This paper focuses on changing contexts and articulations of Dalit identity historically.
Paper long abstract
Dalit identity is an outcome of various socio-cultural, economic and political developments. Articulations of Dalit identity both segmentary as well as wholistic have emerged in a political identity of Dalits today. A historical accounting of its varied usages reveals the political foregrounding that dominated the economic and cultural contexts of marginality.
The contemporary understanding of Dalit identity is essentially a political present with an equal emphasis on cultural and economic pasts and futures. Thus an analysis of Dalit identity requires focusing on Dalits as a cultural 'community', an economic 'class' and political 'formation'.