Dalit In India

II. INTRODUCTION
This chapter consists of two parts. The first part deals with review of related concepts. The second part deals with review of related studies.
II. 1. RELATED CONCEPTS
II.1.1. Panchayat
According to the Constitution (Seventy-Third Amendment) Act, 1992, "Panchayat” means an institution (by whatever name called) of self-government constituted under article 243B, for the rural areas; (e) "Panchayat Area" means the territorial Area of a Panchayat; As per section (21) of Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act 1994 “Panchayat” means a Village Panchayat, Panchayat Union Council or a District Panchayat constituted under this Act.
II. 1.2. Panchayat president
As per section (21) of Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act 1994 (26) “President” means the President

1.4. Dalit
Dalit means the suppressed, the crushed, and the humiliated. That single word represents the condition of dalits in India. I feel very proud to use the word Dalit with my name. Dalit means protest. Dalit means agitate. Dalit means resist. Dalit means react (Dalit Ezhimalai, 1999).
In South Asia's caste system, a Dalit (Hindi)-formerly known as untouchable or achuta-is a person outside of the four Varnas, and considered below of all and polluting. Dalits include people as leather-workers, scavengers, tanners, flayers, cobblers, agricultural labourers, municipal cleaners and gymnasts; drum beaters, folk musicians and street handicraft persons. Like upper castes, Dalits are also divided into various sub-castes or jatis. The meaning of this word Dalits is qualitatively different. The word was popularised by the Dalit Panther Movement, when they adopted this term as an act of confident assertion, rejecting Mahathma Gandhi's nomenclature of Harijan, children of God. Dalit Panthers defined this word in their 1972 manifesto as: “A member of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, neo-Buddhist, the working-people, the land-less and poor peasants, women, and all those who are being exploited politically, economically, and in the name of religion”. Noted Dalit Laureate GangadharPantawane wrote: “Dalit is not a caste,Dalits is a symbol of change and revolution. The Dalit believes in humanism. He rejects existence of god, rebirth, and soul, sacred books that teach discrimination, fate,

Recent studies on emerging dalit identities show that a new identity is rising, one that is determined that the dalits will not acquiesce for ever with their subordinate position.(Sunita Reddy, Bharati, 2002)
II.2.Review of related studies
Reddy and Mulay (1965) remarked that the identification of leadership pattern of a society depends upon the extent of introduction of change and its acceptance by the members of the society, which is controlled by the existence of different types of leaders in the community who perform different roles in different situations.
Rao and Moulik (1966) concluded that four types of leaders were existing in all the villages under study. They were ‘institutional, ‘special interest, ‘voluntary’ and ‘professional leaders’. Out of these four types, institutional leaders were in the majority and they were considered as the village wide leaders by the villagers. Political leadership concept has been given by different researchers on the basis of their