Social Exclusion, Resistance and Deras by Ronki Ram
Economic Political Weekly
The recent violent conflicts in Punjab represent a typical case of a marginal community’s (dalits) fight against social exclusion and the resistance that it encounters from a dominant caste. Despite improvement in economic position over the years, there has not been a commensurate improvement in the social status of dalits even after their conversion to Sikhism as caste iniquities, in the form of dominant cultural patterns, still persist in Punjab. The emergence of a large number of deras as alternate spiritual sites for the oppressed is linked to this phenomenon. View Full Article at EPW