Genius Award: Shailaja Paik Named MacArthur Fellow
Photo: UC Cincinnati
India-West Staff Reporter
NEW YORK, NY – Shailaja Paik, a distinguished historian and professor at the University of Cincinnati, is among this year’s group of 22 MacArthur Fellowship recipients. The prestigious award, often referred to as the “genius grant” includes $800,000 in no-strings-attached funding over five years.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation which gives the award recognized Paik’s groundbreaking work on the intersections of caste, gender, and sexuality in modern India, with a particular focus on Dalit women.
Paik’s journey to this recognition is a story marked by perseverance in the face of personal and societal challenges. Born into a Dalit family, she has said she grew up in a one-room house in a slum in Pune. Despite facing prejudice as both a Dalit and a woman, Paik told NPR in an interview that she credits her parents—especially her father—with ensuring that she and her three sisters received an education.
She earned her master’s degree from Savitribai Phule University in Pune before becoming a lecturer in Mumbai. A Ford Foundation fellowship later enabled her to pursue a doctoral degree at Warwick University in the U.K., and she arrived in America in 2005 on a fellowship from Emory University. She has served as a visiting assistant professor of history at Union College and a postdoctoral associate and visiting assistant professor of South Asian history at Yale University.
The Foundation on announcing her award wrote:
Paik’s scholarly work sheds light on the complex struggles of Dalit women in India. Her first book, Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (2014), explores how Dalit women have historically faced dual discrimination—by caste and gender—in their fight for education and autonomy in Maharashtra. Drawing from oral interviews with three generations of Dalit women, Paik examines how they navigated the tension between anti-caste reformers advocating for education as a path to liberation and a society entrenched in patriarchal, Brahminical values that limited opportunities for women.
In her latest work, The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (2022), Paik delves into the lives of Dalit women performers of Tamasha, a traditional form of bawdy folk theater in Maharashtra. Tamasha, while a source of livelihood for many Dalit women, is stigmatized as ashlil (vulgar) due to the caste-based associations with sexualized labor. Paik’s research reveals how Dalit women strategically leverage Tamasha to resist patriarchal labels and reclaim dignity (manuski) in their own terms, despite ongoing societal constraints.
Through her work, Paik critiques prominent figures like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the renowned caste abolitionist, who placed the responsibility on Dalit women to reject sexualized performance for social upliftment. Paik highlights the overlooked complexities in this narrative, showing how these women navigate a double bind—balancing economic survival with the resistance of caste and gender stereotypes.
In addition to her books, Paik is building a new archive through her fieldwork and interviews with contemporary Dalit women, preserving their voices for future generations. Her work offers fresh perspectives on caste domination and the ways in which gender and sexuality intersect to deny Dalit women their personhood
