For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Round Table India
For an Informed Ambedkar Age
‘If the Untouchables make no noise, the Hindu feels no shame for their condition and is quite indifferent as to their numbers. Whether they are thousands or millions of them, he does not care to bother. But if the Untouchables rise and ask for recognition, he is prepared to deny their existence, repudiate his responsibility and refuse to share his power without feeling any compunction or remorse.’ Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
Round Table India believes this is the Ambedkar Age, the age of rising and working towards reshaping society in the light of the Ambedkarite ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. As a news and information portal, Round Table India aims to focus on the twin objectives of generating information and interaction necessary to aid, in howsoever small way, the progress of the Dalits, and the Bahujan community at large, in their efforts to realize those ideals, to work for an informed Ambedkar Age.
Round Table India recognizes that Indian media has played a significant role in helping the dominant social forces ‘deny the existence’ of untouchability and caste and ‘repudiate their responsibility’ in building and maintaining an unjust social order. It has consistently promoted the project of twisting the ‘Hindu problem’, as Dr.Ambedkar had once observed, into the ‘Dalit problem’. Both the mainstream and so-called alternative media in India are controlled by the same social forces. When others interpret the world for you, can you change it?
Round Table India shall aggregate news from the mainstream media, piecing together current information on society, politics and policy of interest to the Dalit-Bahujan world. Concurrently, Round Table India shall also seek to find and highlight the Dalit-Bahujan perspective on those and other issues: their own attempts to make sense of the world, to interpret it. In short, Round Table India shall function as an uniquely Dalit-Bahujan media actor that perceives through their eyes and ears, and speaks through their voice.
To its readers and users, Round Table India shall be a platform, a resource and a tool. As a platform, it offers an integrated online space for the widest expression of Dalit-Bahujan voices. Through regular columns on news and current issues, blogs, multimedia articulation and even creative writing in the form of poetry, short fiction and non-fiction on subjects of literary interest.
Round Table India shall be a resource, a library of sorts, for young Dalit-Bahujans who seek to gain from the knowledge and experience of intellectuals, writers and activists of a similar background. It shall also make available for them the writings of such pioneering thinkers as Dr.Ambedkar and Phule, and help them delve into Dalit history, events, movements and personalities to understand the current age better.
Lastly, Round Table India shall serve as a tool for young Dalits to interact with each other: through helping them connect with each other, facilitating debates and discussions of interest to them.
Jyotsna Siddharth: I am a postgraduate in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Currently I am working as a gender consultant with Ministry of Rural Development. I am interested in learning about Caste, Feminism, Philosophy, Literature and Poetry.
Jenny Rowena is assistant professor at Miranda House, Delhi
Javed Iqbal is a photographer and a writer. You’ll find more of his work atmoonchasing.wordpress.com.
Jason Keith Fernandes blogs here.
James Michael doctoral candidate at EFLU
Harish S. Wankhede is assistant professor of political science at Delhi University.
Hany Babu teaches in the Department of English, Delhi University, and is Secretary, Academic Forum for Social Justice.
Grishma Manikrao Khobragade is Assistant Professor, Dept of English, Birla College, Kalyan. email: khobragade-dot-grishma-at-yahoo-dot-com
Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and is associated with the Nagri People’s Movement.