Becoming a Dalit Leader A Psycho-Social Study through narratives

INTRODUCTION This chapter gives an overview on Dalit by providing various understandings on it, the origin of untouchability, also presenting the historical understanding on caste system.Then it discusses Leadership as has been studied in the West and in the Indian subcontinent. In that it looks at various perspectives of leadership in psychology particularly social psychology. And finally this chapter discusses Dalit Leadership. This chapter also reviews and discusses the literature available in the area. I An Overview on Dalit The term "Dalit" is another word for untouchable, but it gives a new and different identity, different from untouchability. It is this Untouchability which compels the community to look for another term. Untouchability is attached to one's own caste, specifically lowest rung in the hierarchy of caste system. It seems to have become popular among certain untouchable groups, particularly in North India. It means the downtrodden, and comes from a political movement, the dalit panther's, which was created in Bombay in 1972 along the lines of the American black panthers. The Dalit Panther movement was an intellectual one, which includes among its members a great number of poets and other writers. Dalit Panthers in their 1972 manifesto defined the word as: "A member of scheduled castes and tribes, neoBuddhists, the working- people, the landless and poor peasants, women, and all those who are exploited politically, economically, and in the name of religion". Unable to agree on its manifesto, the group eventually disintegrated, but the term dalit survived, and is widely used by intellectuals throughout India. It also, spawned an important literary movement in Maharashtra, the Dalit Sahitya (literature of the downtrodden), which has been particularly active. The term dalit is interesting for its more aggressive overtones. To be a dalit is to be a proud militant, ready to stand up for one's rights: attitudes that contrast with the Untouchables' traditional self-effacement and baseness,