Gee Imaan Semmalar In Kerala, a new political and cultural assertion is happening amongst Dalit communities, filmmakers and intellectuals that radically questions the deafening mainstream silence and denial of caste. In the field of filmmaking, Rupesh Kumar and Ajith Kumar A.S have emerged as voices who bring power to a certain kind of representational …
Chithralekha’s family attacked again
Eramangalathu Chitralekha On October 21st I was attacked again. This time they rounded up and beat my husband Sreeskanth because now they are scared to touch me. Sreeskanth has been living a life of social exclusion for a long time now. His relatives have abandoned him, his friends don’t talk to him, except very …
Immolation bid by dalit woman foiled
RAJKOT: Police prevented a 52-year-old dalit woman from immolating herself outside the district panchayat office in Rajkot on Wednesday. Shantaben Vadher of Aji dam chowkdi is employed as a health worker in primary health centre at Sardhar. She came with kerosene cans to the district panchayat crossroads at around 11 am and tried to immolate …
Fact Finding Report on the Alleged Rape and Murder of Dalit girl in Jind
Report of the Fact Finding Investigation conducted to ascertain facts in the case of alleged rape and murder of Dalit girl in Jind district of Haryana Background to the Formation of the Fact Finding Team On 24th August, a 20 year old Dalit girl was brutally raped and murdered in Jind, Haryana, while she …
State expects dead Dalit girl to prove she was violated and killed?
Asha Kowtal and Jenny Rowena On 24th August, a 20 year old Dalit girl was brutally raped and murdered in Jind, Haryana, while she was on her way to write an examination. Her mutilated body was found near a canal the next day by the police. There were cigarette burn marks on her body …
Police harass noted Dalit activist Sivakami at Ilavarasan’s funeral
Prof Lenin and Ilan Suriyan Under the guise of Section 144, the police have been obstructing dalit leaders from paying their last respects to Ilavarasan. Even the prominent dalit woman activist, writer and politician, P Sivakami has not been spared from this harassment. Sivakami had to enter Natham colony secretly through another route as …
Pushpa Balmiki: I decided to fight
– An interview with Pushpa Balmiki [This interview was first published as “My restlessness grew and started taking form quite early” in the March-April 2005 issue of Insight magazine. R. B. Rawat conducted the interview] Pushpa Balmiki is the founder of Adharshila, an NGO working in the Tarai Region of UP. She has represented Dalit …
Confessions of a confused Dalit Woman!
Jyotsna Siddharth Today’s status quo bites me. The upper-caste, upper class, elitism in feminism, the hypocritical pretension about issues and a bit of everything is disturbing. I would not have come up with this piece if I did not have the opportunity to attend an event recently in Delhi and would like to thank Zubaan …
Dalit Feminism
M. Swathy Margaret (First Published in Insight Youth Voices magazine in 2005) I am a Dalit-middle-class, University educated, Telugu speaking Dalit-Christian-Woman. All these identities have a role in the way I perceive myself and the worlds I inhabit. I, as a Dalit woman, primarily write for Dalit women to uphold our interests. This statement of …