outlookindia.com 2021-04-16T11:37:25+05:30
For a nation given to hero worshipping, it is understandable that Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary is being celebrated with ritualistic fanfare and fervour this week. A public holiday will be observed, and fulsome tributes paid to the Father of the Constitution, who as the country’s best-known Dalit icon sought to erase India’s long-entrenched caste system that denied, deprived, and disadvantaged a large section of our citizens.
About 130 years after his birth and 65 years of his death, it cannot be said that we as a free and proud nation have delivered on Ambedkar’s goals. While this year’s anniversary like in all the preceding years will not be short in symbolism, we undoubtedly have lost sight of, and short-shrifted, the substantive causes that Ambedkar stood for and strived to achieve. India is yet to be freed from the curse of casteism. Deep-rooted faultlines that perpetuated prejudices against many continue t
outlookindia.com 2021-04-16T14:53:19+05:30
To fully appreciate the genius of the Dalit community, one needs to delve deeper into the dalitality of their complete experiences. These experiences are not rooted in the mono-version recorded narratives of non-Dalits. Dalits are a historical community colourful and distinguished. To foreground the true nature of their existence, we need to theoretically examine how they came to be the most feared group in the world’s most prosperous region South Asia circa 1000 BCE. Dalits have memories, passed down generations, about the richness of their traditions and their materiality that was prophesied into social conduct contingent upon compassion, Dalit love, Dalit art and Dalit humour. These are extended ideals of forgiveness, of livability: co-partnership was a module of shared life they inhered. Relations premised on temporal and immediate love were taught to be appreciated. There was no quid pro quo sought for in a relations