For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Ambedkar International Mission (AIM) has started a new initiative that shall benefit students from Dalit, Adivasi, OBC and other under-represented communities aspiring to enter premier higher educational institutions in the country. As part of this initiative IMS Learning Resources Pvt Ltd (or IMS), which is one of the best coaching institutions in the country, shall offer coaching for these students …
Devesh Kapur, D Shyam Babu and Chandra Bhan Prasad Born to an indentured laborer father in a Dalit family where food mattered more than studies, Mannam Madhusudan Rao began as a construction worker. Today, he runs his own construction company that is completing a township worth Rs 250 crore. This is the story of …
Sinthujan Varatharajah When I wrote my piece for Round Table India, “Politicising the personal: Who am I, Who are ‘we’ as people?”, I wasn’t really sure what the repercussions will be of coming out as an inter-caste/Dalit to the outside. Of course I expected personal attacks and libel, which indeed followed in all predictable …
Drishadwati Bargi & Georgy Kuruvila Roy The recruitment of candidates under the West Bengal School Service Commission has always been tampered with political interference. Irrespective of political colour, the ruling party has always been perceived as giving undue favours to its members/supporters, often in blatant disregard of constitutional rules or morals or the socio-economic predicament …
Drishadwati Bargi “They had the power to make us see and experience ourselves as “other”” ~ bell hooks, Black Looks: Race And Representation. Narrative one: I have known a Dalit man for the past twenty four years of my existence. Like many other first generation beneficiaries of affirmative action policy, he has worked and done well …
Abul Kalam Azad (I would like to thank Nidhin whose brilliant article has prodded me to thread my thoughts into this piece) “An untouchable to a hindu is an untouchable to a muslim”, Dr.B.R Ambedkar. Throughout my life, I have always been enticed and engulfed by silence- the silence of unrequited love, the silence …
Sinthujan Varatharajah Few diasporans will today come to talk about how caste practices in regards to marriage respond to larger political dynamics and power relations. Endogamy, as the most common marriage practice amongst Hindus, necessarily leads to social exclusion and discrimination. Marriage is traditionally assumed to be the foundation of a political institution, the family. …
Bobby Kunhu The progenitor of “everyday Hindu nationalism” is Mohandas Gandhi as much as Hedgewar or Savarkar. In fact Gandhi is much more dangerous than the latter as the core of his ideology, which is sanatana dharma and varnashrama, is well couched in liberal language, well packaged and propagated internationally and successfully by his …
Atul Anand The film ‘Revolver Rani’ is about a Chambal based female dacoit/politician Alka Singh (Kangna Ranaut). She takes up arms after her father is killed by his upper caste brethren. She dresses up like a cross between Michael Jackson and Phoolan Devi. Unlike Phoolan Devi she wasn’t compelled to take up arms because …