Caste Politics

The Suraj Yengde interview | 'With COVID-19 pandemic, it is high time we acknowledged Dalit labour'

Dr Suraj Yengde, noted scholar and author of Caste Matters, spoke to Firstpost about how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed chasms in our social structure and why it is high time we as a nation acknowledged and addressed the discrimination towards India's marginalised.

Travels through the Hindi belt: A year on from SC/ST Act agitation, Shobhapur village is a virtual ghost town

On 2 April last year, residents had poured on to the Delhi-Dehradun highway running perpendicular to the village to protest the dilution of the SC/ST Act. Similar agitations had been held across the country. But the demonstration at Shobhapur took a violent turn.

A robust caste discourse in Indian diaspora's classical dance practices is vital — and overdue

The Black Lives Matter movement must spark a reckoning within the diaspora Indian classical dance world with its own race and caste issues

With roots in democratic socialism, how the 'Kerala model' ranks well-being above wealth for its people

How did Kerala become a model for development and social reform? The answer lies in its several movements that worked in tandem over a period of time, slowly eroding the old unjust power structures, and working towards establishing a more equitable society.

Nitin Gadkari says some people play ‘caste card’ to get party ticket for polls, lauds BJP leaders for ‘rising above’ identity politics

Union minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari on Monday said many a time when people fail to get election tickets on the basis of their work, they play "caste card" to secure nomination.

Under BS Yediyurappa, Karnataka's Lingayat community mounts massive return to helm of state politics

Of the 224 Assembly constituencies in Karnataka, over 100 constituencies in north Karnataka are dominated by the Lingayats and are the deciding factor for a candidate's victory

Caste discrimination in MP: Wedding processions, sitting in front of 'upper caste' members among recent causes for social boycott of Dalits

An activist said that even if Dalits try to break discriminatory social norms, there are harsh consequences that follow.

Dalit children in Madhya Pradesh are forced to quit school due to harassment, casteism by teachers, students

Caste discrimination is what is keeping three standard five students in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh from going to school.

Anubhav Sinha's Article 15 peddles a mythology rather than engaging honestly with the reality of caste

Article 15 tries to foreground the Constitution as a moral guide to caste relations, although it also describes caste as a 2000-year-old practice; the question is how something committed to paper around 1950 can undo something so ancient, the origins of which one can only speculate about?

Despite Dalit political assertion, casteism within community keeps issues affecting manual scavengers on the sidelines

The fact that some of the dominant Dalit communities engage in unleashing violence on the members of the scavenger community points at the limitations of the endorsed political ideologies of Ambedkarism, Marxism and feminism/womanism for scavengers