Monthly Archives: September 2016

Dalit Resistance and the Role of the Left

A fundamental and core feature of India’s socio-economic structures is its caste system. Birth and descent determine positions in immutable social hierarchies. When Rohith Vemula penned his tragic yet passionate suicide note he described his Dalit identity as a ‘fatal accident’. And it is true. Had he been born into another caste, he would not as a child has had to witness his mother Radhika facing caste based indignities. Nor would Rohith and his sibling Raja have faced discrimination in [...]

The Poems of Resistance by S. Chandramohan

The post is by Vidya Bhushan Rawat. Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at manukhsi.blogspot.com/. Chandramohan S is an Indian English Dalit poet. He is part of P.K. Rosi foundation, a cultural collective (named after the legendary,pioneering Dalit actress) that seeks to demarginalise Dalit-Bahujans. His latest collection of poems Letters to Namdeo Dhasal is forthcoming. RAPE AND MURDER OF A DALIT GIRL No newspaper carried a headline or a photo feature, No yo[...]

"I have forever been a ‘devil’s advocate’"

An Interview with A. Mangai, author of Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India, 1979 Onwards A. Mangai is the pseudonym of Dr. V. Padma, who teaches English at Stella Maris College, Chennai. She has been actively engaged in the theatre for close to three decades. She writes bilingually in Tamil and English and is also a translator. For LeftWord Books, Mangai has written Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India, 1979 Onwards. In The Hindu, Sruthi Krishnan says of the book that it ‘does not offe[...]