article Spiritual slavery, material malaise: ‘untouchables’ and religious neutrality in colonial south India Get access Rupa Viswanath Rupa Viswanath Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Historical Research, Volume 83, Issue 219, February 2010, Pages 124–145, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2008.00464.x Published: 15 December 2009
The Emergence of Authenticity Talk and the Giving of Accounts
In 2002, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu passed a law that illustrates the centrality of what may be called 'authentic religious selves' to postcolonial Indian statecraft. It banned religious conversions brought about by what it termed 'material allurement,' and it especially targeted those who might attempt to convert impoverished Dalits, descendants of unfree laborers who now constitute India's lowest castes. Conversion, thus conceived, is itsel…
The Pariah Problem
Once known as “Pariahs,” Dalits are primarily descendants of unfree agrarian laborers. They belong to India’s most subordinated castes, face overwhelming poverty and discrimination, and provoke public anxiety. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped sources, this book follows the conception and evolution of the “Pariah Problem” in public consciousness in the 1890s. It shows how high-caste landlords, state officials, and well-intentioned missio…
Rethinking Caste and Class
This article follows the administrative usage of the term “labour” and its political effects in the period from roughly 1918–1924 in Madras Presidency, India. In this short period, I will argue, fundamental tensions in the ability of the concept to refer coherently to its object came violently to the surface. The prevailing tension in both governmental discourse and in the sphere of political representation concerned the extent to which either ca…
Nation and family
Commissioning Representation
Commissions of inquiry are unique tools of modern governance that represent ‘the people’, but in a manner quite unlike parliaments and other forms of elected political representation. Using as its example the 2007 Misra Report, this paper reveals how, in the production of a commission report, scores of non-state actors—‘stakeholders’ from a wide range of social strata—are enlisted to produce the policies that will then redound upon those very sta…
Economies of Offense
Commentary on the Doniger affair has focused overwhelmingly on the principle of freedom of speech and the illiberal character of censorship ( Shainin 2014 ). There is a degree of valuable analytic abstraction to this discourse, which allows scholars and free speech advocates to compare the Doniger case with instances of the censorship of writing and art earlier in Indian history (for example, with the Rushdie affair; Malik 2014 ), and with cases …
Shailaja Paik. Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India
The two books under review here herald a transformation of signal importance to South Asian historiography. The last decade has seen a marked rise in historical studies of caste domination, and specifically the history of those most subordinated by caste, known today as Dalits. But it is only now that Dalit women and men as gendered subjects have become the primary focus of historical monographs. This brings historical attention to how the regula…
A Roundtable on Rupa Viswanath'sThe Pariah Problem
In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book,The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour c…
The power to disempower
Why has political representation by Scheduled Castes in post-colonial India failed to improve the lives of the vast majority of this population? One common answer rests on the assumption that caste inequality is upheld by dominant social groups who effectively resist progressive state policy. Others point to the institution of joint electorates: though constituencies are reserved for Scheduled Caste legislators, Scheduled Caste voters form a mino…
Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Caste (4 works) · Colonialism (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works)