Caste is an institutional ‘lockdown’ that has existed, developed, and fortified itself in an organic relationship with the material conditions of history. In his pioneering journal Mooknayak, Dr. Ambedkar used a potent metaphor to describe the caste system— a multistoried building with no staircase connecting the floors, in which people live and die in the same floor they were born[Read More...]
It was exactly 13 years back that the Thorat Committee, constituted in September 2006 to enquire into allegations of differential treatment of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students at the premier medical institute, AIIMS—was released. The first of its kind in independent India, this three-member committee led by then chairman of the University Grants Commission, Sukhdeo Thorat, had looked deeply[Read More...]
I have borrowed nothing excepting title from Liu Shao Chi, the famous Chinese leader and author of the book ‘How to be a good Communist?’ which converted thousands to Communism. Besides the ‘Communist Manifesto’ and the ‘Das Kapital’ perhaps the Emile Burns ‘What is Marxism’ is perhaps another world famous book which appealed to the educated people and explained Communism[Read More...]
Corona attack on India seems to have suddenly changed our understanding of Safai karmacharis of India. They are now seen as desh bhakts even by those who never recognized their desh bhakti. When the life of rich who treated them lowly and unworthy of respect and dignity are in danger as never before, they are recognizing what I call the[Read More...]
This pandemic (COVID -19) situation is hitting the marginalized poor the worst because of their inherent vulnerable condition. The entire country is being converted to a police state with an absolute power exercised by police to mercilessly beat anyone on street. It is mostly the poor and marginalized on the streets who are being harassed and humiliated. The socially and[Read More...]
The COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in anxieties and mental health stress for many in an era of self-isolation in places like North America But a group of oppressed people in the world’s so called largest democracy, has been enduring social ostracizing for centuries. Dalits continue to face blatant discrimination under a brutal caste system practised by Indian society, in[Read More...]
In recent times the issues of Muslim minority has been discussed much over the issues of their citizenship but many more important socio-economic issues have been left out while focus has been more on religious identity issues. The issues such as employment, land, business, education, health, access to basic amenities and most important participation in governance has been ignored since[Read More...]
Seven decades ago, Dr B.R Ambedkar declared that India was entering the life of contradictions. Across political front, India had achieved equality i.e. one man, one vote, one value. However, India, then, had not achieved equality on social and economic fronts, the status quo, which continues till date. But what probably could have baffled Dr. B.R.Ambedkar is not only the[Read More...]
According to the 2011 Economic and Caste Census, 4.42 crore families out of total families in India belong to the Scheduled Castes (Dalits). Only 23% of these families live in good houses, 2% in habitable houses and 12% in dilapidated houses. 24% of these families live in grass pallet, polythene and mud houses. It is clear from these figures that[Read More...]
Manual scavenging is constantly on news often not so much for diverse reasons, but typically due to the primitive barbaric practice of selectively forcing the employed workforce, who are exclusively from the lowest social categories, into sewer underworlds to de-clog and to offer freedom to the choked sewers by the uninterrupted passage of sewerage. The menace of manual scavenging is[Read More...]
