Dear Friends:
Since April is here, many activities concerning Dalit history and Dr. Ambedkar are now in the spotlight.
Two updates from Canada. The Government of British Columbia has announced in its resolution that 14th April, 2022 - the birthday of Dr. Ambedkar - will be known as “Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Equality Day”. Similarly, April, 2022 was declared as “Dalit History Month”.
An Ambedkarite organisation of Canada, Chetna Association has been working with the State government to get this approved. Chetna Association was in the news last year for similar efforts done at the level of City Council of Burnaby. Chetna has joined the efforts with Indian organisations to mark Dr. Ambedkar Equality Day at the UN.
We were just starting to get used to the “new normal” post the global Pandemic and a new crisis at the border of Russia and Ukraine engulfed us. The crisis soon turned into a full-fledged war between the two nations, Ukraine becoming the petri dish of cold war nostalgia and providing a hint to the world crisis. There is a global tension and yet caste continues to make its presence felt. In a tragic event, the parent of a deceased Indian student blamed the reservation system for his son not getting a medical seat in Indian institutions.
February started on a positive note. The 2 day Conference, ‘Counting Caste: Breaking the Caste Census Deadlock’ was successfully organised. I was so happy to see the young students of Oxford from Dalit, Shudra, and backward caste Muslim backgrounds coming together and organizing this conference. The proceedings of the conference can be viewed here.
In another mischievous and sneaky attempt of the Indian government to discourage students from marginalized communities to pursue research in higher studies. The government of India revised the criterion of the research topic for foreign studies scholarship of which I am a proud beneficiary, which blatantly restricts research scope in many important areas.
I have been occupied with archival research, as mentioned in my last newsletter. I spent the early weeks of March in Sharjah and Dubai attending a conference on The Afterlives of the Postcolonial. There I presented a paper called “Dalitical # Dialectical”. More on this when one of my next books comes out.
In Dubai and the neighbouring area, I spent time with the Dalit labourers from India who are building the cosmpolis on earth in the form of the UAE. They will feature in my next book “Caste: A New History of the World”.
Dalitality
February’s Dalitality looked at the perilous question of inter-caste marriage, and its current status. As the Indian Human Development Survey reported that 95% of Indians still find partners within their subcastes, the need to encourage inter-caste marriage can not be overlooked as all over the globe people are integrating across color, racial, and ethnic boundaries.
But the condition of the rest who heed Dr. Ambedkar’s advice of ‘fusion of blood’ to break the toxic caste structure also remains turbulent. On one side the possibility of upper-caste partners expunging themselves in maintaining caste status quo and assuming the position of misrepresenting Dalits remains open, on the other side, the dalit partner continuously “finds [themselves] dueling between the struggle of their community and the culture of their spouses and in-laws”
You can read the full piece here.
Expert of caste in Latin America and author of Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico, Ben Vinson II puts it succinctly:
There are few places you can go in the world that have not been touched directly, or indirectly, by caste. After spending my entire adult life studying the history of race and caste in Latin America, I’m convinced that the vocabulary of race used in most countries throughout the region owe their existence to caste categorizations that flourished in the early modern world. In other words, underlying the framework of today’s modern racial terminologies and racial thought, in places like Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Argentina and Brazil, is an architecture created by caste.
Caste has been a theory of interpretation and argumentation in the colony and metropoles. This piece is another in the line of the great Latin American social theory deciphering the conditions of society through caste reinforcing the possibility of “Global Caste”.
I make a case for rethinking the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system that we currently have in place. We need a representative democracy with proportional representation. I argue:
Smaller parties need to exist as rightful partners in India’s electoral politics. However, due to the current system, they are forced to either get co-opted or aligned with the interests of national parties, defeating the purpose of federalism and local self-government. The BJP, with its majority, has a responsibility toward its citizens. They can correct the current fallouts. Today they are ruling. Tomorrow they might struggle. Thus, a method combining FPTP and proportional representation needs to be charted out for the health of India’s republicanism.
You can read the complete piece here.
How to make sense of the election outcomes in India? Do we rely on the exit polls done by think tanks? The answer is not affirmative according to political scientist Neelanjan Sircar. The strawman reductionism was at play post-result announcement.
The progressives, Ashrafs, and savarnas pinned the blame on Dalits for voting BJP which is statistically wrong. As Sircar puts it:
Did the BSP’s SC vote help the BJP win? Survey data is murky, but election results provide some clues. In 2017, the BSP won 11 of its 19 seats in phases 6 and 7. In 2022, the BSP won its sole seat in phase 6, and the SP alliance improved its strike rate from 13% to 39% over these two phases. Statistical analyses confirm that previous BSP vote share is associated with better SP performance in 2022 — if anything, votes transferred from the BSP to the SP.
You can read the complete piece here.
Other Features
Since August 2020, when Caste: The Origin of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson was published, it has sparked a global conversation on caste and race. After a year-long preparation for the event Reading Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste Across Borders: India and the U.S at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU School of Law, along with esteemed colleagues Tianna Paschel and Kevin Davis, I was glad to offer my reading of Wilkerson’s document of caste.
You can watch the whole discussion here.
On the occasion of World Social Justice Day, ETV media did an interview on various topics concerning social justice. How do we define it? Can we think of social justice in employment? What about the reservation system in India? And about the Marathi translation of Caste Matters. This interview was intended for the Marathi audience. It can be viewed here.
Religion and its Publics in South Asia: Perspectives on the Past and Present an Interdisciplinary conference, organized by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University’s School of Law examined the relationship between the many religious traditions of South Asia and their diverse publics
I spoke on how Brahminical narratives disguised as Hindutava narratives, have led to the creation of a Hindu-Muslim binary that has only served the interest of Savarna Hindus and Ashraf Musalmans and eradicated any possibility of subaltern asserting their rights.
The full talk can be viewed here.
I am extremely happy to announce that the Tamil தமிழ் version of Caste Matters has been published. I have dedicated this edition to firebrand anti-caste leaders of the Dravida Nation.
Nandnar, Iyothee Thass, Rettmalai Srinivasan, M C Rajah, Meenambal Sivaraj, N Sivaraj, EVR Periyar, Ponnuthai, Thirumavalavan, Ravikumar, Pa Ranjith, Bharathi Prabhu.
The Tamil version of Caste Matters can now be ordered from here.
I was invited to the Pakistan Experience, a popular podcast covering South Asia from Pakistan. It was a long chat. It had a Pakistan element in it which frames into a newer viewpoint. Do hear it out loud here.
“New Writing on the Thought of B. R. Ambedkar”
ICLS, Columbia University
Is there a critical Ambedkar studies? Can we think about it? Aakash Singh Rathore and I discuss with Anu Rao regarding our individual volumes on Ambedkar. I forewarned that any Ambedkar related work has to take into account the community he was fighting for. Once we look at it through that perspective then we have a more nuanced and detailed analysis of Ambedkar as a scholar and thinker. You can find the discussion here.
In History
2 February – Death anniversary of Subedar Major Ramji Maloji Sakpal, father of Dr. Ambedkar
5 February – Hindu Code Bill was introduced in the Parliament by Dr. Ambedkar. This Bill aimed to provide sexual, economic, and political freedom to Hindu women. The Brahmin women organisations had protested against Ambedkar for doing this.
7 February – Birthday anniversary of Ramabai, affectionately known as Ramai–mother Rama, the first wife of Bhimrao Ambedkar.
7 February – Lalai Singh Yadav’s death anniversary
9 February (2020) – Guru Ravidas Jayanti. The poet of utopia, Guru Ravidas born as a chamar, a Dalit reenvisioned world to be free from pain and human-made misery. Ravidas has followers all over the world.
23 February – Birthday of another anti-caste warrior, a humanist from the washermen caste, Sant Gadge Maharaj.
March
1 March – Self Respect Movement started by the great Dravidian philosopher, mentor EVR Periyar
2 March – Kalaram Mandir Satyagrah by Dr. Ambedkar
10 March – Death anniversary of Savitribai Phule
13 March – An armed, self-protection group, Samata Sanik Dal was formed by Dr Ambedkar in 1927.
15 March – Birthday of Saheb Kanshi Ram
Things to Look Out For
A pathbreaking new anthology, The Shudra: Vision for a new path edited by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and Karthik Raja Karuppusamy is out now. A review of the anthology by scholar Jitendra Suna can be viewed here.
A new book edited by K. Raju, one of south India’s most cherished bureaucrats and an ace policymaker has edited an anthology “The Dalit Truth”. This anthology has some of the leading Dalit and non-Dalit voices offering their expert views on the conditions of Dalit truths. I also have a chapter in it called, “Leveraging International Institutions to Address Casteism”. The book is available to be ordered online.
This profile of a nu-age, Tamilian Dalit artist Osheen Siva is just a thing to look out for. Osheen brings her transnational experiences into the mix of diverse artforms. You can read the complete profile here.
Events
Amnesty International, Coimbra Portugal in association with the International Students Association of the University of Coimbra hosted me for a talk on “Dalit Human Rights and ethnic minorities in India”.
I will be speaking at Arizona State University on the possibility “Politicization of Racism & Casteism: Towards a theory of Global Caste slavery” on April 8. Details here.
On April 17th, I will speak in Bay Area on the occasion of Dr Ambedkar’s birth anniversary (Jayanti).
April 21 at University of California, Davis, Middle East and South Asia Studies Department.
April 25 at Columbia University’s South Asia Institute on Global Caste- Early Histories, Present Politics. Details here.
Announcements
The ‘Jaibheem’ app, a Dalit-led social media has been launched. Do check it out here. I gave them my best wishes for the launch.
Jhund movie was released. You can watch the trailer here.
Check out another emerging young rapper, Rekoil Chafe.
Call To Action
The beautiful country of Sri Lanka needs all the world’s solidarity, attention, and care. Let us think about how we came to this stage not least due to the neoliberal handling of developing, and small countries but also the elites capture of globalization.
The political prisoners all over the world remind us of the gory times of the colonial regimen. Now that is no longer there, we are facing the brutality of pre-colonial machinations that existed in our society. India is facing its unique blend of Brahminism with modernist fascism since its independence in 1947. The current dispensation is harvesting the 70 years of exploits done by various governments in India.
On another note, hope sanity prevails and that the proclivity of dominating the world by one nation gets defeated. The war is always played in someone else’s backyard.
On a positive note, Dalit students are aspiring to pursue higher education overseas but their financial condition prohibits them from continuing their education. Many fund-raising requests are circulating online. Do take a look and help them, if you can.
#JaiBhim #DalitLove
suraj