Academic literature on the topic 'Balmiki Community'

Over the last three decades, India has experienced rapid economic development and social and cultural transformation. Questions arise as to how minorities secure their livelihood and what strategies are being devised for the same. And, what vision of the future do they have in mind? In this article, I will focus on the Dalit community in North India. Fieldwork conducted on one such disadvantaged group, the urban Balmikis (known as the sweeper caste) in Delhi, is drawn upon to examine as a case study. Balmikis have a high rate of migration to urban areas, which is due to their historical background of being employed in the sanitation sector of municipalities and the Ministry of Railways since the colonial times. The name of the community, Balmiki, is derived from worshipping “Bhagwan Valmik,” a legendary saint and composer of Ramayana. It began to take root as a name with positive connotations among the sweeper caste in North India around the 1920s and 1930s. Because of this historical development, it is often accused of discrediting Dalits who dissent from Hindu values and for hindering Dalit solidarity. However, if one listens to the claims of the Balmikis, they do not necessarily consider themselves "Hindus”. For example, during my research, a frequent response to questions about religion was the statement, "We are forced to be Hindus”. In contrast, the words that immediately follow, "We are Balmikis," are restated. By focusing on the beliefs and ambiguity of self-identity of the Balmikis, this article attempts to examine their anti-caste imagination. It then poses the question as to how that imagination is intertwined with everyday experiences and collective grassroots movements.

Numeral systems are the major counting methods found across languages. They are characterised by unique morphosyntactic structures to show numericity. The efficiency of communicating numbers is related to the morphological construction of numerals. These are also valuable sources for genetic classification. Besides, they play a vital role in establishing the antiquity of a cognate language. Peculiarly, the numeral systems of languages are the most vulnerable to elimination due to major or dominant languages. The quest in this article is to analyse the numeral morphology of Balmiki, a lesser-known language spoken in Odisha, and compare it with that of Kupia, a language spoken in Andhra Pradesh by the B/Valmiki community, to determine if their numeral structures are concealed or influenced by their encroaching languages. This study further contests a louder outbreak created during 2016-18 to ‘discover the Walmiki language’ by analysing a few unreliable numeral examples. In a series, this is the second study that compares and propounds conclusively to the fact that how these duo languages shed light on shared characteristics of numerals inherited or descended in other Indo-Aryan traditions from an etymological ancestor.

This article seeks to understand the agenda of the government of Punjab behind the recent construction of the cultural heritage of sant/guru Valmiki which is attracting a sizable population of the Dalit community known as Balmikis in the state. In this context, the article explores the historical role of the Adi-Dharam Samaj, an anti-caste reformist movement by the Balmiki community. This movement has adopted various new modes and strategies to mobilize the community. It also subscribes to the philosophy of Ad Dharm to define a separate religious identity for Dalits, especially the Balmiki community separate from Hindus and Sikhs. It has also adopted a distinct path of ensuring Dalit social mobility without following the dominant modes like Sanskritization and conversion. The making of Dalit cultural heritage is a significant development in a realm that explores the extremely marginalized community within Dalits, and their attempt at identity articulation and assertion in contemporary Punjab.

The Balmiki community has been the subject of various ethnographical studies. A lot has been written about what it has endured due to its contemptible social positioning. There still remain unexplored sites of struggles and experience, especially from the perspective of Balmikis as social actors. This study is an attempt to analyse and understand their responses to systemic oppression. The focus of the article is to understand the trajectory of the Balmiki community, which while navigating through myriad discourses, is trying to negotiate and renegotiate its identity. I intend to examine its situatedness in the tumultuous sociopolitical climate in Punjab and how it has articulated itself during the colonial period (late 19th century onwards) by placing reliance on colonial records and other literature pertaining to it. This article sheds light on the propensity of the community to reject the dominant values and reaffirm a distinct identity.

Manual scavenging is a caste-based occupation (Shahid, 2015, Social Change, 45(2), 242–255). It involves the manual removal of human excreta from dry latrines and septic tanks (using basic tools such as tin boards, buckets and baskets lined with sacking) and then carrying it on the head or shoulder and disposing it away (Kumar, 2014, Scavenger community at the crossroads: Reflection on state intervention). Broadly, these people work in municipal corporation, railways, households, cleaning of open defecation area, industries and hotels where they deal with human and animal excreta. Dealing in sewerage and manholes, garbage loading and caring and cleaning animal carcass is also included in manual scavenging. Historically, the scavenger community is considered to be untouchable (Singh, 2014, Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 7(1), 81–94), because of lowest caste status and lowest occupational status. Their lowest social status made them to face exclusion in almost all domains in society. They are protected through constitutional rights in documents and are provided with some welfare services for their development. This study aims to understand the current status of social exclusion of scavenger community and usefulness of government inclusion policies on social and occupational status of scavenger community. This is a cross-sectional study, following mixed method research design. The study was conducted in four towns of Haryana: Ladwa, Kurukshetra, Indri and Radwar. The safai karamchari (sanitary workers) of municipalities from these four towns were selected as respondents. Data was collected through semi-structured interview and structured tool was used for assessing social exclusion. Here, the results show that all respondents ( safai karamchari) belong to Balmiki caste and all were Hindu by religion. Among them, 62% respondents were illiterate, more than 80% reported that this work was transferred from ancestors or lack of opportunity, and 98% reported no protective gears provided while working. Social exclusion found prevalent in almost all domains, while the face exclusion was in social, cultural, educational, occupational, political domains and accessing social services. The result shows that Indian policies for social inclusion fail in case of scavenger community. Therefore, this is matter of dealing for social work profession.

This chapter aims to explore the subtle relationship between social class and caste and its implications for community development practice in the Indian context. The chapter locates the ways in which ‘common sense’ conceals the subordination and oppression of the marginalised, and normalises it as a ‘natural’ process. The chapter focuses on the Balmiki community, a substantial majority of whose constituents are still engaged in the inhuman practice of manual scavenging. This practice of the manual sweeping of household dry toilets and carrying of human excreta, though banned by law, still exists in many parts of India. It has been enforced as a traditional hereditary caste-based occupation. Based on field experiences of working with the Balmiki community, the chapter explores the dynamics of social class, caste and common sense, and accordingly argues for an anti-hegemonic community development practice.