Kunal Dhande “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little …
Building the Idea of India: Conserving Brahmanism and the Brahmanical State? Part III
Continued from here. Pinak Banik Gandhi’s attempt to abolish untouchability in the 1930s without ever questioning the varanshrama dharma is like todays fight against Hindutva without recognizing Brahmanism. Gandhi only created a token group of SC representatives, who were never given any chance to voice their issues, which later Saheb Kanshiram defined as the …
Making sense of the Patel Agitation: Democracy and its discontents
Dilip Mandal They are not socially or educationally backward people, not at all. They are not a community on the margins of history, politics or any other social matrix. Rather, they belong to a community which is looked upon with envy by people from other communities in India as they are known to be …
The Importance of the SECC’s Caste Data, And Why the Government is Choosing To Sit On It
Surabhi Agarwal The Indian government recently released data from the socio-economic and caste census (SECC), 2011. The data mostly relates to incomes, standards of living and land-ownership patterns in rural India. However, this data is incomplete, and the most crucial aspects of the SECC, which relate to the caste composition of the Indian population, …
Dalit-Bahujan Students Meet in the UK
Harshada Vinaya With an intention to build a constructive dialogue and build a support network amongst the Dalit Bahujan students in the UK, a meeting was organised on the 20th of July 2015 in London. The objective of this meeting was primarily to form a network of the Dalit Bahujan students in the UK …
Casteless Academe, Name-calling Dalits? Part 2
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 …
Twin blows to OBCs
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 …
Who’s afraid of caste census?
— Kancha Ilaiah Ever since the Centre announced that it would collect data on various castes during the ongoing Census, the media has created a hue and cry saying that this would harm the nation and open a Pandora’s Box of caste conflicts. On the other hand, those who seek caste enumeration are of the …
Caste Census and Indian Muslims A rejoinder to Abusaleh Shariff : by Khalid Anis Ansari
Khalid Anis Ansari In a recent piece Mr. Abusaleh Shariff (‘Casting the Caste Net’, Indian Express, 23 August 2010) has attempted an imaginative intervention in the debate around the caste census. While he enters the debate both in his ‘professional’ capacity as a renowned economist/demographer (to ‘discuss alternatives for collecting caste data’) and as a ‘communitarian’ …