Comments on: How do the Dalits see modern India ?

By: yayaver

yayaver — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:13:17 +0000

http://blog.insightyv.com/

This is a website of Dalit youth magazine. It provides good material for your reading …

By: What if Shah Rukh Khan went on the Hajj ? « An academic view of India

What if Shah Rukh Khan went on the Hajj ? « An academic view of India — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:20:52 +0000

[...] have previously alluded to the ‘Bollywood nationalism’ of India’s middle classes, where the Indian nation [...]

By: Understanding the Dalit cultural emergence in the Indian heartland « An academic view of India

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:30:36 +0000

[...] earlier Dalit political emergence in Uttar Pradesh. I had also discussed the specifics of Dalit nationalism in a previous post as well. Those posts provide some good ground to understand this post better. [...]

By: Vikram

Vikram — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:59:28 +0000

Thanks Icon, this is indeed one of my favorite posts. The paper reading comes more from a yearning for understanding my India and has nothing to do with the subject of my study.

By: 1conoclast

1conoclast — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:15:25 +0000

Vikram,

Great Stuff! What line of work/study are you in that you read such interesting papers?

By: pushpa

pushpa — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:16:33 +0000

Mr sharma ,Please donot compare to gandi with dr Ambedkar ,Gandhi was pedophile who was feeling happy to sleep with nacked women .He was the robber who had snatched dalits right which know as “““““““““““““““““`poona pact.time has come daits should demolished gandhi statue from India .

By: How do the Dalits see modern India ? « Samatha India

How do the Dalits see modern India ? « Samatha India — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:17:00 +0000

[...] Source: vikramvgarg.wordpress.com [...]

By: ‘How the fragments view the nation’ at Blogbharti

‘How the fragments view the nation’ at Blogbharti — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:09:28 +0000

[...] Vikram Garg discusses a paper by B. Narayan of the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, on how Dalits of today view the Indian nation . Linked by kuffir. Join Blogbharti facebook group. [...]

By: odzer

odzer — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:46:25 +0000

Those who are discriminated against are equally responsible as those who do it. They are both the same people basically. They are basically the victims of being victim. If they had fought the mob mentality of the people that harass them, they would have been free a long time ago.

The point of this post was not to blame or victimize anybody. The point is that the Dalits consider themselves (justifiably in my opinion) as a distinct political and cultural entity from the upper caste Hindus (read middle class). This does not mean that they are not nationalists, but that their version of nationalism (the Ambedkarite version) is very different from that of the upper castes. In many ways I feel that it is their version of nationalism which will come to define ‘Indianness’ in the future.

By: Vinod Sharma

Vinod Sharma — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:17:58 +0000

The oppression of lower castes by the upper castes, the abominable practice of untouchability and the near de-humanisation of dalits is the darkest spot on Hindu religion and civilsation. Mahatma Gandhi did a lot to restore the dignity of dalits through many measures. Much to Kasturba Gandhi’s discomfort, he even cleaned latrines of others, something that was done only by the lowest sub-caste of dalits. He coined the now discarded term ‘Harijan’ – children of God – and almost always stayed with a dalit during his journeys into the heart and soul of India.

But, Gandhi belonged to an upper caste himself and, no matter how hard he tried, he could not make the kind of impact Dr Ambedkar, a dalit himself, made on Dalits.

That is why later on dalit leaders Kanshi Ram and Mayawati were able to take the empowerment of dalits to a different level. In all other political parties, power has always rested with upper castes. Dalit leaders have never wielded real authority. The final word has been, and is, of an upper caste leader.

Today, Mayawati represents real dalit empowerment; not the patronising type that upper caste dominated parties have been giving, keeping the caste hierarchy relatively intact. As one dalit said recently, she is like a banyan tree under whose shade dalits feel totally secure and protected.

If Mayawati and her successors can keep their heads and intentions in order, dalits will rise like and with the rest, and the thousands of years old blot on the face of India will finally get erased.