Vinayakala Korvi As fellow Savari members started to mobilize on facebook and email in response to Asha Kowtal’s call to support the Mashaal Rally, I joined the protesters on August 31st. We reached the venue at 6 pm. It was still daylight then and the mashaals had not yet been lit. A small crowd …
From Jind to Delhi via Rohtak: The tortuous path to justice
Sanghapali Aruna Kornana (A report on the events and protests that followed the tragic death of the 20 year old Dalit girl in Jind, Haryana, on 24th August, 2013) What happened? The country witnessed another horrific yet beautifully manipulated story of a young woman who was raped and murdered. The mutilated body of a …
The Emergence of Right-wing Caste Politics in Tamil Nadu
Harish S. Wankhede Ilavarasan and Divya eloped and got married. Divya’s father killed himself a little while later because his daughter had married a Dalit youth. A few days ago Ilavarasan’s body was found next to the railway tracks near Dharmapuri. It is, as yet, unclear if his death was a murder, accident or …
What I have to say: Chithralekha
On May 18th, 2013, Chitralekha (the dalit woman autorickshaw driver from Payannur, Kerala, who has been fighting CITU/CPM men and who has faced repeated attacks from them in the past) and her family were attacked at her home by a mob of 30 plus men, including her neighbors. This article is her account of …
(Un)Touchable in Durban
Martin Macwan (First published in the December 2001 issue of Seminar) The UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) held at Durban had three major agenda themes among others: identification of the sources and causes of discrimination, identification of victims of discrimination, and working out a programme of action …
Reclaiming the Cinematic Space: Countering the Liberal Speech on Caste
Ajith Kumar A S Suddenly caste seems to take center stage of Malayalam cinema and the public sphere in Kerala. Everyone seems to be against caste as if all the progressives suddenly understand caste now. The CPM’s youth wing DYFI conducts a march to build up a “caste-less, secular” Kerala. The congress organizes “Gandhigram’ …
Caste Violence against Women
via Rupali Bansode National Workshop on Caste Violence Against Women: Voices of Victimhood and Voices of Resistance: Jan 25th – 26th
The Protests in Delhi and the Nationalist Paradigm
Jenny Rowena On a broken tar road in a rather remote area in Kerala (where I am right now), someone has scribbled this with white chalk: Sister, For You, Bad New Year(Sahodari, ninakkuvendi, bad New Year) This statement is addressed to the girl who passed away recently after being brutally raped in a bus …
Delhi Protests and the Caste Hindu Paradigm: Of Sacred and Paraded Bodies
Madhuri Xalxo I am a bit shaken by what outrages the mainstream media on rape. The incident is horrifying and yet so very familiar to us dalit, bahujan and adivasi women. In the same Delhi, hundreds of adivasi girls are taken as domestic slaves and get raped, and go missing. Why doesn’t the mainstream …