This chapter explores a central puzzle of Punjab politics: how a population that constitutes the largest proportion of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in any Indian state—over 30 percent—has not been able to translate its demographic weight into political or material power. It argues that this is not due to a lack of political consciousness or mobilization but rather because of the consistent ability of agrarian elites to co-opt, subvert, and channel Dalit assertion into forms that do not challenge their control over state institutions, land, and coercive power. This has placed boundaries on what Dalits can demand and realistically obtain through political engagement, often reducing Dalit political and social movement leaders to the status of clients and narrowing their focus overwhelmingly to symbolic issues and to the question of reservations, rather than broader transformative politics.

Here I track this pattern across three overlapping domains of assertion: religious conversion and reform, parliamentary politics, and civil society activism. It begins by examining the nature of Dalit subordination in Punjab and then explores the various strategies Dalits have pursued to resist it— starting with the historical phenomenon of religious conversion, which the literature increasingly views not as a purely spiritual choice but as a material strategy aimed at escaping caste-based subordination and gaining access to land, education, and dignity. Whether through conversion to Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, or the creation of separate Dalit religious identities, these efforts were ultimately constrained by dominant caste interests.