More than 75 years after India gained Independence, has the Dalit community got freedom? This issue is for all of us. To act and to agitate. To stand together and demand answers and keep asking questions. This issue is for the sake of freedom for everyone. In the hope that we annihilate caste, we invoke memory to guide us through this.
This issue is for all of us. To act and to agitate. To keep faith and to confront the realities. To love and to understand. To stand together and to demand answers and keep asking questions. This issue is for the sake of freedom for everyone. In the hope that we annihilate caste, we invoke memory to guide us through this.
The first Dalit autobiography to be published, Baluta created a stir when it appeared in Marathi in 1978. Set in Mumbai and rural Maharashtra of the 1940s and 50s, author and poet Daya Pawar depicts the stark reality of caste violence and untouchability in this classic. It also celebrates the resilience, dignity and courage of the Dalit community and their fight for equality in an unequal society.
In April 2010, a goddess was installed in a small single-storey temple in Banka in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh. It was an ambitious undertaking to fill the vacancy of a goddess in a Dalit household.
Gaddar, a poet and a communist revolutionary, died on August 6
Atrocities against Dalits are taking place regularly across India. Here’s a snapshot
The practice of untouchability and the heinous crimes that are committed in the form of brute killings, rapes, and public beatings are still in practice. How about a space that depicts all of this?
Dalit radicality in the name of Ambedkar is threatened of decay and cooption, thereby running the risk of receding into the landscape of caste
Babasaheb’s universalist vision of the community based on maitri enriches the political imagination everywhere
Ambedkar saw no hope for Dalit liberation without ‘political separation from the Hindus’. Gandhi, while agreeing that the honour of Hinduism could not be saved ‘without eradicating untouchability root and branch’, considered the idea of Dalit political separation from Hinduism ‘suicidal’ for the national movement.
Anand Teltumbde is a scholar and civil rights activist known for his extensive work on B.R. Ambedkar’s life and work as well as the caste issue. He was arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad case in 2020 and released on bail in November 2022 after spending 31 months in jail. The 72-year-old spoke to Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
The direct conflict between Hindutva and the Ambedkarites’ views of the past and present have turned Bhima-Koregaon into what it now is
Dalit women’s fight for equality and assertion has been as much with the ‘woman’ as with the ‘man’
The monuments, statues and parks in Lucknow are a stark reminder of what the Bahujan Samaj Party once stood for
The Dalit Panthers were committed to the mission of fighting cruelty and oppression
The Black Panther Party may have been dissolved but many of the original ideas have resurfaced in different forms. The core principles, however, remain the same
Solidarities centred on precious Dalit lives were created across India
On 15 August 2022, the Sadhana issue completed its 50 years, and India celebrated 75 years of independence. On that occasion, the complete issue, along with the debate, was also published in a book form by the Sadhana publication, which is very useful for researchers.
At 69, writer and advocate SL Virdi, who has fought against caste oppression all his life, plans to return to activism to inspire the youth
The Dalit Panthers became instantly popular among Dalit youth who were disillusioned due to the policies of the Republican Party of India (RPI). There was a constant incoming flow of Dalit youth, so much so that they had to inaugurate five units in a day.
A Dalit Panthers cadre from Maharashtra, Ramdas Athawale, was closely associated with the formation of the Bharatiya Dalit Panthers and then became the president of the Republican Party of India (A). Today, he is the minister of social justice and empowerment in the Union government. He spoke to Suraj Yengde.
The birth of the Dalit Panther movement in Nanded is intrinsically linked to the emergence of the Jai Bhim Nagar slums—a settlement of the Dalit community that was more than 50 years old—which became the nucleus of the Dalit Panthers movement in Nanded.
Kerala’s political standpoints have always been influenced by Dalit interventions throughout history
In Gujarat, social awareness has developed among the Dalits after the Una anti-Dalit violence, but it does not manifest consistency in public spaces.
The Dalit Panthers implemented its politics in their very administrative structure itself.
Data discrepancy, coupled with the ignorance of the consecutive political dispensation, worsens the situation of the marginalised communities, feels Bezwada Wilson, the national convener of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SFA).
The caste strife in Tamil Nadu’s Alampallam village echoes a larger clash over temple entry, exposing the shortcomings of the Dravidian parties in addressing the deeply-entrenched caste conflicts
One of the guidelines states that students cannot be asked their JEE rank as it is indicative of caste. Perhaps the idea is to invisibablise the identity of minority students so that they can better fit in. But is JEE rank the only indicator of caste on campus?
While breathing the air of oppression, I will use it to slit the asphyxiation, and drown the gutter of civilisation.
Opening passages of Mulk Raj Anand’s controversial and important novel
There is often the denial of the existence of caste as a factor in Mumbai and also the silence that surrounds it. Spaces in Mumbai are marked by castes.
Tired of the tyranny of feudal upper-caste landlords, thousands of Dalits launched armed struggles across Bihar
Only social justice can be the antidote to radical Hindutva and the caste census can prove to be a strong step in this direction
The role art plays in society as a tool of survival must be acknowledged. Art memorialises stories and draws attention to the social and the political
While being Dalit-Queer comes with its own set of challenges, efforts must be made to restore some dignity to our communities
Artists from marginalised communities reflect on the everyday lives of Dalits and the oppressed classes at an exhibition
That last word—my father calls it ‘our destiny’—decides everything. See what it just did? You could now put me in a box—or should I say, place me. Till I told you my birth name, I could have been anyone. But now that you know I am—and will always be—a Dalit. Only a Dalit.
