by Rupesh Kumar Inter-caste marriage and its ramifications in a caste society are at once personal and political for me. As a Dalit man married to a Nair woman, that too in a Hindu style wedding, I am faced with a number of complex issues, including questions about my political stands, from dalits as well …
State Atrocities VS Oppressed Representation
Dinesh Maurya Earlier Forbesganj (Arariya, Bihar) and recently Nalanda (in Bihar) and Paramakudi (Tamil Nadu) are some examples of atrocities on the oppressed people directly involving the state machinery in the name of law and order. But before going into details, it is first necessary to know what does atrocity mean? The term atrocity, …
Indigenous technology of climate prediction among a Tamil Dalit community
by Thamburaj Dharmaraj Valluvar community is referred extensively in ancient Tamil literature as ‘masters of astronomical calculations as well as predictions based on that’. The author of the renowned classical Tamil text ‘Thirukkural’, Thiruvalluvar, is believed to be the offspring of this community. Though it has valid literary and historical evidences of being a literate …
A Journey to Kundeshwar
Ravindra Kumar Goliya One must be wondering at the title: what is this place, why the journey? What is special about this place? Kundeshwar is a small village in Tikamgarh district in a backward area of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh. It is special because of a boy named Bal Mukund Bharti who was the first …
My name Is memory
Thenmozhi Soundararajan “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.” — Malcolm X Story. Story. Story is the shortest distance between two people. This piece of wisdom has stayed …
The Badanavalu Caste Clashes of 1993 in Karnataka
by Prakash Holayar, Chamarajanagar [Pronouncement of Court verdicts in cases pertaining to Dalit’s murders, massacres and atrocities often takes several years. In this article Prakash recounts the Badanavalu Caste Clashes and the final verdict; we invite writers to share their experience and memory of such caste clashes and participate in the documentation of delays and …
Caste in Urdu Prose Literature (Part 2)
by Ajmal Kamal Premchand (1880 – 1936) can be counted as a sympathetic voice against caste discrimination, although in recent times the Dalit circles in India are reported to have severely criticized him for being less than sensitive to the miserable life of the lower castes in the rural North India. However, in his writings …
Response to P V Indiresan’s “No quotas for higher studies, please”
by Thavaseelan G [A former director of IIT Madras writes an essay which is featured in the Vision 2020 series of The Hindu Business Line. The title and the content reflects his racist, casteist and classist understanding of basic concepts of social justice, merit, testing, teaching and the responsibilities of a government funded teaching Institute. …
What actually happened in Paramakudi and how it happened
Karthik Navayan [Karthik Navayan was a member of a fact-finding team that visited Paramakudi town on 19th and 20th September, 2011, and interacted with the victims and also with the district officials in Ramanathapuram. This article contains his observations and analysis- Round Table India] On September 11th the police killed six among the several Dalits who …