Counter-Discourses of Lower-Caste Intellectuals in Colonial and Postcolonial India: Mainstream Hindu Discourses and the Phule-Ambedkar Ideology

Abstract

This study examines the nature of discourse formation in the Dalit movement by analysing two different historical stages: 1) the nineteenth-century upper-caste discourse on Aryan race theory and the counter-discourse advocated by Phule; and 2) the early twentieth-century mainstream nationalist discourse and the counter-discourse proposed by B. R. Ambedkar. However, the ideologies of Phule and Ambedkar, which have often been combined and called the ‘Phule-Ambedkar ideology’, contain heterogeneous and conflicting elements, especially concerning lower-caste identity and perceptions of the upper castes. Counter-discourses have been produced through interaction with and responses to the contemporary mainstream discourse in different times and contexts