Hindu nationalism, Untouchable reform, and the ritual production of a South Indian village

From 1989 through 7990, residents of a Tamil village drew on national signs the Rule of Ram, ideas of equality, images of Ambedkar-as they contested the social contours of their village through ritual action. Taking a phenomenological approach, I argue that as village residents localized their imagined futures of equality and power, they were in fact asserting themselves as historical actors with the power to remake their present and to remake the locality (the village) in which they live.