02081nam a22001457a 4500 525194 525194 240214b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Duncan, Ian 49951 Classifying and counting the Dalits in the late colonial period: The conundrum of the Jatavs The Indian Economic and Social History Review 60(3), Jul-Sep, 2023: p.245-273 The Jatavs of the United Provinces were not legally recognised as a separate caste until 1942; and then only as a consequence of an exceptional revision of legislation. Yet, for some considerable time before, the provincial authorities had routinely treated Jatavs as if they had already been granted the status of an officially recognised distinct caste grouping. This was despite a ruling in 1933, endorsed jointly by the India Office, the Government of India, and the provincial government, that the Jatavs were not a separate caste. The case of the Jatavs is examined here in the context of the contradictions and confusion in the policies of the colonial authorities, first towards the Depressed Classes, and later in the construction of the category that eventually became the Scheduled Castes. In addition, it is argued that those contradictions also created interstices of ambiguity that many Dalit representatives explored, interrogated, and exploited as they generated the space in which to assert their agency. The history of the Jatavs is an important instance of subaltern politics participating in the procedures of the colonial regime rather than operating in some separate autonomous domain of activity. By engaging with the existing power structures and processes, Jatav leaders created the opportunity to expose and take advantage of the contradictions generated by the confusion in the exercises of classifying and counting conducted by the colonial state. – Reproduced https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00194646231183350 The Indian Economic and Social History Review SCHEDULED CASTES AND SCHEDULED TRIBES AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 400243 IIPA IIPA 2024-02-14 60(3), Jul-Sep, 2023: p.245-273 AR131030 2024-02-14 AR