For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Nidhin Shobhana This essay is a response to the on-going strike in FTII against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of the said Institute. I would contextualize the strike on a larger canvas called Brahmanism (not read as Hindutva1). In the essay I would make a modest effort to understand the term …
Arvind Shesh So will the movie Guddu Rangeela prove to be a beginning of sorts? Both the protagonists of the movie, Guddu and Rangeela, are Dalit. That is one of the most daring and special things about the movie. The notorious khap panchayats of Haryana, their barbaric decisions against inter-caste lovers and how they deal …
Akhil Kang I think I have lost count of the number of times I have felt immensely guilty of getting what I have got because of my caste. I remember sitting in my university classes, people looking directly at my face and saying ‘some lower castes’ individuals do not deserve to be here, because …
Dhruwa R The Marathi movie, Court, has been making news for some time now, being seen as a ‘radical’ movie even before its release in theaters in India – because it has won many awards nationally and globally. The movie is touted as a ‘never-before’ kind of attempt which apparently exposes the rampant injustice …
Daisy Katta An interview with Dr. Sujata Vishwasrao Athawale, Professor and Dalit Activist, Amravati, Vidarbha, Maharashtra. Dr. Sujata Vishwasrao Athawale is a Dalit women’s rights activist who has been working with rural Vidarbha’s Dalit, Adivasi, Nomadic and Denotified Tribal and Muslim women for the last two decades. On the occasion of International Woman’s Day, …
Atul Anand Recently, a New Delhi based Hindi ‘feminist’ magazine ‘Streekaal’ started an award in the name of a bahujan woman and India’s first woman teacher Savitribai Phule called ‘Savitri Bai Phule Ideologue Award’. On the 2nd of January this year, the eve of Savitribai Phule’s birth anniversary, the first ‘Savitri Bai Phule Ideologue …
Rupesh Kumar The questions raised by the political struggles of Chithralekha, the dalit auto rickshaw driver in Payyannur in Kerala, against the Left male violence on her family, gender and dalit identity is a hard punch against caste discrimination and patriarchy. Payyanur is part of the so-called ‘innocent North Malabar’, also known as ‘North …
Yogesh Maitreya Let me first declare before proceeding any further that this piece of writing is based on my experiences, observations, and reflections on caste (something that has been infused into religions other than Hinduism in South Asia) and its trajectories. These are my thoughts on how caste works and manifests itself spontaneously at …
Rakesh Ram S 26th December 2014. Today Chithralekha, the Dalit woman autodriver, entered the 64th day of her night and day dharna (to death) in front of the Kannur collectorate. She has been fighting the CPI(M)/DYFI/CITU in Kannur since 2005. Despite numerous protests and resultant promises from the government attacks continue to happen on Chithralekha, …