Dalit Art and Visual Imagery

Through the use of visuals and accompanying explanatory texts, this volume investigates the representation of Dalit identities in Buddhist imagery, Hindu temples and traditional caste system, popular art and painting, and state-sponsored architecture and sculpture in the historical and contemporary period.

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This volume creates a seamless narrative of Dalit identity through use of visuals and accompanying explanatory texts. Spanning the historical and contemporary period, the volume investigates the representation of Dalit identities in Buddhist imagery, Hindu temples and traditional caste system, popular art and painting, and state-sponsored architecture and sculpture. Raising the face of contemporary untouchability into view, it explores the uses of visual imagery by, for and against Dalits in Indian society. Where are the images of Dalit oppression in the Hindu temple or Dalit triumph in the Navayana Buddhist viharas? How have Dalits used images of B.R. Ambedkar to bring their reality before the nation? How are Dalits attempting to use visual imagery to describe the world around them, work out their own identities and to shape their destinies? The collection offers a variety of approaches to the study of visual imagery and issues of Dalit experience.

This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students of Dalit studies, sociology, modern Indian history, and religion (particularly Buddhism) and others concerned with caste politics.