Srutheesh Kannadi The issue of caste faced by Dalits is too complex to explain in the context of post-colonial modernity. The structural existence of caste has attained much flexibility and transformed into the behaviour of an amoeba where it appears to not follow any pre-defined principles. This illusion of caste made it invisible but at …
The virus or the ruling castes’ response to it: What’s more dangerous for Bahujans
Rahul Bansode When Covid-19 started affecting the entire world, many countries globally began enforcing strict lockdowns to prevent its spread. Following suit, Indian government announced the lockdown of entire country on 23rd March. Thousands of migrants, most of them Dalit-Adivasi-Bahujans were found stranded across India without food and water. Many of the migrant workers started …
The Meteoric Rise of L. Murugan, the new BJP Chief of Tamil Nadu
Keerthi Nathan The past week, BJP unit of Tamil Nadu was suddenly brimming with a lot of activity after being dormant for a few months. Mr. L. Murugan had been appointed the President of the BJP State unit of TN much to everyone’s surprise. Mr. L. Murugan is also the Vice Chairman of the National …
Chithralekha: An Icon of Resistance
Carmel Christy K J The road gets narrower as you go to Chithralekha’s grandmother’s house where she used to live at the rear end of the village in Edat, Kannur in Kerala. The road ends at her house and there is no way to go further. Dalit houses at the end of the village is …
My Life and Caste: Journey of Becoming Ambedkarite
Ramkumar Govindan I am Ramkumar, pursuing PhD at Tata Institute of Social Sciences. One day after a discussion on Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder, one of my friends asked me, what kind of discrimination have you experienced? Without even thinking a minute I replied to her: no, I don’t think I have faced any direct discrimination. …
Reading ‘Guja-ratri: Reflections on Moditva’
Noel Mariam George The book ‘Guja-ratri: Reflections on Moditva’ attempts to uncover the darkness that has engulfed the country since the rise of Motiva through a series of 17 articles. The attempt of this review is to look at the book through three conceptual frameworks. Deconstructing the Binary of Dalit-Muslim The book begins with Ambedkar’s …
The Origin of Dalit Feminist Literature: Mukta Salve, the First Voice of Dalit Feminism
Shivani Waldekar 165 years ago, one young Dalit girl strongly criticised brahminical hegemony and the hierarchal oppressive social structure. She questioned and critically examined caste, class, gender and religion and that empirical data continues to remain very relevant today, as they were in 1855. She strongly believed that education is the only path which …
Save Nation! Save Constitution!!
On March 4, 2020, hundreds of Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim and Christian minority groups and leaders from different parts of India assembled in the country’s capital to condemn and peacefully protest the imposition of unconstitutional Citizenship Amendment Act through the implementation of the NRC and NPR, countrywide. The BJP’s election manifesto in the general elections …
Untouchability in Rural Karnataka
Srikanth Karan Untouchability is a lived reality for many Dalits in the interior villages of Karnataka, mostly in Tumkur, rural Bangalore and many other villages. I am sure this is the case across the country though hardly reported in the news. Only one out of a lakh incidents are reported or brought to light and …