Braj Ranjan Mani किसकी चाय बेचता है तू ~ ब्रजरंजन मणि अपने को चाय वाला क्यूँ कहता है तू बात-बात पे नाटक क्यूँ करता है तू चाय वालों को क्यों बदनाम करता है तू साफ़ साफ़ बता दे किसकी चाय बेचता है तू ! खून लगाकर अंगूठे पे शहीद कहलाता है और कॉर्पोरेट …
The Crisis and Challenge of Dalit-bahujans
Braj Ranjan Mani There is no competing cultural vision from below for the mind and heart of India. Dalit-bahujans are still absent in the contest of ideas, policies and visions—the fundamentals on which democratic competition takes place.This paralysis of the mind is linked totheir systemic cultural, intellectual and spiritual destruction. Without reference to history …
Caste Atrocities and the Quest for Justice
Harish S. Wankhede In any normal political chat, the general upper caste tendency is to accuse the Dalits of politicizing the lower caste identity against the nationalist concerns of citizenship and secularism. This is an easy option to hide the actual domination of brahmanical culture over the public institutions. The social psyche of ‘governamentality’ …
Jyoti Lanjewar, a rebel
Bhupali Kusum Vitthal Caves* Their inhuman atrocities have carved cavesin the rock of my heartI must tread this forest with wary stepsEyes fixed on the changing timesThe tables have turned nowProtests sparkNow hereNow there.I have been silent all these yearslistening to the voice of right and wrongBut now I will fan the flamesof human …
Asur Utsav, not Durga Puja
“It is an Utsav, Not Puja”: Asur Utsav, Mulnibasi Culture and Challenges to Brahminical Hegemony Georgy Kuruvilla Roy and Samata Biswas (For Dalit Camera: Through Un-Touchable Eyes) The social media is rife with allegations and counter allegations regarding the casteist, brahminical, Hindu and/or secular nature of Durga Puja. Mainstream Bengali media have chosen to …
Selective Violence & Selective Justice
P. Manikanta “Virtue has become caste-ridden and morality has become, caste- bound.” ~ Dr. B. R. Ambedkar The Patna high court verdict on the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre has once again made the Bahujans think about the Brahminical state which is actively preventing India from achieving the state of democracy that had prevailed in Buddhist …
From Khairlanji to Haryana: Do Dalits have human rights?
Karthik Navayan (This is a slightly revised version of an article written in 2006) The publicity that was given to the incidents of burning of five railway bogies and vandalizing of a hundred bus windows was not extended to the massacre of four members of a single family. The upper caste media widely, and …
‘No Alphabet in Sight’: Understanding Caste Formulations After 1990s
Understanding caste formulations after 1990s: Review of ‘No Alphabet in Sight: New Dalit Writing from South India’ (This review is a part of the theory course taught by Dr Bhangya Bhukya, Department of Social Exclusion Studies, English and Foreign Languages University) Karthik Navayan Caste is interpreted in different schools of thought in different ways; …
Crossing endogamic boundaries
Anu Ramdas In the aftermath of Ilavarasan’s horrific death, dalit movements and leaders in Tamil Nadu have raised the need for a law against honor killings. Even as Ilavarasan’s family, neighbors, dalit activists and leaders cope with the grief and trauma, they have set their minds to examine the underlying processes which led to …