Gail Omvedt’s Dalit Visions: A Look at Various Alternative Movements Which Rose Under the Larger Dalit Movement

Abstract

There is no denying the fact that whenever any section of the society is overly exploited, agitations and protests are a natural consequence and the agitation by the Dalits in India are no exceptions. The 1920s was the time when a number of Dalit movements came to the forefront, nurtured by the rising consciousness to fight back against any kind of exploitation. This paper seeks to analyse Gail Omvedt’s Dalit Visions, a book which explores how various small Dalit movements emerged under the larger Dalit movement and toiled to create for themselves equal opportunities as other upper caste and class sections of the Hindu society had. Omvedt in her book talks about how different groups of society challenged the different aspects of the hegemonic Hindu society. If we club together all the various movements which emerged under the larger Dalit movement, then we can see that though they all differed in their specific methods and objectives and, all had the common and more general agenda of resisting all kinds of exploitation and Hindu hegemony.