ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with the question of why Dalits should be analytically as well as politically considered a homogenous group irrespective of their diverse socio-political and economic locations. It focuses on five broad approaches, namely: Orientalist, Hierarchy and Difference, Caste as a Superstructure, Defence of Varna, and Organic Social Block. Dalits as a social group are potentially fragmented not only by class, location and diverse sub-caste location, but also by place of residence, political values and educational background. This diversity of socio-economic locations leads them to a differential experience of power structures. Gandhi went ahead to support the Varna system for functional reasons. Gandhi attempted to solve the question of Varna on a moral plane by idealising the hierarchy rather than taking political issue with the discrimination and inequality embedded in it. The endeavours for transformative recognition and redistribution bring forth the question of the political agency of Dalits, which is crucial to socio-political and economic change.
