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reclaimed Dalit narrative striving to earn them respectability. Altogether, the book consists of seven chapters, plus an introduction and a conclusion. The first three chapters collate contradictory representations ofDalitwomen in theHindi printpublic sphere, as they are depicted in turn as vamps, victims, and Viranganas. The normative construction of Dalit women is exemplified by the case of Chamar Dai, whose body ‘was at the same time ugly and alluring, repulsive and desirable, untouchable and available, productive and reproductive’ (37). In chapter two, the author provides an explanation of the ways and the reasons why the representations of Dalit women as objects of stigmatisationwere transformed by liberal sympathy. The author concludes this chapter by bringing out the shortcomings and the ambiguities of the reforms initiated in this context. Chapter three supplies an analysis of the representation of Dalit women as ‘Viranganas’, which surpassed earlier constructions as vamps or victims. These representations, the author argues, ‘are not ordinary academic histories, but histories fashioned in order to challenge conventional modes of thinking about 1857 and Dalit women’ (109). Chapter four analyses Dalit men as gendered subjects. It also highlights their efforts to reclaim respectability within the traditional realm by entering into ‘new sites of social freedom’ (110). The fifth chapter delves into particular sites and events of religious conversion, popular culture and indentured labour, showcasinggenderandcaste anxieties under the rubrics of caste, religionand thenation. Sartorial desires, romances and the language of aspirations and individual intimate rights have been studied to unravel these intricacies in detail. The construction of an alternative Dalit mythology is the main subject of discussion in Chapter six, which investigates the images of local goddesses and folk songs. Finally, in the seventh and last chapter, the bookdelves into representations of indentured, transnational, subaltern women, showing how they came to be constructed at the same time as innocent victims and guilty migrants that needed ‘both protection and punishment’ (265) The lucid style and presentation of the tightly woven chapters are this book’s most remarkable features. Particularly impressive is the authors’ rich and dense analysis of texts and visual images, which capture the details of stereotypical as well as of not-so-typical images of Dalits during India’s colonial time. Gupta’s book proves to be an indispensable source for all social science scholars interested in mapping the complex character of caste and gender.