The history of Dalits in India is commonly presented as one of discrimination. Dalit understandings of the past, however, go beyond this and are intricately connected to the emotional space of the ‘under-privileged’. They resist attempts to homogenise the community and its experiences, assert that the term ‘Dalit’ houses not one but many identities shaped by complex social processes, and call for the study of new sources and the adoption of new methodologies in constructing the histories of the marginalised.