For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Dr. Udit Raj (First published in September 2006) The Sangh Parivar is not able to resolve the dangers looming large on the caste-based Hindu religion on its own. There is a saying that you should first try to resolve your differences on your own, and then consult your neighbours. But instead of taking recourse to …
Paari. chelian Black Americans have protested the slavery and racism thrust on them by the Whites through many forums including those of Black literature and politics. One such forum is Black History Month. They announced and celebrate February as Black History Month to redeem their racial history that has been side-lined so far. February is an important month in …
Gail Omvedt (First published in September 1990) Any caste based reservation system, in this case the Mandal Commission, has to be judged in terms of what it can do and not in terms of what it is not supposed to do—and in this case its goal is the limited but important one of ending caste …
(On 20th March, 1927, Babasaheb Ambedkar launched a Satyagraha at Mahad for the right to draw water from the Chawdar Tank. This excerpt from his ‘Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability’ describes the agitation) The movement of the Untouchables against the injustice of the Hindu Social Order has a long history behind it, especially in Maharashtra. …
Karthik Navayan [Karthik Navayan wrote this article ten years ago, in 2002, after visiting Gujarat as a relief volunteer seeking to offer aid to the victims of the 2002 carnage. The one persistent thought on his mind after the experience was: how to stop Andhra Pradesh from becoming Gujarat? How to stop any other state …
Dr. Udit Raj (First published in October 2002) Hindutva organisations are outraged over conversions, and their outrage prevents them from entering into negotiations with Muslim and Christian leaders. But have they ever bothered to understand the plight of Dalits? Dalits and backwards consider themselves Hindus, but Hinduism does not respond to them; otherwise, there would …
(Published in January 2003 in the PUCL Bulletin) A Report by Academics On hearing the reports of lynching of five dalits by a frenzied mob at police chowkie of Duleena near Jhajjar on Dussehra day, a group of University teachers, writers from Janvadi Lekhak Sangh and social activists visited Badshahpur on 20th November to meet …
An excerpt from ‘Courting Disaster: A Report on Inter-Caste Marriages, Society and State’, a People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) report published in August 2003. Talao in Jhajjar district of Haryana retains the appearance of a village despite being situated only three kilometers from the district headquarters. The village has a population of about 4000, with 600 …
Dr. Udit Raj (First published in October 2002) If you had visited Badshahpur, Akhlimpur, or Tikli with me on October 22 and seen what I saw, you would have decided right then and there to give a call to all the Dalits of the area to convert to Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. Anything but Hinduism. …