VTR was born in 1932 in a modest rural household in Vontibettu, along the lush coastal belt of Karnataka — in the twilight of pre independence India. His mother passed away when he was still a child, and being raised first by an extended family and later by a stepmother left an indelible mark on his inner world. Throughout his life, he kept his mother’s photograph close — a silent witness to his journey. Surrounded by green fields, forests, and a tapestry of Jain, Hindu, Christian, and Muslim traditions, his childhood was culturally rich but materially meagre. His father, an incorruptible government official with eight children to raise, held the large farming household together with quiet discipline, ensuring there was always enough, if little to spare. That VTR managed to earn a degree in such circumstances was nothing short of a miracle.
He was born into the Shudra Bunt community — a group that falsely claimed Kshatriya status — whose people spoke Tulu, a Dravidian language rooted in the soil of coastal Karnataka. Their world was one of ancestral worship and devotion to snakes and spirits, though Sanskritisation remained relentless, as evident in the blockbuster film Kantara, an RSS distortion of their lived truths. Life was simple and harsh. Fish was the staple diet, with poultry or wild boar reserved for those who could afford such luxuries. Walking miles to reach a school or a doctor was ordinary. The rhythm of the village revolved around agriculture, sustained by fisheries and forestry. From an early age, VTR saw, with troubled clarity, the cruel hierarchies that governed everyday life — the humiliation of the “Harijans,” and the quiet subjugation of women and minorities. These experiences became the moral ground on which his lifelong defiance would stand.
All of this shaped not only the man VTR became but also the convictions that defined him. Even as he found his way, almost by accident, into journalism, the pursuit of social justice remained his enduring compass. Throughout his life, he stood with rural India — with farmers, fisherfolk, and Adivasis — whose struggles he knew not as abstractions but as lived realities. Though his work took him through Bangalore, Delhi, and Bombay, the pull of the soil never left him. In his later years, he returned to Mangalore, and eventually to his ancestral village, where his long journey came full circle. He was cremated there on November 20, 2024 — among the people and land that had first taught him the meaning of dignity.
For many in the South Kanara district, the only route out of poverty was to board a “steamer” to Bombay and seek a livelihood in the city of dreams. VTR did the same, finding work for a time in a textile mill — a small foothold in an unforgiving metropolis. Like countless restless young men of his generation, he discovered in Marx and the language of workers’ rights a moral and intellectual awakening. Yet it did not take him long to see through the casteist rot within India’s communist leadership. Disillusioned but unbroken, he carried that insight into journalism. As a journalist, he threw himself into trade union work and later led a major strike against the Ramanath Goenka management of The Indian Express in Bangalore — an act of defiance that cost him his job but never his integrity.
VTR turned to Ambedkar and Periyar early in his journey and absorbed their thoughts with the seriousness of a seeker who had found his true teachers. Their writings confirmed what he already sensed — that caste was the spine of oppression in India, and liberation required nothing less than a moral and spiritual break from it. He renounced Hinduism and embraced Buddhism, not as a symbolic gesture but as a complete reorientation of life and politics. His convictions were radical, uncompromising, and far ahead of their time — the kind of politics that would scarcely survive in today’s repressive climate. Encouraged by Mulk Raj Anand, VTR launched Dalit Voice — a publication that was not merely a magazine but a movement in print, a start-up like no other.
Nothing was off-limits in his lifelong war against injustice. In a profession dominated — then as now — by upper castes, no senior journalist in mainstream India dared to be as openly anti Brahminical and anti-RSS in both speech and print as he was. His pursuit of equality and rationalism was fearless and absolute. He took on Hindu godmen and temples, the Muslim clergy, the Christian establishment, even Judaism, corporate capital, and the communist parties — sparing no institution that thrived on hierarchy or hypocrisy. His admiration for China’s success only deepened his ideological defiance. By founding the India–China Friendship Association and leading delegations there, he managed to antagonize every Indian regime — from the Congress to the BJP. Convinced that India’s hidden apartheid against Dalits had to be exposed to the world, he sought solidarity across borders — between the Dalit Panthers, the Black Panthers, and all oppressed peoples struggling for dignity. That internationalism was too much for the guardians of India’s caste order. When he returned from an international conference organized by Gaddafi in Tripoli, his passport was impounded in Delhi — silencing his travel for nearly two decades but never his voice.
As the Dalit movement fractured under electoral pressures and internal caste tensions, VTR watched with heartbreak as many of its leaders — men and women he had personally mentored — were seduced by financial rewards and government posts. His closest ideological ally of national stature was Kanshi Ram, yet their visions diverged on one crucial point. While Kanshi Ram believed Dalits were ready to seize political power, VTR held that true liberation had to begin with Ambedkar’s triad — Educate, Agitate, Organize — and that without these foundations, capturing the state would only reproduce its rot. He was unwavering in his conviction that until Dalits built and controlled their own media, they would remain voiceless before the upper-caste monopoly and the venom of the RSS. With remarkable foresight, he persuaded Kanshi Ram to co-found a media house in Haryana; they had even chosen a site and arranged resources for a printing press. But Kanshi Ram’s untimely death at seventy-four ended that dream before it could take shape. I often wonder what might have been — had he lived two more decades and that media house been born, it could have transformed India’s public discourse forever.
Both Kanshi Ram and VTR believed deeply in Bahujan unity — a broad alliance of Dalits, backward castes, and minorities standing shoulder to shoulder against caste tyranny. After Kanshi Ram’s passing, VTR carried this vision further, translating it into action with unflinching conviction. He stood firmly with Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs whenever they were attacked, insisting that the fight for justice could not be waged in isolation. The call to unite Dalits with Muslims and OBCs, naming the Savarnas as the common oppressor, unsettled many within the Dalit movement — but predictably, it never deterred him. Confrontation was second nature to VTR. Legal cases under TADA, POTA, and other draconian laws became a constant feature of his life; it was not unusual to find a police van stationed outside our home. Yet the price he paid for his principles was immense. His support for Sikh self-determination led to his arrest — handcuffed and taken incommunicado from Bangalore to Chandigarh — where he was locked in the high-security Burail Jail for a fortnight.
Every attack from the Savarnas only strengthened his resolve — and expanded his reach. With each controversy, Dalit Voice found new readers among the Avarnas, and reading groups began mushrooming across districts in the country. Subscriptions poured in. I still remember the huge registers that occupied one corner of our small rented home (which my mother had been allotted under rent control as a central government employee — something I doubt exists anymore!). Every subscriber’s name and address were carefully handwritten, one after another. VTR travelled tirelessly, announcing his visits to various cities; readers would organize meetings not just in state capitals but in small towns and district hubs as well. One of Dalit Voice’s most remarkable features was its “Letters to the Editor” section, where every opinion found space, creating lively debates among readers. Each letter was answered personally by VTR — most of them typed by yours truly, which is how I became a super-fast typist.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that no other publication shaped the discourse on Dalit liberation as profoundly as Dalit Voice did between 1982 and 2011. Few publications anywhere have survived that long without corporate or donor support. The movement’s voice resonated beyond English, finding life in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Telugu, Punjabi, and many other languages. There were many occasions when there was simply no money to pay the printer or postage, yet VTR never missed a single edition — except during his imprisonment. He was offered countless inducements over the years — political positions, a Rajya Sabha seat, ministerial posts, even land deals — but he refused them all. He chose integrity over power, independence over comfort. It was a decision that came at enormous personal cost to my mother, who carried the burden of being the family’s sole breadwinner for decades.
VTR tried to keep Dalit Voice alive from Mangalore after moving back there, but the city’s deep RSS entrenchment made it nearly impossible. Printers were threatened and intimidated into silence, forcing the presses to halt. Yet even in that suffocating atmosphere, he refused to yield. VTR has often been described as fearless, but even that word doesn’t do him justice. His courage was not the absence of fear — it was the refusal to let fear dictate what could or could not be said. He faced the full force of a casteist state and society with nothing but conviction, intellect, and an unshakeable belief in equality. For him, the written word was not a profession but a weapon — one forged in truth and wielded in solidarity with the oppressed.
He died as he had lived: uncompromising, unbought, unbowed. In his fire and clarity, VTR left us a challenge — to keep speaking, writing, and fighting until the dream of liberty, equality, and dignity is no longer deferred but realized.
Salil Shetty is a human rights activist and former Secretary General of Amnesty International. He previously led the UN Millennium Campaign and was Chief Executive of ActionAid. He is also the son of V. T. Rajshekar.
