The Monster in Your Path is an original and provocative look at why the global Left stumbles when dealing with historical structures of subordination like caste or race. Sharika Thiranagama examines rural communities in the South Indian state of Kerala, where decades of Communist Party rule has transformed life through land reform and social reorganization. Despite Marxist ideals, new forms of caste disparities have moved from “public” space to private spaces and private lives. Through an exquisitely crafted ethnography that centers Dalit women, the book explains how historical economies of humiliation and subordination continue to influence modern spaces like the private home. From histories of enslavement to an exploration of the houses and neighborhoods through which Dalit communities build dignity and self-worth, Thiranagama sets a new agenda for caste studies in India and beyond.

About the Author

Sharika Thiranagama is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University and author of In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: The Monster in Your Path

Part One. The Work of Inheritance
1. Enslaved Occupations
2. A Working Woman: Strong Bodies and Soft Hands
3. The Cultural Life of Communism: The Party and Its Downtrodden

Part Two. The Rural Modern
4. The Houses of the Past: Aesthetic Economies of Caste
5. Concrete Futures: New Houses and New Neighborhoods
6. Self-Improvement: Marriage and Inheriting a Future

Coda

Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Reviews

"The Monster in Your Path breaks new ground in expanding the study of the private life of caste as it is experienced by Dalit and lower-caste communities in the Palakkad district of Kerala. The book reminds readers of good ethnography and fieldwork as a necessary precondition to raise conceptual questions relating to inequality, gender, and labor."—Ramnarayan S. Rawat, coeditor of Dalit Journeys for Dignity: Religion, Freedom, and Caste

"The Monster in Your Path is an elegant account of caste in twenty-first-century India. Sharika Thiranagama reveals the aftermath of a revolutionary politics in Kerala that has obfuscated the existence of caste hierarchy while perpetuating everyday caste violence through novel formations of domesticity and property. Thiranagama’s beautiful ethnography not only reveals the durability of caste subjection but also demands that we recognize the dignity of Dalits and all lower-caste people."—Durba Mitra, author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought

"The Monster in Your Path is a groundbreaking study of caste in communist Kerala. Thiranagama’s compelling ethnography of homes, neighborhoods, and women’s lives yields fresh and subtle insight into how the inheritance of enslavement and untouchability is negotiated in India’s most progressive state."—Joel Lee, author of Deceptive Majority: Dalits, Hinduism, and Underground Religion

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews