Dear Friends:
The Spring is dawning (almost) in Philadelphia, but the weather has mood swings. Just yesterday we were in shorts and tank tops, and today I am in my turtle neck and jacket. At least the tree has turned pink. It’s like some artist painted it overnight.
ARTALITY
For this month’s Artality, I profile Prem Chumber, a phenomenal journalist and editor who has been curating the Dalit news in diaspora for over two decades. Chumber’s Ambedkar Times portal is a melting point of many voices and news from the Dalit world. He also curates a Punjabi language newspaper called, Desh Doaba. I had known of Mr Chumber’s work ever since I first went to the UK in the 2010s. I met him and his associates, such as Arun Kumar, at various intervals. It was about time that the world-at-large knew of this man and his history. Please read it in The Memory Keepers of the Dalit Diaspora.
Caste A Global Story
Celebrity chef and writer Suvir Saran highlighted the book’s central premise in his fierce review of CASTE A Global Story. He writes
“What makes Caste devastating is its clarity. There is no hysteria here, no easy outrage. Instead, there is something far more dangerous: precision. Yengde shows us how caste moves—across borders, across generations, across oceans. How it leaves villages but enters universities. How it exits temples but enters boardrooms. How it is outlawed on paper and operational in practice. Caste, in this telling, is not an Indian embarrassment we hope to outgrow; it is a global system of graded humanity that travels well, hides better, and survives because too many benefit from not naming it.” Read the review here.
Celebrations
Friends working for the World Bank and various embassies hosted a book talk in DC earlier in March. It was a vibrant gathering of policymakers. I was flattered to learn about their continuing interest and how they gathered the context of the Caste’s argument relevant to their expanding work in the framework of inequality.
I also stopped by Sociologist Gaurav Pathania’s house, where a small celebration was organized of the publication of Caste A Global Story.
I went to New York to meet with Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia School of Journalism. He and I have been talking about various ideas since we were both at the Shorenstein Centre years ago. His new book, Three or More is a Riot, a collection of starred writings in the New Yorker, is a treasure trove of pithy prose and purposeful stabs. He gave me great advice on my book and what more can be done to put it in the hands of the American people.
Upcoming Events
April 11, 2025
I will be heading to Atlanta to participate in the Dr Ambedkar birth anniversary celebrations, also known as Bhim Jayanti and discuss my book with community members and graduate students of Emory University.
April 16, 2026
My first academic book event will take place at the University of Pennsylvania. The event will feature a high-profile discussion with leading scholars Tukufu Zuberi, Eve M. Troutt Powell, and Davesh Soneji. The session is supported by Penn History, Africana Studies, South Asia Studies department, CARGC, and Annenberg School of Communications. Please see the link here.
The premier Current Sociology journal featured my interview with me and also announced my induction as the Sociologist of the Month. You can read the interview here.
In News
Dr Ambedkar Equality Days are gaining traction across the US and Canada.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued an official proclamation declaring April 14th the Birth Anniversary of Dr Ambedkar as “Dr Ambedkar Equality Day”.
The Province of British Columbia in Canada declared the month of April 2026 as “Dalit History Month”.
Dr. Ambedkar Symposium on Emancipation (ASE) was hosted on the sidelines of the Association of Asian Studies Annual conference, from March 12–15, 2026, Simon Fraser University hosted the ASE 2026, a premier global symposium that gathered scholars, activists, and policymakers. This year’s sessions focused on the rapid internationalisation of the anti-caste movement, specifically evaluating the progress of human rights coding in North American municipalities and universities to recognise caste as a protected category. Chief organizer Jai Birdi had been working on this with the team of Chetana and colleagues from UBC for nearly a year.
Sunny Kapicad
Ahead of the Kerela State’s elections, prominent Dalit intellectuals have launched a political party under the auspices of Dalit Samudaya Munnani (DSM), a social organisation, to represent Dalit autonomy in the state’s politics. Led by Sunny Kapicad, a dear friend and a warm-mannered activist from Kottayam. Kapicad has been at the helm of Dalit politics in the State for years. He also connected with other forces sympathetic to the Dalit cause years ago. Sunny was my host and continues to be one whenever I land in Kerala, taking me to the segregated Dalit colonies and exposing me to the stark difference in the lives of outcaste people in the State. C K Janu, another prominent voice from the Tribal community, also joined this struggle. However, to have a public rebuttal over a ticket for an Assembly seat cannot be representative of the Dalit movement.
The TRANSGENDER PERSONS (PROTECTION OF RIGHTS) ACT, 2019 was passed to much reaction. Seven years later, it was brought back to be discussed in India’s parliament. This new amendment puts several roadblocks. This article summarises the issue aptly. One of the issues that is brought forward is the Medicalisation, and also the preferences it gives to specific gender transformation and penalising trans masculine and non-binaries and trans women. Read the blog here.
Other Features
In the wake of the US-Israel-led war in Iran, the Indian Express spoke with Faisal Devji, the author of the recently published Waning Crescent The Rise and Fall of Global Islam. A first-rate intellectual historian who takes risks with his analytical needles. This new book, which I have just ordered, promises to offer us much more. Meanwhile, here is the link for his book and the evocative interview, “Islamism is dead politically”. I also listened to his interview in the background on the New Books Network with Rounak Bose.
On March 11, 2026, the National Dalit Christian Watch (NDCW) marked a decade of advocacy, highlighting the persistent struggle for dignity within church structures. The anniversary discussions centred on the dual marginalisation faced by Dalit Christians and the ongoing legal battle for Scheduled Caste status, emphasising that religious identity should not strip away constitutional protections.
A tall defence of the Black Panthers by the historian of the movement, Jakobi Williams, who is the Ruth N. Halls professor serving as the chair of the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University. Jakobi explicates how the Black Panther’s program for access to health determined the restructuring of the unequal capitalist and racial edifice in America. He argues,
The Panthers' insistence that care as self-determination, and health as justice, remains their most profound and enduring contribution to U.S. public health today.
On March 21, the Supreme Court of India delivered a significant observation regarding the abolition of untouchability and caste-based discrimination under Article 17. While hearing a plea regarding targeted hate speech, the Bench, including Justice Nagarathna, emphasised that judicial mandates alone cannot erase caste prejudice. The Court highlighted that the constitutional principle of Fraternity must be internalised through education and social evolution to truly end caste-based vilification in both physical and digital spaces. Read the legal brief here.
A scathing editorial at Telangana Today, the premier English newspaper from Telangana state, published on March 24, highlights that despite the 2013 ban, manual scavenging continues to claim lives, including three workers in Raipur last week. The report notes that 92–97% of those pushed into this dehumanising work belong to SC/ST/OBC communities, framing the practice not just as a labour failure, but as a direct manifestation of the abhorrent caste system that reinforces social stigma.
BOOKS
My friend Mahitosh Mandal, along with co-editor Sanjiv Kondekar, has come out with a fabulous collection on Dalit Studies examining key terms and concepts. Each chapter carries a keyword and deals with the jargon. I am excited to read how the chapters turn out, as the keywords are historical concepts that carry theoretical and sociological value. More info is here.
Academic Features
An interesting initiative by Columbia University Professor Anu Rao and her 5-year-long collaboration with graduate students teaching a course, RACE, CASTE, AND THE UNIVERSITY: B. R. AMBEDKAR AT COLUMBIA is produced in a zine. This Zine is a useful cartographic tethering of work and practice. Please access it here.
I enjoyed an article on Ambedkar’s position on liberalism and the contentions of Indian materialism in general. The author, Kalyan Kumar Das, a political theorist, revisits Ambedkar’s fluent thoughts on theology, albeit a reconstructed one, in the article “Towards a Possibility of an Ambedkarite Political Theology at the Limits of Liberal Modernity.” Das argues that Ambedkar’s reframing of the political concepts of liberty, or say fraternity, was eventually left out to create a vocal space for the self-reflective social idioms of maitri and karuna found in his masterly practice of mudita–joy of Buddhism. Das is trying to defend Ambedkar’s political axiom as not necessarily liberal and a modern-modern man.
The belief of Ambedkar’s negation of traditional values of Buddha’s creed as isolationist and interpretive has been practised over several centuries within the Buddhist schools. Nagarajuna was one of the intellectual hermeneuticians’ predecessors to Ambedkar. Or rather, one can say Ambedkar perhaps drew upon Nagarjuna’s interpretation of the Buddhist dialectical methods that negated the philosophies of the Four Noble Truths that Pradeep Gokhale stated years ago and which Das cites.
In History
March
1 March – Self Respect Movement started by the great Dravidian philosopher, mentor EVR Periyar
01 March – Chamar Regiment formed in 1943
2 March – Kalaram Mandir Satyagraha by Dr. Ambedkar
10 March – Death anniversary of Savitribai Phule
13 March – An armed self-protection group instituting discipline and values, Samata Sanik Dal, was formed by Dr Ambedkar in 1927.
15 March – Birth Anniversary of Kanshi Ram
20 March – Chavdar Tank Satyagraha launched in 1927
#JaiBhim #DalitLove
suraj.
Ontario/Canada has failed so terribly at serious anti-racism & anti-colorism that today it is a fully casteist society, from birth in healthcare spaces, to education, through to academia, employment, and legal spaces — all of it operates on the laziness, fecklessness, and lackadaisical attitudes devoid of humanity that are well known in India.
I recently survived confinement in Grand River/Midtown hospital that was forced upon me on the basis of a "wellness check". They viciously tried to force me to take medication which they did not bother to tell me the side-effects of, simply because the casteist male who is the cause of my biological existence "felt unsafe". I did not know the spelling of the medication that a Black psychiatrist was trying to shove down my throat through indimidating me with further confinement and removing my freedom to consent or not consent to medical decisions. A medical student in the final days of his MD studies finally told me the spelling of the medication and that one of the side-effects was increased appetite. I live in enforced legislative poverty through ODSP that was forcibly/coercively provisioned by the casteist male and the casteist family doctor — I had gone through severe traumatization for a second time as an undergraduate and had gone there to get healthcare for my traumatization. She did not provision any healthcare, she violated my privacy by telling my untrustworthy parents and they collectively forced me onto ODSP. I did not touch the forms other than to throw the forms back at them in disgust. My former partner survived melanoma over a 6 year struggle, she applied for ODSP twice with detailed, painstaking applications and was denied twice.
I do not have the ability to afford an increased appetite. I end each month with less than 5 dollars. The casteist male's feelings of being "unsafe" were protected and defended against me, a survivor of that household where slapping was preferred to communication and where even the pet dog was not safe from getting slapped. My CPTSD from child abuse, from CSA, from complete dehumanization by age 12 meant absolutely nothing in the "Adult Inpatient Mental Health" ward. Only the casteist male's feelings of being "unsafe" mattered. One of the things the casteist male has expressed to me is "this is my house, I don't care about law", but when threatened even slightly, he ran like a coward to the police and hid behind them like the pathetic, pitiful child in an adult's body that IIMA has trained him to be.
The non-material symptoms of casteism, which I believe I have begun to be able to sense since October 2022 (another deeply traumatizing part of my life), were present at the hospital and would noticeably increase while there was insufficient distancing from casteists from the biological household or nearby the household. The supposed/alleged healthcare system here is full of casteists, Savarnas, and Hindutva.
The Savarnas obediently submit to capitalism while making no attempts towards human rights, regardless of the racism & colorism they have to endure (they simply abuse their wives, children, pets in turn), and the white supremacist fascists permit the Savarnas to play with their toys of caste.
Thank you, my dear brother Suraj.
Your continued success brings me great pride & joy.
I am committed to the annihilation of caste at the depth of kamma & dukkha through the past, present, and the future for the benefit of all sentient beings, regardless of however many rebirths this requires.
jai savitri
jai bhim
💙