Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India Paperback – July 17, 2018

Ants Among Elephants provides a window into Indian village life and the history of modern India. In part, Sujatha Gidla's account belongs to history. Other aspects of the book are part of the India of today.In rural India depicted in the book, protecting the family honor is a priority. The family arranges marriages. Marrying against the wishes of the family is taboo. In public, young women avoid smiling or noticeably looking at men who aren't family members. Brothers will violently respond to any suggestion that a sister is sexually available.The family is shown to be close-knit. Family (and extended family) share housing along with food and income provided by employed members of the household. Gidla's family belonged to the untouchable caste and were Christian, although some family members maintained only family ties to Christianity.Caste differences also became a factor in Indian political life. On the eve of Indian independence, India achieved a moment of national unity. High and low castes were united in opposition against the British. After independence, caste differences reasserted themselves.The Communist party of India attempted to exploit these caste divisions. However, the communists showed themselves to be as case-conscious as the rest of society. Instead of being "given a gun," untouchable men joining the party "were made to sweep and mop the floors and clean the lavatories." Protesting against this elitism led to the explosion from the party of Satyam -- Gidla's untouchable communist uncle. Satyam then began organizing "untouchable and low caste peasants" as a "revolutionary vanguard" of their own, which excluded the upper-case.Satyam was expelled from a Naxalite party, itself a Maoist offshoot of more established communists parties in India. The Naxalites continue to be "a thorn in the side of Indian rulers" with the tribal poor caught between the government and the Naxalites. The government punishes the poor for Naxalite sympathies, and the Naxalites punish poor for loyalty to the government. Compounding the problem are multi-national corporations after the "mineral wealth lying under the lands and habitations of the tribals."Ants Among Elephants is a well-written and informative book. Make time for it.

Not the easiest read,but informative and disturbing to realize how people can treats others.

I read this book over the past few weekends, and it was somewhat of a slog. The quality of the writing is poor, and it should have been condensed to half of its current size. But it was informative about the part of the world that I come from (Andhra Pradesh in India), and the author is roughly my age, so our experiences overlap, though I come from a much different background. Hence the 3 rating.I was intrigued by the reviews in the media, which is why I bought the book, but I think the novelty for western audiences was the caste system itself, and also the revelation that caste exists in Christianity in India as well. I was somewhat aware of this, though not in much detail, so this book was helpful.Fortunately the book is not poverty porn. The author writes about the poverty around her as just a fact of life, and as part of her experience in growing up. It's quite sad, but things are said to be slowly getting better.As other reviewers have noted, a lot of the book revolves around her brother and his group, and their involvement in the Communist / Naxalite movement from the 60's. I have absolutely no sympathy for that ideology, but it was interesting getting an insider's view. Also, a lot of the difficulties the author says she faced in her various jobs, maybe it was because of this Communist background.I keep coming back to the quality of the writing. In many places, especially in the lengthy mid-section of the book, it feels like a Telugu expression or figure of speech has been literally rendered into English. I suspect a lot of newspaper and magazine reviewers just read the foreword and the end notes.

This memoir opens a window into how untouchables live in India. The culture of India is full of rules regarding how people should behave towards each other. Unlike memoirs of Communist China, the government plays only a small role in people's lives. Even untouchables have a great deal of freedom in how they live their lives. People are contrained by their culture, their families, and their poverty. The amount of detail in this memoir is amazing. The writing is not polished, which adds to its authenticity.

This is a devastating, inspiring and highly informative book by a clear-thinking and courageous author. I read this book in two days without putting it down. The biggest eye-opener for me was how casteism is perpetrated by Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Communists -- everyone. Casteism is even perpetrated by Dalits towards other Dalits. This doesn't exonerate Hindus or anyone at all--it just shifts the framework away from Hindus being the only perpetrators. While I am left with more questions and doubts than answers about caste and how to dismantle it, this book increases my resolve to continue my work to build a progressive and pluralistic, anti-caste Hindu society. I recommend this book highly.

: "My stories, my family's stories, were not stories in India. They were just life"Ants among elephants is a moving portrait of caste violence, poverty, gender imbalances & modern India. Anything I say about this book would be a gross understatement. It's brutally honest, and often horrifying on account of what many Indian lives look like.A must read for anyone who wishes to understand the society we live in.

Very interesting historical information but not particularly well written. - made it a bit hard to get through at times.

This is a really important account of the long and (as yet) unended story of the struggle for equality by the Dalits. For me it shed new light on the period after Independence and the Indira Gandhi administration.

A narrative was amazing but the book was dirty ...... I wanted to wash

Gives a very good insight into the caste ridden Indian society and it's hypocritical attitude. A good book that shuld be made part of school carriculam .Though the writing is lucid, at times one gets a feeling that the English language usage in the book is a bit amateurish and lacks skilled editing..