Twin Cankers Of The Nation

Anand Teltumbde, back in 2016, had advanced Ambedkar studies with his engaging historical study Mahad: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt. Since then, he has published several books and articles, but none enjoying the significance of his newest one: Republic of Caste (2018). While most of this work is based upon revised and updated articles that appeared in EPW, the book is remarkably up to date, with extensive discussions of events like the Bhima-­­­­Kor­­egaon incident, or the tra­gic spate of suicides by Dalit PhD students in the wake of the shocking suicide of Rohit Vemula. This is, the­­­re­fore, a timely book too.

In today’s India, which Teltumbde cha­­ra­cterises in his subtitle as “the time of neoliberal Hindutva,” the world’s largest democracy has managed to produce some of the world’s smallest, cordoned-off zones for the expression of that democracy—and that too (think of Ramlila Mai­dan in Delhi) for a fee. As the author states: “If you are an adivasi woman from Manipur brutalised by provisions of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act that gives uniformed men the license to rape and loot in the name of protection of sovereignty, a farmer from Tamil Nadu desperately seeking relief from drought, a Dalit from Bhagana seeking justice for four minor Dalit girls abducted and gang-raped...or a victim of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak still hoping for justice, you must now pay for the privilege of self-expression.”