Tag Archives: Dalit Movement

This piece, adapted from Chapter 2, “Annihilation of Caste,” in Caste – A Nation Within the Nation, has been abridged, edited, and selectively rephrased to highlight the conjoined conceptual rigor and moral conviction that animate V. T. Rajshekar’s writing. The purpose of this version is to reveal the enduring force of his argument and its continued relevance to the present moment of caste politics and thought. In this essay, Rajshekar dissects caste as the central ideological and structural principle of Indian society—an all-encompassing system that determines not only social hierarchy but also access to political power, knowledge, and morality. He argues that caste cannot be dismantled through moral persuasion or partial reform because it is the very grammar of Hindu social order. Drawing from Ambedkar yet extending beyond him, Rajshekar exposes how religion, law, and politics work in concert to preserve Brahminical dominance. For him, annihilation means confrontation: a total break with the social, spiritual, and epistemic order that legitimizes caste. The essay stands as both critique and declaration, demanding not reconciliation but the assertion of Dalit consciousness as the ground for any true democratic transformation.

However, Rajshekar’s forceful framing also opens up crucial points of tension worth registering. His deployment of the language of “nation” and “national minorities” for Bahujans—though strategically potent—risks reproducing the very nationalist grammar that has historically absorbed, redirected, or neutralized anti-caste energies. The presumption that “nationhood” is a stable or emancipatory horizon for Bahujans overlooks how nationalism in the subcontinent has routinely demanded caste-erasure at the symbolic level while sustaining caste power in practice. A critique aligned with Ambedkar’s own caution would remind us that the nation is not automatically a vehicle of justice; rather, it has often operated as the ideological shield for Brahminical majoritarianism. Any appeal to national belonging must therefore be critically examined so that it does not reinscribe the homogenizing impulses it seeks to break.

Similarly, the text suggests a sharp opposition between caste-bound villages and propaganda-driven cities, as though the former naturally preserve anti-Hindutva potential and the latter incubate Brahminical hegemony. This distinction, already unstable in Rajshekar’s time, is even less tenable today. Rural India has never been uniformly resistant to Hindutva, nor have urban centres been coherent sites of caste blindness. The circulation of media, the penetration of welfare networks, the transformation of local political economies, and the recomposition of rural–urban migration have all produced a far more entangled terrain. Village social order does not automatically protect Bahujan interests; it can reproduce the violence of caste more directly, even as it occasionally generates solidarities unavailable in urban anonymity. Any contemporary evaluation must abandon this binary and analyze how caste power now moves fluidly across both spaces.

Finally, Rajshekar’s argument that Hindutva remains a primarily Brahminical project does not fully anticipate the demographic restructuring of the Hindu Right. Today, its organizational strength and electoral reach depend heavily on OBC and non-Brahmin participation—not only as foot soldiers but as ideological and political actors within the movement. This does not invalidate Rajshekar’s critique of Brahminical dominance; rather, it complicates the picture by showing how caste power adapts, absorbs, and redeploys the aspirations of groups historically positioned outside the Brahminical core. Any contemporary reading must therefore account for how Hindutva now functions through a broadened social base, and why anti-caste politics must confront this expanded constituency rather than an imagined Brahmin minority alone.Taken together, these tensions do not diminish the power of Rajshekar’s intervention; they sharpen it by situating his insights within a transformed political landscape. The stakes of annihilation today demand both the fidelity to Ambedkarite confrontation and a critical rethinking of the categories—nation, village, caste bloc, majority/minority—through which the struggle has been historically articulated.

V. T. Rajshekar

Hindu Angle of ‘Caste Annihilation’

It is the Hindus who stand to gain most from the caste system, for caste is another name for Hinduism. If caste is destroyed, Hinduism collapses. Gandhi knew this and opposed any fight against caste, for his defense of “Varna Dharma” safeguarded Hindu order. No Hindu is prepared to give up caste; caste is the source of their power.

Why then have Hindus suddenly begun talking of “caste annihilation”? Are they ready to sacrifice their privileges? Some honest vaidiks, like the Puri Shankaracharya, openly declare that Bahujans are not Hindus and hence outcastes; we have no quarrel with such honesty. Our problem is with the deceitful “socialist” Brahmins who cloak themselves as Gandhians, Marxists, or nationalists while preserving caste.

Their “caste annihilation” means the abolition of caste-based reservations, not the destruction of caste itself. They want to preserve their superiority while preaching equality — taking Dalits into temples but never allowing them priesthood, welcoming them into Brahmin-owned hotels but never letting them own one. Their idea is to change form without changing content, to keep the power hierarchy intact. They advise the scavenger to take pride in cleaning toilets instead of demanding liberation. This Gandhian hypocrisy, perfected by institutions like Sulabh International, is what they call “caste annihilation.”

Bahujan Angle of ‘Caste Annihilation’
For Bahujans, annihilating caste means destroying the power structure itself. Ambedkarites understand caste as an ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt. Gandhi’s temple-entry and inter-dining gimmicks never touched this structure. As Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar showed, the root of untouchability is the caste system; the root of caste is religion; and the root of that religion is Brahminical authority sustained by power.

Ambedkar sought to transform the very body of caste, not its surface symptoms. He knew that deprivation and humiliation were political, not moral, conditions. Unless the powerless are empowered, the powerful will never treat them as equals. The Ambedkarite view holds that social equality follows political and economic power. Reservation, therefore, is not charity but an assertion of human rights — a corrective to centuries of exclusion. When rights are restored, the oppressed gain power; when power shifts, equality begins.

Hindus wish only to soften the feelings emanating from caste while leaving the structure untouched. Bahujans aim to destroy its foundation. Hindus cure the symptoms of the disease; Bahujans aim to cure the disease itself.

Hindu Opposition to the Bahujan Angle
Hindus object that caste-based empowerment will strengthen caste, harm national integration, and endanger Hindu unity. Their real fear is that an empowered Bahujan consciousness will destroy the Hindu social order. When they call for caste annihilation, they mean the abolition of resentment among the oppressed — not the privileges of the oppressor. They fear that Dalit assertion will polarize society and lead to a “caste war,” which indeed would end the caste system and minority Hindu rule.

The Brahmins, masters of contradiction, understand Ambedkarism better than most Bahujans. They exploit caste divisions to protect Hindu supremacy. Many Bahujans, seduced by Brahminical media and “secular” rhetoric, fail to see that what the Hindus hate, they should love — and what Hindus love, they should question.

Ambedkarite interpretation of caste annihilation strengthens castes

The Hindu claim that caste-based reservations strengthen caste is only half true. It is true that caste must first consolidate before it can be dismantled. Caste-based representation requires the collective strength of each deprived group; it is a necessary stage in annihilating hierarchy. The Constitution itself recognizes caste as the basis for remedy, granting reservations to Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes. This recognition has empowered Dalits politically and psychologically, enabling them to become a force in national life.

Those who oppose caste identity while benefiting from reservation are deluded. Without caste identification, there would be no eligibility for justice. The so-called “creamy layer” debate further exposes the Hindu anxiety: upper castes resent any rise in Dalit or OBC power. Reservation has created a new confidence — a ladder the privileged now want to kick away.

Ambedkar sought to employ caste-based reservation to consolidate the oppressed as a political community capable of challenging Brahminical domination. Every assertion of caste identity among the marginalized weakens the monopoly of the Hindu minority. Gujarat’s caste wars of the 1980s proved this; Dalit anger, when misdirected against Muslims, only helped consolidate Hindu rule. The lesson remains clear — caste consciousness, not religious nationalism, is the path to equality.

Struggle and Identity
Every struggle for power begins with the assertion of a distinct identity. The oppressor always denies the separate existence of the oppressed to sustain domination. As Dr. Y. N. Kly observed in International Law and the Dalits in India, the Dalits form a distinct people, historically denounced as “outcastes” outside Hinduism. Their forced inclusion as “Scheduled Castes within Hinduism” after independence was a political act — to consolidate India under Hindu dominance. Recognition of Dalits as a separate national minority was deliberately erased from the Constitution.

The 1950 Presidential Order, by denying minority status to Dalits, imposed a Hindu identity on them. Such an identity is an aggression on self-respect. True emancipation requires its rejection. As Ambedkar argued through the Mahad and Nasik agitations, liberation demands independent representation and political power — not inclusion under Hindu paternalism.

Other oppressed peoples, from Eelam Tamils to Chechens, have shown that asserting distinct identity is the first step toward self-determination. Similarly, when SCs, STs, and OBCs demand caste-wise representation, they signal that they are not Hindus but distinct nations within India’s social geography. Their demand for power-sharing amounts to a declaration of self-rule — not secession, but autonomy in shaping their destiny.

This is why the Hindu minority fears caste consolidation. Bahujan identity is their greatest threat. Every move — from Gandhism to Marxism to Hindutva — has sought to dissolve that identity in a false national unity. But each has failed in the face of resurgent caste consciousness.

Failure of ‘Hindu Unity’
The Aryan bid for “Hindu unity” has repeatedly collapsed against India’s resilient village social order, which, though oppressive, remains immune to urban Brahminical propaganda. The BJP’s Hindutva thrives in cities where media and money rule, but it cannot easily penetrate caste-based village structures. Villages preserve both the oppression and the consciousness of caste — a double-edged reality.

When Hindu leaders attempt to dissolve caste distinctions under the banner of unity, they face resistance from the very structure they exploit. Their project depends on manufacturing an external enemy — historically the Muslim — to divert the anger of Dalits and Bahujans. In Gujarat, Dalit participation in anti-Muslim violence marked the tragic success of this manipulation, where caste pride was replaced by Hindu pride.

Yet the same Gujarat also showed that when Dalits fought upper castes, it exposed the core contradiction of Hinduism. Caste identity remains the best defense against Hindutva, the surest means to frustrate Brahminical rule through a silent, bloodless revolution. The villages of India, however unequal, remain fortresses of this social truth — that Hindutva cannot erase caste, and caste, once politicized, can dismantle Hindutva.

Our confusion lies not in the villages but in the cities. Urban Dalits and OBCs, intoxicated by Brahminical media, fail to distinguish between Ambedkar’s programme of caste annihilation and the Hindu deceit of the same name. True annihilation begins with self-respect and ends with equality of power — not with assimilation under Hinduism.

Conclusion

Caste annihilation cannot mean the erasure of caste identity while caste power endures. It must mean the destruction of the hierarchy that sustains it. The Bahujan path, grounded in Ambedkar’s vision, demands empowerment before erasure, equality before unity, and power before reconciliation.

The struggle for identity, dignity, and representation is not contrary to annihilation; it is its necessary condition. Only when the oppressed define themselves can they redefine the nation. Until then, every slogan of “Hindu unity” or “caste annihilation” from above is another mask of domination.

The road to freedom lies in consolidating Bahujan identity, transforming caste into a weapon of liberation, and reclaiming power from those who have ruled in its name. Caste, once the chain, becomes the site of struggle — and in that struggle lies the true beginning of its annihilation.

This essay, “In Defense of Polemics” by V.T. Rajshekar, first published in Dalit Voice Vol. 25, Issue No. 10, (May 16–31, 2006), has been thoughtfully reworked, abridged, and paraphrased to speak to the present moment while preserving its original force and vision. The revision retains the text’s historical polemical idioms but removes contingent references and particularized citations to foreground its enduring relevance. It reasserts the conviction that polemics is not a stylistic excess but a principled mode of truth-telling—an ethical and political necessity in confronting the hierarchies that distort public life and silence dissent. In this reframed version, Rajshekar’s defense of argumentative writing becomes a wider meditation on the responsibilities of critical journalism and the politics of speech in unequal societies. It upholds Dalit Voice’s long-standing orientation toward fearless critique, its insistence on clarity over comfort, and its commitment to unsettling dominant truths. By revisiting this essay today, the aim is to reaffirm the centrality of dissenting thought and the continuing need for writing that is rigorous, disruptive, and accountable to those whose voices are systemically denied space in the public sphere.

V. T. Rajshekar

We are often accused of resorting to polemical writing. Some upper-caste critics say we take pleasure in controversies and rarely offer “constructive suggestions.” They call us abusive, hateful, and unworthy of serious journalism. To them we must respond.

A journal of the persecuted cannot exist without polemics. Its very birth is an act of resistance against forces that suppress truth and historical progress. Polemic is not abuse—it is the language of those who have been denied space, ownership, and voice. Without it, new ideas cannot take root.

Brahminical Media Control

Our critics ask if we cannot be “constructive” without being “excessive.” Can truth be told softly in a world where the means of speech itself are owned by our oppressors? India lives in a time of deep ideological struggle between castes and communities, yet the instruments of opinion—the mass media—are monopolized by the upper castes and big business.

This media does not merely conceal truth; it manufactures falsehood. It defends power, consolidates hierarchy, and disciplines dissent. A homegrown authoritarianism thrives here, disguised as democracy. In this landscape, polemic becomes not only legitimate but necessary—it cuts through the noise, draws attention to vital realities, and refuses the civility that sustains injustice.

Those Who Don’t Hate Can’t Love

Our critics accuse us of hatred, of inheriting the anger of Ambedkar, Periyar, and Lohia. They mistake passion for hatred, and confrontation for bitterness. But as Stokely Carmichael once said, to love deeply is to know the opposite of love. A people who have never known hatred cannot understand love, because love itself is born of struggle—of knowing what must be resisted in order to protect what must be cherished.

We are taught that it is noble not to hate. Yet those who hate us—those who burn our homes, violate our dignity, and destroy our futures—lecture us on peace and forgiveness. They want the oppressed to remain polite while being crushed. To reject this false morality is not to hate others, but to love our people more fiercely. If you are incapable of anger, you are incapable of love.

False Philosophy

This false philosophy of non-resistance preaches calmness to the condemned. It demands that we stay quiet while violence is done to us. Imagine watching someone set fire to your home and being told not to hate them. Imagine witnessing your sister’s assault and being told to be “above emotion.” Such moral advice serves only the comfort of the powerful.

We do not hate because hatred is noble—we resist because love compels us to. The refusal to accept humiliation, to expose hypocrisy, to fight lies—these acts come from a place of care and courage, not malice.

Nasty “National” Press

India’s corporate, upper-caste–owned “national press” is the most powerful weapon of domination today. It consolidates privilege, protects capital, and criminalizes the struggles of Dalits, Bahujans, Muslims, and women. It preaches ethics but practices servitude. Its only moral compass is profit.

Publishing in such a society requires enormous capital and caste privilege. Those who own the printing presses and those who write the editorials belong to the same social world. Together, they form a fortress of interests closed to the oppressed. Their media will never side with the poor—it exists to manage them.

Role of the Times of India

The media monopoly is sustained by the financial power of advertisers and corporate owners. The result is a journalism shaped entirely by money. The Times of India, for example, has become an ideological mouthpiece for the privileged. It consistently takes anti-Dalit and anti-minority positions while masquerading as “national.” It has long abandoned the idea of representing the public; it represents the market. What it sells as news is often gossip, prejudice, or intimidation.

Days of Dwarfs

The era of towering editors who understood the social weight of journalism is over. Dwarfs now rule the newsroom—men and women who bend before power and boast of their servility as pragmatism. They avoid pain, skirt real issues, and substitute trivia for analysis. Their papers are full of noise and hollow commentary, never substance.

The Indian press today creates pseudo-issues, buries the real ones, and defends the caste order beneath the façade of modernity. Even the relatively serious papers lose their liberal mask when questions of reservation or caste equality arise.

Caste Ideology

The press’s emptiness is disguised through phrase-mongering. Big words replace genuine thought. Its editorials speak of development and democracy while the writers themselves live comfortably within structures of inequality. Their vocabulary hides their caste ideology.

National icons are manufactured through manipulation—those who pacify the poor are called “Mahatma,” “Lok Nayak,” or “Lok Manya.” Elections are glorified as festivals of democracy when they are only rituals that divide the poor and strengthen the rich. The media celebrates technology and consumption while ignoring human development. It mistakes gadgets for progress and comfort for civilization.

Left Imperialism

Even the so-called progressive press reveals its bias when it confronts the question of caste or minority rights. Urban newspapers cater to the leisure class, not to the majority living in villages. Books, debates, and discussions that challenge hierarchy find no place. Reading itself has been replaced by entertainment, and entertainment is the new censorship.

This English-educated elite, claiming to be the guardians of “merit,” has degenerated into a caste of consumers. Untouchability thrives, yet the national press looks away. The villages that hold the heart of the country remain invisible. Journalists stay in cities, recycling press releases, producing illusions for an audience that prefers not to know.

Collective Lying

When the oppressed resist, the media unites against them. During the 1984 anti-Sikh violence or the backlash to the Mandal movement, the so-called national press became an instrument of collective lying. It manufactured consent for state brutality, smeared the victims, and silenced dissenting voices. Every time caste contradictions sharpen, the media turns into a chorus of slander.

Lies and fear are its twin tools. When truth threatens power, the press replaces it with panic—crying “terrorism,” “anarchy,” or “disorder.” It is not journalism but propaganda disguised as objectivity.

Freedom of Press

India’s corporate, upper-caste–owned “national press” is the most Much is made in India about the “freedom of the press,” but this freedom belongs only to those who can afford a press. When Dalit journalists exercise that same right, they are punished. This editor was arrested under the Terrorist Act, handcuffed, dragged across the country, and silenced for years. That is the real meaning of press freedom in a caste society.

How can there be freedom of expression when ownership itself is monopolized by a few castes and corporations? The press may be free for the rich, but it remains a prison for the poor. True freedom of the press will come only when its ownership and access are democratized—when it becomes a voice of the people, not of their masters.

Offence as Best Form of Defence

The oppressed cannot wait to be attacked—they must speak first, and speak sharply. To expose injustice is not rudeness; it is self defence. To offend the comfort of the powerful is often the first act of truth.

A newspaper of the marginalized must not merely react to events but seek out the buried facts and bring them to light. Delay means defeat. The Brahminical media manipulates truth with skill; we must learn to read it critically—between the lines, against the grain. Only then can we resist its poison.

Did D.V. Go Wrong on Facts?

Those who are praised by the powerful are rarely genuine; those who are attacked are often the ones who speak truth. Awards, honours, and reputations are tools to discipline and domesticate dissenters. We accept that polemics is not an end in itself—it is a method of struggle. Its goal is not hostility but clarity, not abuse but honesty. It is a way to fight lies with facts and expose hypocrisy through conviction.

Dalit Voice and the Dalit Sahitya Akademy exist not to please the ruling class but to awaken the oppressed. Our readers will correct us if we go wrong; our critics will attack us because we go right.

When the powerful preach freedom but punish dissent, when they praise civility but practice cruelty—then polemic is not a choice, it is a duty.

The editorial ‘A Dream Come True’ from Vol. 1, Issue No. 1, 01/06/1981, of the magazine marked the birth of Dalit Voice, a radical and independent publication founded to articulate the concerns of Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, Muslims, Christians, and other oppressed groups. Emerging from the Karnataka Dalit Action Committee, it arose in a political climate marked by anti-reservation violence, rising Hindu-Muslim tensions, and systemic silencing of marginalized voices in the press, judiciary, and political institutions. What stands out in this piece is its refusal to beg for legitimacy. It challenges the economic, caste, and media structures that render Dalits invisible or misrepresented. It asserts a collective identity of the “persecuted minorities” and identifies a ruling class composed of upper-caste, economically powerful elites — a class-caste nexus still central to structural inequality in India. While rejecting alignment with any political party, Dalit Voice expresses conditional support for Marxist movements — not uncritically, but with the insistence that caste, as a uniquely Indian axis of oppression, must be central to any revolutionary politics. This critique remains relevant today, as both mainstream parties and sections of the Left continue to inadequately address caste beyond rhetoric or electoral arithmetic. Nonetheless, it is clear from the trajectory of anti-caste politics that such relation with the party Marxist Left has remained thin, at best. The editorial’s gender insight — “the woman is Dalit among Dalits” — is ahead of its time, prefiguring later Dalit feminist articulations. Its declaration of solidarity with working-class students, Muslim and Christian minorities, and the commitment to nurturing Dalit writers, still resonates in a landscape where dominant narratives continue to erase subaltern experiences. Reading this today, we find echoes of its warnings: the consolidation of Hindu majoritarianism, the shrinking space for dissent, and the corporate-caste capture of media and institutions. At the same time, its audacious hope — that even a modest first step matters — speaks directly to current generations of organisers, students, writers, and human rights defenders. It reminds us that independent, movement-rooted media is not a luxury but a necessity. Included here as one of the archival texts, this editorial serves as both a historical marker and a political provocation. It asks us not to commemorate, but to re-inherit its spirit — to sustain spaces where oppressed voices speak not through gatekeepers, but in their own radical, fearless, and collective voice.

V. T. Rajshekar

To bring out a journal of our own has been our long-cherished dream. Persecuted minorities all over India in general, and members of the Karnataka Dalit Action Committee in particular, have been urging us to start a publication.

No doubt we had all the talents and enthusiasm. But what we lacked was funds. Funds will pour if we swim with the current. But the Dalit cause means swimming against the current. There is a chance of getting drowned also. Who will give us funds?

So for quite some time, we were handicapped for want of funds. But funds alone should not stand in the way. When good wishes are there in plenty, funds will prove to be no problem. This has been our experience.

We could not withstand the mounting pressure of our Dalit comrades—representatives of the persecuted minorities: Untouchables, Tribals, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Muslims, and Christians.

Oppression is increasing day by day. Caste riots have spread from Marathwada to Gujarat. Anti-reservation agitations are threatening to engulf the whole country. Hindu–Muslim clashes are becoming a daily feature. Muslims and Christians are feeling that they are second-rate citizens. Even the very guardians of law and order are joining the forces of oppression.

The persecuted minorities hardly have any friends in political parties, the government, judiciary, police, administration, or professions. Intellectuals are turning dishonest. When there is no friend in these, how can they get a friend in the press? And the press in India is owned by corrupt capitalists and manned by high-caste journalists, with some minor exceptions.

The milk of kindness is getting dried up. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. Perhaps these are signs of revolution. Therefore, we thought we better not delay.

About ten percent of the Indian population is ruling us. This “ruling class” is composed of those rich who mostly come from the high castes. It is a class–caste dictatorship. A naked dance of Hindu communalism.

We dedicate this journal to fight this “ruling class” as the Dalit Voice—the voice of all the persecuted minorities of India.

We have a long way to go. Even a million-mile march begins with a first step. And ours is a modest step. We fully know our limitations. But we will try to improve in days to come.

We suffer from no prejudice, no rancour, no ill will. To us, no single individual is our enemy. We are concerned more with issues— primarily social and cultural, and then economic.

We therefore attack the existing corrupt system. We assure that we will mercilessly attack the corrupt system.

Politics is not our playfield. While we may comment, we consider every political party as no friend of the Dalits—persecuted minorities. And the woman is Dalit among Dalits, a slave of the slave.

For all those reasons, therefore, ours will be a unique experiment. Bangalore City has a vast working-class and student population, and they can consider us their trusted friend—a friend of all the poor, struggling people. Dalit writers will be encouraged.

We will support the Left movement as we have the greatest respect for [it]. Our only suggestion is that while adopting Marxism to Indian conditions, it has to be Indianised by taking into consideration the havoc played by the caste system.

We will do our best to propagate the philosophy of Ambedkar, Periyar, and Lohia, and all other progressive thinkers. Genuine Marxists and Rationalists, and all those working for social change, shall count on our support in their struggles.

It is the Dalit Voice.

Could you walk us through the key campaigns and strategic initiatives you’re currently leading under the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)? What are the central questions and pressures shaping this work today?

The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights emerged out of a moment of reckoning. Around 1989, there was a surge in caste-based atrocities across the country—entire villages were burned, people were killed, and Dalit communities faced large-scale violence. In places like Andhra Pradesh, these weren’t isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern that created an urgency to come together nationally and confront what was happening on the ground. The first step was to document these atrocities, understand the legal mechanisms in place, and build a national platform where none existed before. Over time, that became the foundation of NCDHR’s work: training more than six or seven thousand human rights defenders—mostly Dalits working at the grassroots—to investigate crimes, support survivors legally, and engage the state on issues of policy. Because we are a rights-based organization, much of our focus has been on how laws and systems can actually serve marginalized people, and one of our major milestones was pushing for amendments to the Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989, which were finally passed in 2013. But as we continued, we began asking ourselves what happens in the absence of violence—what does a dignified life look like? Beyond justice, people need peace, education, a home, and opportunity. Around 2007–08, our focus expanded from access to justice to economic justice, examining budgets, education, and public entitlements to understand where resources go and who benefits from them. We also turned our attention to gender justice, focusing on Dalit women’s rights, and created the National Dalit Watch to monitor exclusion during disasters. That work began after the 2004 tsunami, when colleagues like Paul Divakar and other senior leaders found that many Dalit families had been denied relief and rehabilitation—a stark reminder of how discrimination persists even in moments of crisis. This pushed us to work on disaster risk reduction and engage with the state on inclusive relief. In recent years, our attention has also turned toward the climate crisis, as its effects are felt most severely by marginalized communities. We are now working to build climate resilience, studying how heatwaves, floods, and other disasters disproportionately affect Dalits and the poor, and collaborating with governments to develop systems that can reduce their impact. These interconnected struggles—justice, livelihood, gender, and climate—continue to define our work today.

You’ve had a prior career in the corporate sector and hold a background in economics. How has this shaped your approach to budget justice and fiscal accountability in your rights-based work?

When I first joined the organization after years in the corporate sector, it was a shock to find that there were hardly any systems in place—people were doing important work, but it was scattered and reactive. Coming from a background where structure and accountability were non-negotiable, I realized that one of the most valuable things I could bring was discipline, because for Dalit organizations the stakes are much higher: one mistake can discredit an entire movement while others can fail and recover easily. That awareness pushed me to help build internal systems, not to mimic corporate culture but to ensure we functioned with a standard of excellence that the world often denies us, and over the years this emphasis on process has strengthened our credibility and sustainability. Within NCDHR, for example, key areas like finance and data—once dominated by upper-caste professionals—are now led almost entirely by people from the community, which I see as one of our quiet revolutions. Even if someone isn’t as polished or formally trained, we invest in them because building community capacity is building the movement itself. At the same time, I’ve seen how development work often suffers from a disconnect between what’s promised in proposals and what happens on the ground— too many organizations speak for marginalized people without actually empowering them. Our principle has been simple: the money must go where the struggle is. That clarity also shapes how we understand India’s broader development model. We know the system is exploitative, yet access to its resources and opportunities remains necessary because Dalits, Adivasis, and Bahujans have historically been excluded from it. It’s similar to debates in the U.S. where marginalized groups seek justice within a system built on injustice—rejecting it entirely means forfeiting rights, while accepting it uncritically means legitimizing oppression. From an Ambedkarite perspective, our task is to claim what is constitutionally ours while continuing to challenge the inequities that structure it, because we built this country through our labor and sacrifice, and what we demand is not charity but justice—an equal share in the nation we sustain. Yet caste discomfort runs deep: even something as basic as the caste census unsettles those who benefit from invisibility because it exposes the truth that those who clean, construct, and serve are still denied recognition and redistribution. India’s policies on paper—affirmative action, targeted budgets, constitutional safeguards—are progressive, but their implementation is riddled with caste bias; I remember a case where funds from the Dalit budget were used to build a road connecting a Dalit basti to the highway, but construction stopped one kilometer short because officials didn’t want Dalits to have access. This is what happens when the idea of social justice exists in the text but not in spirit. Until those in power are sensitized and held accountable, these contradictions will persist. For me, annihilation of caste doesn’t mean erasing identity or ending affirmative action; it means reaching a point where being Dalit no longer determines how one is treated. Our struggle is not just for wealth but for dignity—for a society where our humanity is recognized without qualification, and where justice is not conditional but inherent.

As Chair of the Asia Dalit Rights Forum, how do you approach cross-border solidarities among Dalit and similarly oppressed communities across South Asia? What have you observed about the varying levels of anti-caste consciousness, institutional support, and resistance across different national contexts, particularly where caste is denied or rendered invisible?

I’ve observed striking differences in how caste and anti-caste consciousness manifest across South Asia. In Nepal, for instance, many Dalit groups remain deeply embedded within Hindu structures—sometimes even more devoutly than dominant castes—despite being excluded from temples and subjected to the same discriminatory norms. It’s a contradiction that reveals how deeply caste ideology is internalized, and I often think that one reason for this is that Nepal does not have an Ambedkar. We do, and that changes everything. I’ve spoken about how vital it would be to translate Ambedkar’s writings into Nepali, to make his ideas accessible to communities who are still seeking a vocabulary for their liberation. In Bangladesh, Dalits are mostly descendants of laborers taken from India during colonial times—many from Hindu and Christian communities—while in Sri Lanka, most are plantation workers, and in Pakistan, Dalits are largely sanitation workers from Hindu and Christian backgrounds. Across these contexts, levels of consciousness and resistance vary, but the shared experience of structural exclusion binds us. That’s why building cross-border solidarity has been central to our work at the Asia Dalit Rights Forum: to connect struggles that are often denied or made invisible within national frameworks. I often recall what Paul Divakar says about Ambedkar—how he may not have known, at first, that he was part of a broader community of Mahars and Dalits across regions, yet through connection and organizing, he built a movement that transcended locality. A similar realization happened internationally through spaces like the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women, where Dalit women leaders such as Ruth Manorama first connected with counterparts from other countries, and later, at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, where the Dalit issue was recognized globally for the first time. Over 300 Dalit activists attended, marking a turning point in how we began to see ourselves not just as Indians but as part of a transnational struggle against caste-based discrimination. These connections have deepened our understanding of caste as a global human rights issue, akin to racism or indigenous oppression, and they have given rise to new alliances and platforms for visibility. There is still much work ahead, but this solidarity—rooted in shared histories of exclusion and the shared language of resistance—has been essential in strengthening the Dalit movement’s global voice and ensuring that caste is no longer treated as an internal or isolated matter, but as a fundamental question of justice everywhere.

What has been the most difficult challenge in building a sustained coalition of Dalit organisations around the Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) legislation: whether at the level of policy formulation, political traction, or grassroots coordination? And within that process, how do you assess the role of wider solidarities within Bahujan movements, Adivasis, religious minorities, and other structurally excluded communities?

When I first began working on Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) budgets, it was almost unthinkable for a Dalit woman to lead conversations on fiscal policy. I remember walking into meetings with MPs and senior policymakers who would look right through me, waiting instead to speak to the men beside me. Even within Dalit movements, there was skepticism—people would hang up my calls or dismiss what I was saying until they realized that my intentions were clear and my work serious. It took years to gain acceptance, not only because I was a woman, but because I wasn’t from a family of activists. I came into this work through a different route, and I had to prove myself in spaces where a young Dalit woman talking about numbers, budget architecture, and policy accountability was unheard of. Over time, I became one of the few women in the country engaging deeply with budgetary issues through a Dalit rights lens, insisting that economic justice is as central to anti-caste struggle as fighting violence. This approach— linking fiscal accountability to social justice—was new for many, but eventually people began to recognize its value. Still, it has been a hard and lonely journey. Even today, some parliamentarians are surprised to learn that I oversee the final numbers and analysis before they go public. Within the movement, too, there’s often more comfort when Dalit women speak about violence rather than structural economics, because it fits more easily into existing narratives of suffering rather than systemic change. At the same time, navigating feminist spaces has been equally fraught. Historically, Indian feminism has been led and defined by dominant-caste women, and Dalit women have often been welcomed only as tokens—expected to listen, not to challenge. Many spaces still struggle to name even one Dalit feminist leader despite decades of activism. I have faced that exclusion personally, but over the years, I’ve realized that the only way to shift this is by showing up, by engaging, and by creating pathways for younger Dalit, Adivasi, and minority women to enter and reshape these spaces. That’s what I am now committed to— ensuring the next generation doesn’t have to start from the margins the way we did. Coalition-building for SCP and TSP work has also been challenging because of the fault lines between marginalized groups. When we reached out to Adivasi organizations, many hesitated to join. Some questioned Ambedkar’s relevance to their struggles, seeing him as a Dalit, not a national leader. This gap reflects the need for more sustained dialogue and exchange, because while Ambedkar emerged from Dalit experience, his vision was one of universal liberation and equality. Yet, movement histories diverge— Adivasi groups have often centered forest and land rights, while Dalit movements have focused on atrocity and access to justice. Even when Adivasi groups came on board for the legislation, these philosophical and political differences remained visible. Building solidarity within the broader Bahujan framework, too, has proven idealistic in today’s context. Kanshi Ram’s idea of Bahujan unity was visionary, but the reality on the ground tells a harder story. The National Crime Records Bureau data shows that states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, dominated by Yadavs and Jats respectively— groups categorized as OBCs at least in Uttar Pradesh—also record some of the highest levels of violence against Dalits. So, while the idea of unity among all oppressed groups is powerful, it remains complicated by the fact that many immediate oppressors of Dalits are themselves from other backward communities. The OBC category itself is uneven—between the landed and landless, between those who dominate and those who are barely above Dalits in the social hierarchy. Many so-called OBC communities in states like West Bengal or Uttarakhand still face forms of untouchability, showing how arbitrary and bureaucratic these classifications often are. These fractures make coalition work deeply complex. While solidarity between Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, and women’s groups is absolutely essential, the political environment makes it harder than ever to sustain. Still, we must hold on to that vision. Leaders like V.T. Rajshekar always believed that cross-community solidarity was the only way to build lasting social justice. And though achieving that in today’s climate may seem idealistic, it remains necessary. Even if political unity proves elusive, moral and strategic solidarity— standing together when any of us faces violence or exclusion— remains the foundation of our collective struggle.

With the current push for a caste census, what potential do you see for it to generate accountability and redistribution? Conversely, what risks might it pose, especially in terms of weaponising data for the National Register of Citizens? And specifically, how might it exacerbate existing fractures in Dalit Muslim relations and other inter-community solidarities?

Aadhaar data and census data already function as gateways to the NRC—you don’t even need additional mechanisms for that. I don’t think the caste census will directly affect the NRC, because it will happen anyway, and in many ways, it’s already underway. What worries me more is that many marginalized people may not even be properly enumerated because they lack the required documentation, which will only deepen their exclusion. That said, the caste census will have a significant impact, especially on OBCs. What we saw in Bihar, where around 63.14% of the population was identified as OBCs (including 27.12% of Backward Classes and 36.01% of Extremely Backward Classes), completely changed the political and policy landscape. Those kinds of numbers make people in power nervous because they challenge the existing framework of representation and resource allocation. Knowing the real size and composition of the OBC population could lead to stronger demands for sub-categorization and for a fairer share within reservations and welfare budgets. For Dalits, too, the caste census could reaffirm what we’ve been saying all along—that despite decades of constitutional guarantees, social and economic exclusion persist. If the data shows an increase in the Dalit population, then the 50% cap on reservations will have to be re-examined, because it no longer reflects demographic realities. It will also give renewed legitimacy to affirmative action as a continuing necessity. Another important area is the private sector. These numbers could strengthen the argument for extending reservation policies beyond public employment, something Dalit organizations have been demanding for years. But we also have to recognize the risks. In the current political climate, data can easily be weaponized. The same caste census that could enable justice and redistribution could also be used to monitor, surveil, and divide. If the data is selectively interpreted, it could pit communities—Dalits, OBCs, Muslims— against each other, especially when the government or dominant groups frame it in competitive rather than solidaristic terms. So while a caste census has the potential to bring visibility and accountability, without structural safeguards and political commitment to equity, it could just as easily entrench the very hierarchies it claims to expose.

How do you navigate the relationship between high-level policy advocacy and grassroots mobilisation? Are there moments where these modes of engagement align productively? Or do they sometimes come into conflict in terms of goals, language, or strategy?

They don’t always align. When we go and meet opposition leaders, people in the community ask why we’re meeting them—they were in power and did nothing. If we meet the current government then that’s another issue, either way it’s difficult. But the point, as you said, is that organizations working on public policy must engage with whichever government is in power. For example, the amendments we fought for were drafted by NCDHR and the coalition we anchored and although Congress could not pass it, it was the BJP that finally passed it in Parliament. So we can’t afford to be rigid. Public policy requires negotiation and persistence, no matter who’s in power. Of course, this often creates friction with grassroots activists who see engagement with certain parties as compromise, but for us, it’s a necessary strategy. There’s always this tug of war between those doing field mobilization and those working on legislation or fiscal policy, yet I think awareness on the ground has grown. People now understand the importance of consistent engagement with state and district administrations, not just street-level resistance. Actually, Tamil Nadu is one place where this relationship between policy advocacy and grassroots movements feels most organic. Groups working on horizontal reservations, trans rights, and Dalit issues— like Grace Banu’s work—show how advocacy and mobilization can reinforce each other. The state’s caste composition, with fewer dominant upper-caste groups and a stronger OBC base, may have something to do with it. You rarely find such synergy elsewhere in India. In most other states, the disconnect between policy spaces and ground realities remains wide, often because of ideological suspicion or lack of institutional trust. Still, I think it’s crucial to remember that under Congress, for all their failures, there was at least space for dialogue. We could protest outside a minister’s house, shout slogans, and still be invited to meet later that day to discuss the issue. That space for dissent and debate is essential to any democracy. Today, that space is gone—you can’t protest, you can’t question. The very idea of engagement has been made suspect. So while our movement has always faced internal tensions, we’re now also facing an external environment where engagement itself has become a risk. And yet, we continue, because without sustained policy dialogue, without sitting across the table even from those we oppose, there’s no path to reform. That balance between principle and pragmatism is difficult, but essential.

In recent years, digital spaces have become both critical sites of visibility and vectors of violence. How has social media and online organising reshaped the landscape for Dalit movements? Have you seen tangible shifts in public discourse or policy response as a result of digital interventions?

About ten or fifteen years ago, there was very little Dalit presence online. I don’t mean just the NCDHR, but the larger discourse on caste itself—Dalit issues rarely surfaced in digital spaces. That changed dramatically after Una, when the movement and Jignesh Mewani’s leadership went viral. What began as a local atrocity became a global issue because of online mobilization. People across the world picked it up, and the momentum was unstoppable. Since then, I’ve seen so many young people from our community find their voice online—on Instagram, in independent platforms like Round Table India, and across social media. They’re writing, influencing, and shaping narratives in ways that mainstream media long denied us. This has become an alternative public sphere, a counter-space where Dalit voices can speak for themselves. I’ve also seen firsthand how these digital spaces can shift institutional agendas. I’ve worked directly with Twitter and Facebook, to discuss how caste issues could be better represented, how their algorithms could account for caste-based harassment, and how caste could be included in global policy frameworks. That was a powerful moment—it showed that our collective digital presence could actually influence tech governance and global discourse. These platforms, despite their flaws, have amplified our voices, allowing us to challenge both media bias and social hierarchies. This digital empowerment has been transformative. It’s not just about visibility; it’s about agenda-setting power—shaping what gets discussed, how it’s framed, and who gets to speak. For a long time, we were spoken about but rarely spoken to or allowed to speak for ourselves. Now, through social media and independent digital spaces, the community has found a way to bypass traditional gatekeepers. It’s a crucial shift, and it’s changing how the world sees Dalit politics, culture, and resistance.

Do you have any final thoughts and appeal for our readers?

I think there are two things that are absolutely essential for the future of our movement. The first is solidarity. It may not be an ideal or easily attainable state where all Dalits, Bahujans, Adivasis, and minorities come together as one collective force, but solidarity remains vital. Even if it feels like a dream, it is the foundation on which any hope for justice and equality rests. We have to keep reaching across these lines, standing with one another, even when unity seems impossible, because that moral and political commitment sustains the movement. The second is the need to nurture a new generation of leaders. Our organizations must consciously build young leadership—especially Dalit women leaders as well as Bahujan OBCs—who can take the struggle forward in a rapidly changing world shaped by technology, AI, and new social realities. It’s crucial that they understand these emerging systems and know how to engage with them politically. As seniors in the movement, our responsibility is to ensure that this leadership pipeline continues—that young people from marginalized communities step forward, shape anti-caste politics in their own language, and carry forward the legacy. Because, ultimately, the struggle for equality and dignity must renew itself with every generation—that’s how we keep the movement alive.

Beena Pallical is a Human Rights activist and General Secretary, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights. She is the chair of Asia Dalit Rights Forum & leads a coalition of Dalit Organisations on the SCP TSP Legislation.

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.

Introduction: Voicing Anti-Caste Politics
Dalit Voice, under the aegis of the Dalit Sahitya Academy, is a revival of the groundbreaking political platform founded by V. T. Rajshekar in 1981. Once India’s largest-circulated Dalit journal, Dalit Voice became a landmark publication for its fearless stance against casteism and systemic oppression. It offered a sharp ideological framework rooted in Ambedkarite thought and global anti-imperialist politics, shaping the discourse around caste, minority rights, and state violence. The magazine provided a vital space for Dalit-Bahujan intellectuals, published critiques that mainstream media ignored, and boldly named structures of power long before it was safe—or popular—to do so. Its influence resonated across grassroots movements and academic-political circles alike, making it an indispensable voice in post-Emergency India.

Dalit Voice stands as a landmark in the history of alternative media—refusing elite patronage and sustaining itself through reader contributions that made it directly accountable to the oppressed, whom it transformed into political thinkers through its publishing format. Through V. T. Rajshekar’s writings and the magazine’s own interventions, caste was internationalized—exposed in global forums and connected to struggles against racism and colonialism, with analogies drawn between Dalits and Blacks in the U.S. or Burakumin in Japan. It forged an intellectual and political framework for Dalit–Muslim unity, directly challenging communal strategies of division. It also confronted caste discrimination within Christian institutions, where its pressure led to the dismantling of entrenched practices. Dalit Voice revived and popularized the radical traditions of Ambedkar, Periyar, Lohia, and Kanshi Ram across South India, ensuring these revolutionary ideas reached new audiences and gained renewed political force. Beyond words, VTR—through the platform of Dalit Voice—mobilized funds for Dalit and OBC movements, collectives, and organizations, giving material support to struggles neglected by the mainstream. Reborn in a moment of deepening authoritarianism and cultural erasure, the new platform carries forward this radical legacy while adapting to the conditions of the present. Revived as Dalit Voice: Amplifying Dalit Bahujan Voices, it merges archival inheritance with urgent political intervention, reimagining itself as a socio-cultural and political platform to inform and mobilize India’s excluded castes and minorities. In a time when ideological clarity is often traded for convenience, it reasserts the value of bold, polemical analysis to confront caste power and its collusion with majoritarian rule.

Revival: Amplifying Anti-Caste Voice
Dalit Voice is a platform committed to building a new anti-caste socio-cultural imagination—unapologetically intersectional, grounded in the lived realities of structurally oppressed communities. Rooted in the radical legacy of the original Dalit Voice, we center Dalit movements and leadership while embracing a broader coalition that includes Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, OBCs, Adivasis, women, queer and trans people, disabled communities, workers, migrants, and refugees. We understand these struggles not as isolated, but deeply entangled in systems of caste, capitalism, patriarchy, religious persecution, and state violence. Guided by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s conception of minorities as those structurally excluded, not merely numerically small, we seek to build solidarity across difference—confronting the tensions such alliances bring rather than avoiding them.

This is not a revival rooted in nostalgia, but a platform built for deliberate political intervention. In an era of religious fundamentalism, deepening surveillance, and ethical compromise, Dalit Voice refuses hollow constitutionalism in favor of sharp, radical critique and grounded resistance. We extend our vision beyond borders through a renewed internationalism, standing with global movements resisting imperialism, occupation, and structural violence in all forms. As the political terrain becomes more complex, we evolve with it— committed to clarity over convenience, humility over hubris, and a politics sharpened through engagement and accountability. Dalit Voice exists not simply to reflect the world but to reshape it. Editorially, the revival rests on three interlinked pillars: a digitized Dalit Voice archive, thematic verticals for sustained inquiry, and a digitally native, social media–driven strategy. Strategically, it seeks to shape discourse, cultivate a politicized readership, and build transnational solidarities. By bridging anti-caste thought with popular culture and linking movements across caste, religion, gender, sexuality, region, and ability, the platform aims to forge durable alliances. Its editorial model will remain transparent, collaborative, and politically grounded—challenging dominant media narratives while ensuring sustainability without diluting radical purpose.

Editorial Statement: Inheriting the Voice
From that shared horizon, the thread returns to where it began— with V. T. Rajshekar, whose words continue to press against the limits of thought and power, shaping how we speak and what we dare to imagine.

V. T. Rajshekar’s legacy resists easy summary. Many will attest to his influence on the anti-caste movement of the late twentieth century and beyond. This editorial is not a catalogue of that legacy but an effort to think through it. At once rooted and global, VTR’s work reveals the balance between ideological precision and moral conviction, between organization and voice. His commanding intellect and expansive ethical imagination remind us that to speak truth to power is to preserve the soul of resistance. To step into these shoes is no easy task—at once daunting, humbling, and instructive.

I first encountered VTR’s writings in university, while organizing with a now-dissolved queer collective and learning the art of political polemic—writing that provokes thought and feeling in equal measure. That encounter shaped my understanding of how words can mobilize.

There remain differences between his project and mine, though both rest on faith in public writing as political labour. VTR’s work was driven by fierce moral clarity and an unrelenting commitment to the oppressed. Yet certain framings reveal the constraints of his moment. His search for solidarity with the colonized sometimes employed reductive tropes, left gender and desire unexplored, and at times expressed uncritical sympathy for authoritarian regimes in the global South. These moments—rare but revealing—mark the hazards of conflation and overreach, contrasting with the otherwise methodical and capacious quality of his thought.

VTR distrusted the emancipatory promise of state power without corresponding cultural transformation. This conviction shaped his insistence on Dalit Voice—and later, a media centre—as instruments of ideological renewal. In debates with Kanshi Ram, he came to see that Ambedkar’s triad — Educate, Agitate, Organize — was not merely a sequence but a moral architecture for liberation. Without it, capturing the state risked reproducing its corruption. Today, the state stands even further from justice, weaponized by the intertwined logics of Zionism and Hindutva that define our political present. While engagement with institutions remains necessary, it must proceed with vigilance and ethical distance. The Brahminical state, as VTR theorized, was always contingent; but its present mutations render his insights newly urgent, inviting us to think beyond both statist capture and cultural defeatism toward self-renewing forms of resistance.

As we move forward, Dalit Voice seeks to inherit the radical impulse of his vision while renewing its grammar—to think with care, complexity, and self-reflexivity about power, solidarity, and freedom. The aim is not to repudiate but to refine, extending VTR’s intellectual courage into new terrains of ethical and political imagination. Like VTR, I come from an OBC background and have long been frustrated with frameworks that blur the distinctions between Dalit experience and the wider Bahujan formation, even as that formation holds immense emancipatory promise. For anti-caste politics, the Dalit standpoint offers the most coherent and radical vision for shaping collective futures. This is not to suggest caste is a Dalit concern; it is an upper caste issue. Yet responsibility for change continues to rest on those most oppressed by it. What we need now is not sympathy from afar but a collective willingness—a shared resolve—to undo the structures that make caste endure.

My political education, like VTR’s, draws strength from an anti caste tradition enriched by leftist and social-justice movements— from Phule, Ambedkar, and Periyar to a wider constellation that refused to separate material freedom from moral imagination. VTR carried this inheritance with rare ferocity, convinced that words could wound complacency and reorder power itself. Our sensibilities often converge: sharp, unsparing, and distrustful of liberal comfort.

Yet our time asks not for replication but renewal. In an age dense with digital noise and contested truths, fact and conviction must stand beside each other. To continue his work is to expand its terrain—to hold rigour and rebellion in the same breath, to think with discipline and speak with daring.

His voice built a language of assertion; ours must turn it into a shared vocabulary of struggle—one that listens, translates, and travels across movements and generations. The continuity lies not in imitation but in method: to think politically with precision and to write polemically with care. VTR’s words have travelled fast, cut deep, and continue to echo wide; ours must take up that current— not to temper it, but to strike again where silence thickens anew. The task is not only to keep the blade sharp but to remember why it was forged.

In that spirit, Dalit Voice recommits itself to the unfinished work of building a moral and political community of resistance. It stands not merely as a publication but as a living archive and site of struggle—where writing becomes a means to reimagine the world we inhabit. This revival is both homage and wager: an homage to the clarity and courage that made Dalit Voice a force in its time, and a wager that new vocabularies and solidarities can emerge from its return. To inherit VTR’s legacy is to refuse closure—to keep alive the restless, questioning spirit that animated his politics. The task ahead is to write, organize, and think in ways that not only remember that history but extend its possibilities.

Closing Note: Carrying the Voice Forward
Dalit Voice emerges from this continuum of struggle, imagination, and articulation. Each piece that you will read here, from the recovery of history to the renewal of method, reflects a shared conviction: that political voice must evolve with its moment while remaining anchored in liberty, equality, and dignity. The task ahead is to listen as much as to speak, to build vocabularies that hold both dissent and solidarity, and to nurture the moral clarity that VTR once embodied into a collective capacity. In carrying the voice forward, we inherit not only a legacy but a responsibility — to ensure that it multiplies, adapts, and endures wherever silence demands rupture.

Paresh Hate is a Bahujan queer researcher, writer, documenter and activist and the Lead Content Manager at Dalit Voice.