Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India

While most untouchables are illiterate, Sujatha Gidla’s family, belonging to the Mala caste, was educated by Canadian missionaries in the 1930s, making it possible for Gidla to attend elite schools and move to America at the age of twenty-six. It was only then that she saw how extraordinary – and yet how typical – her family history truly was. Determined to uncover that history and understand the social and political forces that made it possible, she travelled back to India to record the testimonies of her mother, her uncles and their friends. In Ants among Elephants, she tells their story. A moving portrait of love, hardship and struggle, Ants among Elephants is also that rare thing: a personal history of modern India told from the bottom up.