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Dalit Culture and Identity
Dalit castes in Punjab such as the Chamars have been attempting to create a counterculture to take on the Dalit castes in Punjab such as the Chamars have been attempting to create a counterculture to take on the dominant Jat caste. This attempt is mostly in the virtual world. In the real world the Jats and the Chamars live without any ostensible conflict. This article examines the various elements of this virtual war between the two castes, which often takes vulgar and bitter proportions.
This paper is a revised and an updated version of the presentation made in the seminar on "Harnessing Counter-Culture to Construct Identity: Mapping Dalit Cultural Heritage in Contemporary India," organised at Leiden University, the Netherlands on 7–8 December 2012. Critical comments on the paper by M Rajivlochan and Ronki Ram are gratefully acknowledged.
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