For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Harish S. Wankhede In any normal political chat, the general upper caste tendency is to accuse the Dalits of politicizing the lower caste identity against the nationalist concerns of citizenship and secularism. This is an easy option to hide the actual domination of brahmanical culture over the public institutions. The social psyche of ‘governamentality’ …
The National Tribunal – Violence against Dalit Women in India (on 30th September and 1st October, 2013, at the Constitution Club in New Delhi) was conceived in the hope that it would be ‘one small step in the long and arduous journey of Dalit women for reclaiming their rights‘. Asha Kowtal very succinctly expressed the …
Karthik Navayan (This is a slightly revised version of an article written in 2006) The publicity that was given to the incidents of burning of five railway bogies and vandalizing of a hundred bus windows was not extended to the massacre of four members of a single family. The upper caste media widely, and …
National Alliance of Pasmanda Organizations (NAPO) In a meeting of various pasmanda (dalit and backward caste) muslim and other dalit/OBC organizations/intellectuals held in Lucknow on June 30, 2013 the following resolutions were adopted in the wake of Lok Sabha Elections 2014: a) Boycott of any political party supporting the ashraf-driven demand of TOTAL MUSLIM …
Azaan Javaid The special category status given to political prisoners of Ireland was under tight scrutiny, all set to be completely abolished. In the 1970s inside the cells of Her Majesty’s Prison Maze, also known as the Long Kesh, a strict regime of silence was imposed on the prisoners. This was the fallout of …
(This is the English version of the press-note circulated by the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (AIPMM). Translated by Khalid Anis Ansari) In a village in Bihar’s East Champaran district the lives of the poor Muslims belonging to backward castes has been under continuous threat from the dominant caste Muslims for the last seven …
Bhalchandra Mungekar A war of words has erupted between the chief ministers of Bihar and Gujarat. Bihar’s chief minister Nitish Kumar has slammed Narendra Modi for taking potshots at the state’s slow socio-economic growth. The altercation began with Modi saying that caste politics has ruined states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Hitting back, Nitish has …
Rahi Gaikwad The name Ranvir is usually given to a boy. It means brave warrior or battle hero. This is the name a section of landed castes in Bihar, chiefly the Bhumihar landlords, adopted to christen themselves as an army of warriors, the Ranvir Sena In Hindu mythology, the idea of the warrior king who wages …
[An excerpt from the chapter ‘The Pattern of Abuse: Rural Violence in Bihar and the State’s Response’ from the report ‘Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s Untouchables’ published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 1999.] The extent of political patronage extended to the Ranvir Sena can be gauged by the fact that while a large …