The Caste Question in East Pakistan and Bangladesh

Bibliographic Data

ID12457826
AuthorsRajarshi Ghose (corresponding author), Utsa Ray
Year2024
Volume44
Issue3
Pages565-576
Publication date2024-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1089-201X • E-ISSN: 1548-226X
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/1089201x-11470463
OpenAlexW4405267648
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

In the wake of the United Nations “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance” held in Durban in 2001, many nongovernmental organizations initiated advocacy campaigns against caste-based discrimination, highlighting the social and economic hardships experienced by Dalit communities in Bangladesh. This article demonstrates that there is a longer history of engagements with the caste question among social scientists in East Pakistan and Bangladesh; however, the endemic practice of identifying caste inequity exclusively with Hinduism often resulted in advocacy campaigns and the social sciences subsuming Dalit experiences into the social predicament of Hindus as a religious minority group. The decoupling of caste and religious minorities in the political and social domains in the aftermath of advocacy campaigns has led to renewed efforts to acknowledge the singularity of Dalit experience in contemporary Bangladesh

Caste · Development economics · Economic growth · Hinduism · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · Xenophobia · Gender Studies · Law · Religious studies · Social and Economic Development in India · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · South Asian Studies and Diaspora · Religious Studies

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