For An Informed Ambedkar Age
(Report first published in November 2003) Violence against Dalits in Marathwada A Report by the Fact Finding Team comprising Dr. Anand Teltumbde Akram Siddiqui Subodh More Hashim Mohamma November 2003 Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), Mumbai ~~~ Introduction In recent months a series of incidents of killings and violence against Dalits in Marathwada …
Continued from here. Her roofless abode gives her a clear view of the fields and the village she guards over. She is my paternal family’s deity, revered as a force of nature as are the scores of female gods of the Shudra, Atishudra and Adivasi cultures. Her free spirited nature echoes the attitude …
[This is the second part of excerpts from an interview with Baby Kamble conducted by Maya Pandit, originally published as part of the English version of her autobiography (‘The Prisons We Broke’)] Continued from here. How did you think of writing your autobiography? (Laughs.) It so happened that I used to sit in the …
Alex Paul Menon introduces himself as ‘Simple, humble, happy go lucky individual with lots of love for humankind, Somebody who can make his surroundings lively with his sense of humour’. Alex Paul Menon, a young dalit IAS officer from Tamil Nadu, chose to become a collector in the ‘red belt’ of Chattisgarh risking his life, so …
Karthik Navayan (We thank Karthik for this moving tribute to the great Telugu poet, Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideologue, Dalit leader and social revolutionary K.G. Satyamurthy, who passed away on April 17, 2012– Round Table India) You have to decide on your own how you wish to understand Satyamurthy, but he was a man who everyone …
Kancha Ilaiah The backward class politicians failed in forcing the government to undertake a caste-wise census of all sections. The Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the country have had two setbacks in the recent political manoeuvring of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. The pushing of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha and also …
[Babytai Kamble passed away on April 21, 2012. She will continue to inspire us, keeping us connected to the joys and pain of the community, urging us to step beyond individual concerns, anchoring us firmly to Ambedkarism as we move ahead with the struggle for equality and freedom. In our sorrow today we hold …
Anand Teltumbde (First published in September 2011) What has been the impact of reservations for women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in panchayati raj institutions? In case the reserved seat is for a woman, it is usually the wife or daughter in-law of the old sarpanch who is made to sign papers, while the husband or the father-in-law is de facto in control. In the …
A handbag. A false beard. Two seemingly innocuous objects which transform into fearsome symbols, when they adorn the statues of Mayawati and Hatshepsut respectively. These women statues have unleashed unprecedented amounts of societal outrage. Is the cause for outrage the engravings themselves, or the depicted demeanor, or is it the act of consecrating …