Ankush Pal On October 2, 2014, the Government of India launched the nationwide campaign Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or the Clean India Mission. The declaration of this campaign was much appreciated, and to this day, we see everyone, from celebrities to university students, picking up a broom for cleanliness drives. One of the primary aims was …
End Political Reservation
Dr Jas Simran Kehal It is said that if we can learn from our mistakes and not let them rob us of our boldness or hope, then we can grow. It was perhaps this boldness which emboldened Dr B R Ambedkar to vigorously pursue the cause of real political representation of the depressed classes after …
Understanding manual scavenging: Why should only one group clean society’s shit for centuries?
Nishant Kumar Dongre We very often hear about the deaths of manual scavengers on the internet. We mainly read about their deaths but not about the regular discrimination and exclusion practised against them because the media reports on their deaths but not on their daily life of subjugation and pain. In every report, we find …
Charisma without Organizational Leadership is Abortive for Dalit Politics
Rahul Sonpimple Charisma is elusive yet the most common term to define leadership. Charismatic leadership is usually perceived as essential and assenting, specifically in politics. However, the history of charismatic leadership may not allow one to continue with such romanticism. Nazism led by Hitler and Italian Fascism led by Mussolini are the two most discussed …
Metonymical Representation of Dalit in Ray’s Sadgati
Chandrakant Kamble Famous Hindi writer Munshi Premchand’s (1881-1936) story Sadgati (‘deliverance’ in the religious sense of the term) was picturized by legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) in a 1981 movie with the same name. India is celebrating Ray’s 100th birth anniversary in 2021. In academia and curriculum, Ray’s many films are considered masterpieces and …
The Brahmin Is Back!
S. M. Dhabarde Once upon a time there was a Brahmin journalist. Let us call him Happy Sage. Happy Sage was extremely happy with his own life. Why wouldn’t he be –he was born with knowledge! As a journalist, Happy was extremely pained and distressed to see the ‘degraded’ status of his caste fellows …
Ambedkar’s tryst with fraternity…
Shiveshwar Kundu B.R. Ambedkar has become an omnipresent character of Indian politics. He is everywhere, darling of almost every spectrum of the mainstream, local as well as student politics. The irony of the churning is that the exact forces against whom Ambedkar himself waged war during his lifetime are now trying to appropriate his …
And understood the difference between ‘Elimination of Caste’ and ‘Annihilation of Caste’!
Vanshree Vankar Pandurangji Gosavi, my grandfather, is a freedom fighter. 95 years old, he was born in 1924. He has spent his whole life in Sewagram. Sewagram is the same place where Gandhi stayed from 1936 to 1948 and this is the same place where his magnificent ashram is. It won’t be an exaggeration …
On Bojja Tharakam’s “Mahad: The March That Is Launched Every Day”
Mangesh Dahiwale As Babasaheb Ambedkar remarked once, and I am going to paraphrase, India is united in terms of castes. Caste is the unwritten law that is practiced throughout India. That is why the rebellion against caste must take place wherever it exists. Many people responded to the caste based discrimination throughout India. They …