Amnesty International India 18 October 2017 Authorities in Haryana must drop fabricated charges against Rajat Kalsan, a Dalit lawyer and human rights defender, and ensure that he receives adequate protection against violence by dominant caste members, Amnesty International India said today. “Attacks on human rights defenders in India are becoming an everyday phenomenon,” said …
Rest in power, Bojja Tharakam Sir!
Karthik Navayan Bojja Tharakam (1939-2016). From Radical Students Union (RSU), Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF), Scheduled Castes Students’ Federation (SCSF), Ambedkar Yuvajana Sangham (AYS), Rythu Coolie Sangham (RCS – Farm Workers’ Union of which he was an advisor), Republican Party of India to Andhra Pradesh Dalita Mahasabha. From a student leader organising a month long …
Remembering Guda Anjanna – The signature song of Telangana’s Dalit Revolution
Karthik Navayan The first time I heard about Guda Anjanna (1 November 1955 – 21 June 2016), through my classmate and Anjanna’s nephew (brother’s son) Guda Rajendar, in 1989, when I was studying in 8th class. Anjanna belongs to Lingapur village of Dandepally Mandal in Adilabad District. At the time, I was studying in the …
Human Rights Forum demands police at UoH be immediately withdrawn
Human Rights Forum (HRF) demands that the police force deployed at the University of Hyderabad be immediately withdrawn 23-3-2016, Hyderabad. The Human Rights Forum (HRF) demands that the police force deployed at the University of Hyderabad be immediately withdrawn. The police are following up their brutal crackdown on students on Tuesday with further targeting and …
Caste Diversity in Indian Development Sector: Does it Exist?
Karthik Navayan Gramsci uses the analogy of civil society as a system of trenches and redoubts surrounding the state1. All political attempts by the underprivileged classes–castes in Indian context–to overcome the barriers are drowned by the development sector that claims for itself the status of the civil society. Does the civil society, popularly understood …
Does ActionAid International support caste discrimination?
Karthik Navayan In India there is no escape from the Brahmanical caste structure, it is a story that needs no retelling. It has been the case since ages, and, quite distressingly, it will be so for at least few generations to come. My 18-month tenure in ActionAid Hyderabad Regional Office and my subsequent year-long …
Roy-Navayana project: The critique so far
We have put together, for our readers’ convenience, this compilation of all the articles which have appeared on Round Table India so far (some more are yet to be published) on the Roy-Navayana project of appropriation of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste. The articles have been listed in chronological order, with short excerpts from each article. …
Review Acquittal of Accused in Tsundur Massacre of Dalits
We Demand Government of India to take all the possible steps to review Judgment of clean acquittal of accused in Tsundur dalits massacre case and prefer an Appeal against this arbitrary Judgment Please read the text of the petition below and sign it at this Change.org page. ~ Text of the petition To The President …
‘The Doctor and The Saint’ should be detached from ‘Annihilation of Caste’
[Via Karthik Navayan] The event Democratic Debate on Appropriation of Ambedkar’s Writings was held on 10th April 2014, in Hyderabad. It was addressed by Dalit Bahujan intellectuals, Bojja Tharakam, Professor Kancha Ilaiah, U Sambashiva Rao, Joopaka Subhadra, Gogu Shyamala and other participants who discussed thoroughly the content, and also the intentions of the publisher …