The book examines the various meanings, contexts and forms of humiliation in nationalist thought and in socio-political thought in modern India. Arguing that humiliation is endemic to social life, the essays examine the meaning of humiliation by studying it in relation to concepts of shame, disgust, discrimination and segregation. They deal with the structures that underlie and perpetrate humiliation. They discuss racial humiliation in the context of colonialism, the humiliation of the working classes in India as in the Bombay textiles strike of 1982, caste-based humiliation evident in the practice of untouchability and gender-based humiliation. The papers try to understand the relationship between humiliation and justice and the troublesome relation between egalitarianism and respect. They examine the discourses of Western philosophers and thinkers like Rousseau and Kant, and Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar.
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