Gender

Untouchable: Dalit women in India

equal writes

  Laura Smith-Gary   (First published Equal Writes website in September 2009)   Earlier this summer, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and the home of over 190 million individuals, fury and small-scale violence erupted when a Brahmin (upper-caste) political opponent of the state’s Chief Minister appeared to suggest the Chief Minister, a Dalit  woman …

Thought

Kanshi Ram: Champion of the poor

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  Kanshi Ram will be remembered as someone who almost completely changed the rules of Indian politics over the last two decades. Few political analysts would disagree that his unique brand of social engineering and organisational skills succeeded in uniting India’s low caste Dalit community into a formidable political force in several states.  

Features

A Noun, Not A Verb

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  Oliver Mendelsohn Could Kanshi Ram in ’84 have imagined the BSP of ’09? Formative years: A young Mayawati at the mike; Kanshi Ram is second from left In 1984, Kanshi Ram founded the Bahujan Samaj Party, just in time for his young colleague Mayawati to stand for a parliamentary seat in a byelection the …