by Chandrabhan Prasad A novelist friend has just returned from Oxford. She was there to attend a Dalit-related talk where the UN-sponsored World Conference Against Racism, to be held in Durban this year, came up for discussion. She wondered why European scholars were not easily prepared to equate caste-based discrimination with that of race. Another …
Politics of power and artificial ideologies
by Chandrabhan Prasad Has any political scientist ever called the Communist Party of India’s (CPI) 1957 victory in Kerala a political triumph of the Ezhavas, Nadars and Thiyyas – major upper Shudra castes – but one which was headed by a communist-Brahman, EMS Namboodiripad? Read More Can the Left Front or Congress-led fronts win elections …
The Dalits lose their mirror & Ramdhan
by Chandrabhan Prasad Despite having been close to becoming the first Dalit Chief Minister of UP, Ramdhanji has died an unsung death. On May 23, 2001, Dalits lost the mirror which most truthfully reflected the social contradictions of the “cow belt”. Read More Ramdhanji supported Indira Gandhi to the hilt during the Congress’ first split …
Liberty, Equality, Community
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Vision Of A New Social Order by Gail Omvedt It is truly an honour to be given the opportunity to deliver the first Dr. Ambedkar memorial lecture of the new century and the new millennium. Though this is officially the 5th Dr. Ambedkar Memorial Annual Lecture for the Year 1999, it has …
Nation and civilisation
by Gail Omvedt To hold that distinctions of caste are really distinctions of race and to treat different castes as though they were so many different races is a gross perversion of the facts. What affinity is there between the Brahman of the Punjab and the Brahman of Madras? What affinity is there between the …
An open letter to Bangaru Laxman
by Gail Omvedt Dear Siri–Sami Bangaru Laxman, I would like to congratulate you on becoming the president of the BJP. (I should also preface this by explaining why I address you as Siri: Shri is Sankskritised and north Indian; most Maharashtrian Dalits prefer Ayushaman. Tamils, on the other hand, prefer Thiru. You, I understand, are …
The purpose of reservation
Gail Omvedt The wave of rioting at the time of the Mandal Commission showed that the goal of reservation had not simply been unfulfilled, but totally distorted. It revealed, among other things, the degree to which educated upper caste youth had gotten into the habit of considering the Government administration not as “public service” …
Reservation in the private sector
Gail Omvedt With quotas declared for Jats in Rajasthan and with controversy about some recent Supreme Court decisions, the issue of reservation has again come to the forefront. Probably, though, nothing is as controversial as the whole question of private sector reservation. Here, on the one hand many Dalit leaders have been led to oppose …
Rotting food
Gail Omvedt India’s food is rotting. The greatest harvest of foodgrains in the country’s history is beginning to waste away in storage, eaten by rodents and insects, spoiled by moisture. Some of it, for want of storage space, is sitting in the open, exposed to the late monsoon rains. Estimated losses of foodgrains, according to …