When the functional is political is personal: Witnessing the many battles of Geeli Pucchi’s Bharati Mandal Written by Drishadwati Bargi|April 27, 2021|Minnesota Yet, this very silence, loneliness, and the self’s recoil onto itself is represented by art. Art witnesses the collapse of…
Caste
Caste, food and ideological imposition
Eggs have been denied to children as part of the mid day meals in schools for several years. Described as the ‘menstrual discharge’ of the hen, eggs are labelled as ‘sinful’, ‘violent’, and agitating the senses, with egg eaters deserving to be…
Excerpts from “Food Tradition of Chandal Community” by Saradindu Biswas
The mistress of the house gets up before dawn, arranges portions of food prepared for Gasi Parab on a banana leaf and takes it to the bank of the ponds or to the tomb of the ancestors and offers it to a…
Articles | Caste | Submissions
Recipes from my maternal village
Written by Abhijeet Suryawanshi|Nagpur|November 10, 2021 Caste within itself functions as a society where everything right from an attire the group uses to the dialect they speak is distinct. Yes, dialect too. The caste group in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra named Powar…
The Lies That Divide Us
Written by Pravin Prakash| Luxembourg | September 26, 2020 “Anything that causes the Negro to aspire to rise above the plow handle, the cook pot – in a word the functions of a servant — will be the worst thing on earth…
On the 10th Anniversary of Khamosh Bhim Abhi Jari hai, registering a protest song
Written by Pragya Akhilesh | Delhi| September 23, 2020 Protest song of a manual scavenger from the play ख़ामोश भीम जारी है! which is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year. ये मल तो तेरे मन मे हैमेरे साथी की मौत मेरे लब…
Dalit Camera Statement Against the Trolling of Arundhati Roy
Brahmanism is not [just] about Brahmins: A critique of essentialist positions on Caste Statement by Dalit Camera|September 6, 2020 In a news18 article titled “Arundhati Roy Says ‘Brahminism Not About Brahmins’, Anti-caste Scholars Want to Know What it’s About”, Roy was critiqued…
The battle of freedom from caste is a social battle
A scavenger remains a scavenger as far as s/he is in Hinduism, irrespective of whether he continues to do the work of scavenging or not. And, when the scavenger converted to Buddhism, s/he only changed their God but the understanding of purity…
The convergence of unequals: Struggle for rights in the university space
Written by Hany Babu M.T.|July 20, 2018
Delhi’s shame: The complete failure of rehabilitation of the manual scavengers
In Shahdara, Seema has opened a small parlor in the Valmiki Basti. She says, “I have seen the men of my neighbourhood die doing this. They have slowly vanished in the sewer one after the other. One goes and the other follows….