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    ISAS Working Papers

    Long-term studies on trends and issues in South Asia

    215 : Memory, Identity and the Politics of Appropriation. ‘Saffronisation’ among the Dalits of North India

    Badri Narayan,Professor, Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion, School of Social Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (India)

    19 November 2015

    In a comprehensive study of the politicisation of the Dalits in North India (those regarded in some quarters as “untouchables” in the past), the author discovers how the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an ideological patron of India’s current ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has re-defined and appropriated, for its own political purposes, the memories and identities of these communities. In explaining this, the paper delves into the formation and current crystallisation of these memories and identities.