Roots of Indian Subaltern Labour

Interpreting Caste, Occupation and Marginality

Yagati Chinna Rao, Kali Chittibabu

• Publisher: Bloomsbury India
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9789369523054
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Roots of Indian Subaltern Labour offers a new examination of the relationship between labour, caste, and social hierarchy in India. By bringing together traditional historiographical debates and contemporary empirical perspectives, it deepens our understanding of how caste has shaped labour relations historically. Rather than merely extending existing scholarship, the book proposes new analytical approaches by engaging with the intersecting domains of culture, gender, religion, and social identity in shaping the material foundations of society and the historical position of untouchables and other marginalized communities.
The book seeks to demystify classical Indian texts-both religious and secular-in order to examine the ideological foundations of hierarchy and the historical processes that led to the crystallization of hereditary, endogamous caste groups. It traces the trajectory of labour history in the Indian context, highlighting the connections between caste-based occupational structures, social discrimination, and the exploitation of lower-caste labour.
It introduces the concept of labour as a "social bottom" category to interpret labour relations in the pre-modern and colonial periods. The book further examines how colonial policies, labour mobilizations, and lower-caste political movements shaped the changing dynamics of caste and labour in modern India.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Subordination and Custom: Śūdra Labour, Ācāra and the Brahmanical Legal Order in Medieval Mithilā
• 2 Transition from Dom to Shilpkar: The Articulation by Mahasabha
• 3 The Caste of Labour: Bauri Miners and the Coal Mines in Eastern India
• 4 Camping, Touring and Begars in Colonial North India
• 5 Dalits, Labour and Education in Madras Presidency: Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
• 6 Was It Caste or Class or Both? Retracing the Trajectories of Labour Movement in Early Twentieth-Century Travancore
• 7 Unseen and Unvalued: The Politics of Humiliation and Dignity in Caste-Linked Labour
• 8 The Role of Babu Jagjivan Ram in Labour Reform and Labour Rights in India
• 9 Caste, Labour and Peasant Politics in Colonial Andhra
• 10 Discrimination and Exploitation of Dalit Labourers in United Provinces, 1920–47
• 11 Revisiting the Cultural Past of the Dalit Subaltern: Shaping Identity, Politics in Contemporary Bengal
• 12 Evolution of the Engineering Profession in Colonial India: From Artisanal Shop Floor to Social Elite’s Profession
• 13 Labouring Castes as Working Class in Colonial Western India: Location and Experiences of Dalits
• 14 Handloom Weaving Communities of Colonial Orissa (c. 1850–1912): Caste, Labour and Structural Transformations
• 15 Caste and Customary Labour on Irrigation and Railways: Public Works Labour in Colonial South India
• About Editors and Contributors
• Index
• Imprint