For An Informed Ambedkar Age
[Via Murali Shanmugavelan] We invite you to the London launch of ‘Hatred in the belly: Politics behind the appropriation Dr Ambedkar’s writings‘ by the Ambedkar Age Collective on 6th June, 2016, at SOAS, University of London, Russell Square campus. The book is the powerful response by a number of Dalit-Bahujan writers to Arundhati Roy’s ‘much-needed-introduction’ …
Anu Ramdas The murder of children is a monstrosity. Children are the default protected community; constructs such as race, gender, ethnicity, caste, linguistic or regional identity cannot come in the way of their protected status. Children are persons who immediately command the full commitment of adults to ensure that they are at all times …
Anu Ramdas “That which is not destroyed when the upadhis of time, space, and causation are destroyed, is Brahman, the immortal Reality.*” The foundational belief system of the Brahmins as per their own foundational texts is unapologetically supremacist. When confronted, one expects the present day brahmin with stakes in rational thought to readily agree …
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 …
Anu Ramdas We stand in solidarity with the gang raped student in Delhi, fighting for her life in the hospital. No, we are not going to say why no outrage for the rape and murder of the 8 year old dalit girl in Bihar, and why no outcry for the series of horrifying gang …
Anu Ramdas Continued from here. ‘But you came with a mind as large as the sky to my pocket size house I thought you had ripped out all those caste things You came bridging the chasm that divides us Truly, friend I was really happy With the naïve devotion of Shabari I arranged the food on your plate But the …
Anu Ramdas Adivasi, dalit and lower shudra women are more often co-workers in the fields, kilns, mines, factories and neighborhoods than co-learners and professionals in institutions and organizations. The reverse is true for women belonging to upper castes. Majority of women are caught in manual occupations and only a tiny section of women get to …
Continued from here. Anu Ramdas Hira Bansode in her poem Ghulam (‘Slave’) writes: Where a woman in her youth is dried up by tradition she is confined all her life like a stunted tree she remains in the shadow of someone else’s light In that country a woman is still a slave ~~~ ‘We …
Anu Ramdas Lakshmi was always comfortable sharing her thoughts about her husband, Shanmugam. He was the shy one and never said much about personal things. Listening to Billie Holiday’s songs often brings back memories of the way Lakshmi used to talk about her married life to me. On some days it would be: My …