Gail Omvedt
Gail Omvedt (1941–2021) was a pioneering sociologist and historian who took a keen interest in ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary India. Born in Minneapolis, she moved to India in the 1970s as a PhD scholar. Soon she became both a participant in and a chronicler of the anti-caste, working class and feminist movements of Maharashtra. Among her many books are Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (1994), Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India (2004), Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals (2008) and Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste (2025).