The history of these ‘untouchables’ has yet become a part of Indian historiography, thought the study is of immense relevance and significance on account of the inherent radical democratic identity of their movement and their role as productive communities. Available scholarship on these oppressed communities suffers from lack of historical and written documentation. As a result, attempts towards historically locating ‘untouchables’ are impeded by an acute shortage of direct evidence about the realities of Dalit social life. Recent initiatives to reconstruct Dalit history generally draws from traditional historical sources like archival material, reports of census, commissions, committees and gazetteers. Biographical and autobiographical writings of Dalit organic intellectuals do exist as also literature in the form of poems, novels, dramas, contemporary pres reports and caste-association activities, though in the vernacular. The essays in this volume have mainly drawn from these sources.
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