For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Nilesh Kumar There has been a steep rise in the number of atrocity cases in Maharashtra. Khairlanji in 2006, Kharda on 28th April 2014 in Ahmednagar district where a Dalit boy Nitin Aage (17) was killed by dominant castes, Manoj Kasab a Sarpanch from Matang (third largest in population among the Scheduled Castes in …
Nilesh Kumar My father was fortunate that there was a Government press just next to his work place. Once a presswala got to know that my father is an ardent reader of Ambedkarite literature. He started delivering Ambedkarite literature to him. When we had all this voluminous literature available at home, my father insisted …
Nilesh Kumar “Wisdom is born in pain, suppression and insult. Experiences lead to the creation of best works” Kannada poet Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy said in a speech at Akhila Bharatha Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in Madikeri, early this year. Director/writer Nagraj Manjule too, in his debut feature film ‘Fandry’ (pig in Kaikadi language), with his indelible …
Pradnya Mangala They cannot make history who forget history. ~ Dr. Ambedkar. History plays a very important role in a person’s life. To know our roots, we need to know our history, know where we belong, to make sense of our existence. The identities that we carry by virtue of being born in a …
Round Table India at Chaityabhoomi Barely able to speak in Hindi or Marathi, Rakhuma,18, and her husband Girish Madiga, 19, Friday jostled their way from Dadar station to Chaityabhoomi to pay homage to their icon Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar on his 57th death anniversary. The newlywed had boarded a train from Gulbarga to come to …
Asha Kowtal has been seeking, organizing and raising the voice of Dalit women across India and the world. As General Secretary of All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM) she has been actively working to mobilize Dalits, and Dalit women in particular, across states – from Dabra in Haryana to Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu …
Prachi Beula The National Dalit and Adivasi Women’s Congress 2013 was something that was long overdue. I am yet to absorb the ‘explosion of knowledge and power’ that I experienced and when Anoop bhai said we could share our experiences I was glad to sit down and reflect. Many people asked questions like why …
Nilesh Kumar [This is the second part of his article on caste and epistemic violence. The first part explored how the Ambedkar cartoon in the NCERT text book was a metaphor for epistemic violence. Here, he tries to explain how the cartoon is just one more illustration of how entrenched violence is in academia; one …
(First published in Insight blog in 2009) Anoop Kumar, Ajay Hela and Nilesh Kumar Exactly 30 years ago, Dalits, in West Bengal, came to realize the true nature of Indian state that is being dominated, in every sense, by a tiny section of population but at a great personal cost. It was in 1979, when …