ISSUES OF CONCERN

ISSUES OF CONCERN 

EDUCATE · AGITATE · ORGANISE 

February 2016 NO 7 

CONTENTS 

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 

Caste in India - Evolution & Manifestation 

An Interview with Prof. Anand Teltumbde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 

Regular Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 

About Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Editorial 

Dear reader, 

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar had once said [1] 

- It is usual to hear all those who feel 

moved by the deplorable condition of the 

Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering 

the cry, ‘We must do something for 

the Untouchables.’ One seldom hears any 

of the persons interested in the problem 

saying, ‘Let us do something to change the 

Touchable Hindu.’ It is invariably assumed 

that the object to be reclaimed is the Untouchables. 

If there is to be a mission, 

it must be to the Untouchables and if the 

Untouchables can be cured, untouchability 

will vanish. Nothing requires to be done 

to the Touchable. He is sound in mind, 

manners and morals. He is whole, there is 

nothing wrong with him. Is this assumption 

correct? Whether correct or not, the 

Hindus like to cling to it. The assumption 

has the supreme merit of satisfying themselves 

that they are not responsible for the 

problem of the Untouchables. 

Casteism is not a Dalit problem. 

It is an upper caste problem. It 

is us - upper caste members (among 

the readers as well as among the 

members of CONCERN) - that need to be 

reformed, us that need to be sensitised. 

This is because Casteist discrimination 

perpetrated by upper castes arises from 

blindly following the moral dictates of 

those religious scriptures which sanction 

and perpetuate Casteism, from our 

lack of understanding of Casteism and 

from our unwillingness to see the 

way we perpetuate it - knowingly or 

unknowingly. 

Even in the cases where we don’t 

identify ourselves as being upper caste, 

even if we are irreligious / agnostic 

/ atheist in beliefs, all of us born 

and raised in upper caste families have 

benefited from caste - privilege. This 

is unequivocally true irrespective of 

whether caste privilege is associated with 

economic privilege (most of the times) 

or not. While this does not demean 

the contribution from our individual 

hardwork or talent in the magnitude of 

our accomplishments, it points toward 

a much bigger contributing factor. It is 

the way we get better chances, access 

to resources and exposure because the 

graded inequality created by the caste 

system works in our favor in the form of 

privilege, whether we see it or not. 

This privilege affects the way we 

view and understand ourselves, persons 

from other castes and our relationship 

with them. We rarely understand this 

privilege and its various manifestations, 

much less acknowledge it publicly. This 

is taught neither in schools, nor by 

our parents and is largely suppressed 

in the mainstream culture. Exploring 

our privilege, understanding it and 

acknowledging it, are crucial because 

these steps alone help us understand and 

prevent our role in the oppression of 

Dalit Bahujan members of the society. 

Another reason this understanding 

is missing is that our privilege blinds 

us from it. Unlike Dalit Bahujans, we 

are not the victims of caste oppression 

and this fact gives us the luxury of 

ignoring caste identities whereas for 

them, it is reminded on a daily basis 

through the discrimination they face. In 

addition, privilege skews our lives deeply 

: it limits the spectrum of issues we 

focus on, the culture we get exposed 

to (media, books, films, music etc), the 

kind of food we eat, the social circles 

2 Issues Of CONCERN No. 7 February 2016

we spend time in and finally in the 

persons we marry. This is reflected in 

the matrimonial classifieds even in this 

digital age. A report estimates [2] that 

only 5.3% of weddings in India happen 

out of caste and even lesser % of them 

are between Dalits and NonDalits. Even 

among liberal social circles in India, there 

exists a shadow of Casteism that ranges 

from silence on caste issues to the point 

of excluding Dalits from their spaces. 

For example, a parent of a Gay man 

recently published [3] an advertisement in 

matrimonial classifieds seeking a groom 

for him, with a request - Iyer Preferred. 

with and dies with. Additionally, Caste 

system is very deeply stratified at every 

level. As a result, all the castes that 

occupy the middle of the spectrum play 

the dual role of oppressors and oppressed 

simultaneously. 

A deeper understanding of the issue 

is imperative because, in anti-caste 

struggles, like in most other struggles 

for rights, it is not helpful and is 

often counterproductive to merely 

have good intentions without an 

adequate understanding of the victims’ 

perspective. Only when we fully 

understand the complexities of the Caste 

system through the lens of the victims, 

can we become true allies in the struggle 

towards annihilation of Caste. 

The R word 

A post from Just Savarna Things exposing the 

hypocrisy of liberal Hindus regarding casteism 

This caste privilege and the associated 

hypocrisies of uppercastes are brilliantly 

portrayed by a satirical page Just Savarna 

Things [4] and are explored in other [5] 

articles as well. If any or all of 

these posts irk you, we urge you to 

contemplate the reasons behind your 

discomfort and begin by reading the 

works of Ambedkar, Phule and Periyar 

among others. We, the members 

of CONCERN too have been evolving 

continuously in an understanding of our 

privileges. For instance, the Caste system 

is not a just hierarchy in which hardwork 

and talent will upgrade a person to higher 

castes. It is one that a person is born 

Given the limited space, we can’t cover 

all the aspects of reservation system 

in this edition. However, it should 

be remembered that Caste oppression 

has been in vogue for more than two 

thousand years, where in 100% of the 

jobs in all the sectors until Indian 

independence were reserved for upper 

castes, with shudras and untouchables 

forced to serve them. In comparison 

with that, reservations mandated by the 

constitution of newly independent India 

have lasted for less than 70 years and 

jobs are reserved for oppressed castes 

only in the organized public sector and 

not 100% of all the jobs, but the % of jobs 

reserved is in proportion to their share in 

India’s population. This perspective must 

not be lost while discussing the issue. 

Manifestations of Casteism 

The worst manifestation of Casteism 

is in the form of Dalit massacres by 

upper castes. In the massacres of 

February 2016 Issues Of CONCERN No. 7 3

Kilvenmani [6] (TN), Khairlanji [7] (MH), 

Tsundur [8] (AP) and Laxmanpur Bathe [9] 

(BR) among others, groups of upper 

castes descended upon dalit bahujans 

- raping, murdering and setting their 

bodies and property on fire. This 

is but an extreme and clearly visible 

outcome of centuries old casteism that 

makes upper castes see Dalit assertion 

as an aberration against the natural order 

and use any existing trivial dispute 

as an excuse to restore the natural order 

through violence. 

In addition to these mass murders, 

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 

of India has recorded [10] a steady rise in 

the individual cases of rape and violence 

against dalits, numbering to more than 

47,000 in the year 2014 alone. These 

numbers are even more shocking if we 

add the number of such cases that often 

go unreported or in the instances where 

the police have refused to register the 

case. 

Such horrific atrocities have repeated 

many times in India because the 

overwhelming majority of the personnel 

in the police & judiciary share this 

casteist outlook. This is reflected in the 

way the aftermath of these incidents 

- police investigation and the further 

judicial process - bore a clear dominating 

influence of Casteism at every step and 

thwarted justice to the victims’ kith and 

kin. The role of caste in the investigative 

and judicial process after dalit massacres 

was exposed [11] in detail by author 

Meena Kandasamy in a lecture - No one 

killed the Dalits. 

This absolute impunity is further 

aided by the fact that even the other 

pillars of democracy - legislature, 

executive and the fourth pillar - media 

are filled with members that possess 

a casteist outlook whether they are 

conscious of it or not. As per a 

report [12] there is not a single dalit or 

adivasi person in a list of over 300 

decision-makers in the media. 

In addition to violent attacks, dalit 

bahujans face [13] discrimination in many 

aspects of their daily lives in various 

forms in professional and cultural spaces. 

In a study [14] , three identical resumes 

were prepared, one with an upper caste 

surname and the other two with Dalit 

and muslim surnames. These resumes 

were sent as applicants to advertisements 

for jobs in the private sector. For 

every ten resumes with the forward 

caste surname chosen for an interview, 

only six with Dalit surnames and three 

with Muslim surnames were chosen. 

While this is the situation at entry-level 

employment, even in the composition of 

boards of directors of corporate bodies, it 

is shown [15] that 90.6% of the members 

belong to two castes only - Brahmin & 

Vaishya. 

London, Oct 19 th 2013 - A 

Demonstration [16] to end Caste Discrimination 

Casteism is so entrenched in our 

psyche that it is practised [17] by 

Indians abroad as well. When Dalit 

associations protested against the same, 

UK government passed a landmark 

legislation [18] in April 2011 that bans 

caste based discrimination and abuse. A 

plethora of such documented instances 


of Casteist discrimination & abuse burst 

the myth that caste is a thing of the past. 

The recent suicide [19] of research 

scholar Rohith Vemula at University 

of Hyderabad is but a direct result 

of discrimination he faced at every 

level from childhood, exasperated by 

casteist abuse of power by the university 

administration and the Ministry of 

Human Resource Development (MHRD). 

This abuse of power became evident once 

more when a committee constituted by 

MHRD gave [20] a clean chit to MHRD and 

indicted the university administration 

alone. 

In the last seven years, in the 

University of Hyderabad alone, nine 

research scholars have committed [21] 

suicide and all of them were Dalits 

or were from backward castes. Such 

incidents will keep repeating in the 

future because the oppression is 

systemic. In 2011, Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat 

committee made [22] recommendations to 

the University Grants Commission (UGC) 

to address discrimination in institutes 

of higher education and provided 

guidelines to nurture the careers of 

students and teachers who belong to 

marginalized communities. In the five 

years since the report was submitted, 

there is little to no response from most 

of the individual universities that come 

under UGC, a fact that did not propel 

the central governments - previous and 

current - into action. 

This state of systemic oppression is 

best described by the term Brahminical 

Fascism which has a suffocating grip on 

all the pillars of Indian democracy as 

well as every nook and corner of popular 

culture. It should be noted that this 

term doesn’t imply that the members of 

a single caste are fascists but denotes 

the entire mechanism and set up of 

casteist discrimination and the resultant 

power differential that is sustained and 

pepetuated by all the non-dalit members 

of society by their views, words and 

actions in their roles in different sectors 

of the country. 

Delhi, 23 rd Feb: Thousands marched [23],[24] in 

a rally demanding justice for Rohith Vemula 

In such a society, the words [25] of 

Babasaheb Ambedkar ring true even 

today - Turn any direction, Caste is the 

monster that encounters your path. You 

cannot have political reform, you cannot 

have economic reform, unless you kill this 

monster. 

In such an overwhelming presence 

and influence of Caste, any analysis of 

Indian society should center around it. 

In a tiny step towards facilitating an 

understanding of Caste and the struggle 

to end casteism, we have brought this 

edition of Issues Of CONCERN that hopes 

to introduce an overall picture of Caste 

in India at a basic level to the readers. 

We hope this will be an enlightening and 

educative experience for the readers, just 

as it has been for all of us who were 

involved in its production. We wish you 

a thought provoking reading! 

- Team, Issues Of CONCERN. 


Caste in India - Evolution & Manifestation 

An Interview with Prof. Anand Teltumbde 

PRofessor Anand Teltumbde [26] is a 

management professional, writer, 

civil rights activist and political analyst. 

He is the author of The Persistence of 

Caste: The Khairlanji Murders & India’s 

Hidden Apartheid and other books on 

Caste and Class in India. He is currently 

a faculty in the Vinod Gupta School of 

Management at IIT Kharagpur. CON- 

CERN interviewed Prof. Teltumbde over 

email on Casteism in India. 

Do you agree with an assessment that 

most institutes of higher education, 

particularly among the Science & Technology 

disciplines, have been apolitical? 

What is the reason for this? 

It is not quite correct. In the late 

1960s the radical politics firstly took 

roots in elite engineering colleges of the 

country. The then Regional Engineering 

Colleges (currently called NITs) had 

become the centers of radical student 

politics. Many naxalite leaders came 

from these colleges. Even IITs did not 

remain unaffected. It is not difficult to 

explain this phenomenon. Science and 

technology (S&T) students are relatively 

more sincere, focused, objective, and 

have prowess for rational thinking. They 

tend to look at the world around from the 

same analytical viewpoint as they do the 

physical world. The theories of Marxism 

with their scientific method and promise 

of change are more likely to appeal to 

them than to others. 

However, on the other side there 

is a stronger lure of better career if 

they persist in their studies. The 

opportunity cost of radical politics rises 

with the risk associated with radical 

politics. The horrific repression the 

naxalite movement suffered in Bengal 

and then in other parts of the country 

generally created a scare wave that 

multiplied this cost. The rational 

thinking that impels them to radical 

politics also dissuade them away from it. 

Later, after the advent of 

neoliberalism, things changed for worse. 

The collapse of Soviet block and reversal 

in China in intervening times weakened 

the appeal of Marxism. Neoliberalism 

subtly worked in, pulverizing society 

into discreet individuals who would 

be increasingly vulnerable with rising 

crisis engendered by its social Darwinist 

policies. There was euphoria in 

corporate world with the rise of new 


sectors of economy enabled by new 

technologies. The good students 

with S&T background were promised 

irrationally high salary packages. It 

thus increased the opportunity cost 

manifold with simultaneous risks of 

repression by the neoliberal state. It is 

therefore that the S&T campuses appear 

apolitical. As a matter of fact, not 

only the S&T campuses but almost all 

campuses have been depoliticized over 

the years. Campus politics is virtually 

decimated during the neoliberal era. 

Actually, campuses of higher 

education institutions are not the 

factories to feed corporate mills with 

inert human resource tutored in various 

things to run the businesses as ongoing 

entities. They are supposed to equip 

students with critical faculties to make 

them discern right and wrong to shoulder 

the larger responsibility towards human 

society as citizens. This can only be 

accomplished through campus politics. 

How has Caste evolved in modern India? 

Were the independence and the 

Mandal Commission landmarks in this 

process? 

Where from does the modern India 

start? I think we can reckon it from the 

establishment of British colonial rule in 

India. Momentous changes befell during 

the colonial rule in the context of castes. 

Capitalism came to India piggy-backing 

it. While purely from their own colonial 

logic, the British undertook massive 

infrastructure (roads, railways, ports, 

communication network, urbanization, 

etc.) and institution (police, justice 

system, taxation system, etc.) building, it 

hugely impacted the Hindu social order. 

Marx for instance saw at the time of 

introduction of railway network that it 

would lead to collapse of the decadent 

structures like castes. Many people 

lament that he was proved wrong but I 

think otherwise. The spread of capitalism 

did have debilitating impact on castes 

in as much as it killed associated ritual 

notions of castes among the communities 

that came in contact with capitalism. 

The dwija castes in urban centers 

that adopted capitalist (mercantile or 

industrial or both) entrepreneurship, 

found caste exclusion a hurdle in their 

business relationship and slowly adjusted 

to ignore them. It needs to be noted that 

castes emulate the advanced sections 

within; the latter determine the laws and 

valency of customs. While not all dwija 

castemen became capitalists, following 

their leaders, they also came to discard 

rigid ritual notions of castes. The colonial 

regime proved a veritable boon to the 

lower castes, particularly Dalits, which 

were one of the important pivots of the 

caste system. The entire articulation 

of Dalits and their movement could be 

attributed to the changes that happened 

during the colonial regime. 

A school [27] for "Untouchables" 

near Bangalore, Mar 1935 

With the entry of the British in India, 

Dalits got opportunities to get into their 

employment as domestic servants, and 

military men. The latter proved vastly 

liberatory as it enabled them to realize 

their military prowess. They won many 

battles for British. Symbolically, the 


credit for the ultimate defeat of Peshwai 

at the battle of Bhima-Koregaon that 

established the British empire goes to 

the bravery of the Dalit soldiers. This 

helped them to discard the internalized 

notion of inferiority instilled by the 

Hindu social order of centuries and 

germinate the consciousness of human 

right. They also immensely benefitted 

from education customarily provided 

by the British to their armymen. For 

the civilian population, the Christian 

missionaries did the job. When the 

infrastructure projects began dotting 

the newly come up urban centers like 

Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai, etc. Dalits 

benefitted immensely in exiting their 

bonded existence in villages. They 

accomplished significant economical 

progress to constitute a class of incipient 

middle class which could articulate 

liberation of the Dalits. Dr Ambedkar, 

himself could be seen as the product of 

this process. 

While these changes took place in 

urban centers, the vast rural India 

remained largely unaffected. It would 

undergo change only after the transfer 

of power. The changes wrought during 

the post-1947 period, according to 

me, are unparalleled in the history of 

India. It overhauled entire configuration 

of the country. But these changes 

unfortunately were driven in negative 

direction with regard to casteism and 

communalism and their victims like 

Dalits and minorities. 

The new ruling classes in the 

Congress Party feigning concern for 

people, worked for the interests of the 

incipient bourgeoisie whom they truly 

represented. The entire process of 

transfer of power including the partition 

of the country was worked in collusion 

with the British/American imperialism. 

The constitution making also was a part 

of this schema with its liberal façade that 

would permit near communist rule at the 

one end and at the other, total Fascism. 

Association of Babasaheb Ambedkar as 

its chief architect also was a feat of 

deceitful stratagem in this schema. 

A banner outside the 2012 Republican 

National Convention in the USA depicts [28] 

one of the quotes of Martin Luther King, Jr 

The new ruling classes created 

an impression of socialist leaning but 

actually drove everything to serve the 

capitalist interests. They announced five 

year plan, thereby projecting emulation 

of Soviet Russia, but actually borrowed 

its content from the Bombay Plan 

prepared by eight of the then prominent 

capitalists in the country, which was 

earlier publicly disapproved by Nehru. 

They undertook land reforms, seemingly 

in keeping with the promises of the 

freedom struggle, but implemented them 

in such a way as to create a class of 

rich farmers in rural India which would 

be an ally of the central ruling party 

as well as feeding the growing hunger 

of capitalist for raw materials. The 

slogans like ‘land to the tillers’ created 

an impression of pro-people policies but 

they were actually needed to maintain 

political stability for the prosperity of 

capitalists. The actual tillers among 

Dalits did not get land with an alibi that 

they did not figure as tenants in records 

and lands were given to the shudra 


caste famers. The Green Revolution, a 

capitalist strategy to enhance agricultural 

productivity followed close on the hills 

of the half baked land reforms, enriching 

the newly created class of farmers from 

among the shudra caste band. History 

shows that the class emerges dominant 

and constitutes a state. It was for the first 

time that the state came first and created 

its congenial class. 

Inauguration ceremony [29] of Kilvenmani 

martyr’s memorial in Nagapattinam (2014) 

(left); A statue of commemoration (right) 

The upper caste landlords having 

left villages, the baton of Brahmanism 

came into the hands of these rich 

farmers. The Green Revolution catalysed 

the spread of capitalist relations through 

the advent of various markets for input, 

output, implement, service, credit, etc. 

leading to collapse of the traditional 

jajmani (or such other) relations of 

interdependence. Moreover, the change 

in caste configuration of the village 

would be further detrimental to Dalits 

because unlike the erstwhile upper 

castes lords of the village the newly 

dominant caste was most populous. The 

Dalits were reduced to be pure rural 

proletariat utterly dependent on the farm 

wages from the rich farmers. The 

resultant class contradiction between the 

Dalit farm labourers and rich farmers 

began manifesting through the familiar 

fault-lines of caste into what I call the 

new genre of caste atrocities. They 

were the product of growing cultural 

consciousness among Dalits and the 

material oppression they faced in newly 

configured village. As we know, it 

first erupted in Kilvenmani in Tamilnadu, 

where 44 women and children of Dalit 

farm labourers were burnt alive by the 

landlords and their henchmen in 1968. 

These atrocities would soon 

spread all over and assume menacing 

proportion. Caste atrocities, which 

could be taken as proxy for casteism, 

did not show any definitive trend until 

1980s, but after 1990, it clearly depicts a 

secular rising trend. The National Crime 

Research Bureau (NCRB) shows their rise 

from 33507 in 2001 to 47,064 in 2014. 

The rising agrarian crisis in rural India 

due to neoliberal policies and growing 

cultural assertion of Dalits has been the 

major cause for this phenomenon. 

The newly created class of rich 

farmers indeed worked as an ally 

of the Congress Party. They began 

investing their growing surplus into 

petty businesses like cold storages, 

processing units like dal mill, rice 

mill, oil mill; transport, contracting, 

etc. With growing enrichment they 

developed their own political ambition 

and began hard bargaining the share 

of political power and economic 

concessions from the ruling party. Soon, 

it manifested in emergence of regional 

parties threatening the monopoly of the 

Congress. With increasing competition, 

the importance of the vote blocks in the 

prevailing first-past-the-post (FPTP) type 

of election system went on increasing. 

Since such blocks existed in the form 

of castes and communities, in turn, the 

political parties began wooing them. 

Out of these castes, Dalits accounting 

for some 16 - 17 % votes were the 

most vulnerable and hence relatively 

cheaply available for manipulation. This 


process of wooing Dalits by the political 

parties added to the existing grudge in 

the larger society. One can distinctly 

observe the co-optation of Dalit leaders, 

decimation of independent Dalit politics, 

building up of ‘Ambedkar icon’ as the 

manipulative tool and aggravating their 

vulnerability by unleashing atrocities 

happening simultaneously. 

This process further led to 

consolidation of the non-Dalit castes. 

The process of collapse of dwija castes 

through decimation of ritual aspects 

of castes extended to the upper class 

layer of the shudra castes as they 

increasingly involved in political and 

business transactions. With the caste ties, 

the shudra bandwagon also in course got 

hitched to the diwja bandwagon, thereby 

creating a virtual non-Dalit block. The 

Mandal Commission also could be 

seen as the manifestation of growing 

empowerment of the backward (shudra) 

castes. This process transformed castes 

into a simple class like configuration of 

Dalits and non-Dalits. 

Alongside, one must note that the 

intrigues around castes played out in 

the making of the Constitution. The 

Constituent Assembly had unanimously 

decided to outlaw untouchability with 

the cheers of Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai 

but skilfully preserved castes with a 

convoluted alibi that it wanted to 

provide for social justice for the lower 

castes. Everybody knew that all upper 

caste reformers, best represented by 

Gandhi, were embarrassed by the 

inhuman custom of untouchability 

and wanted it to go but none spoke 

unequivocally about annihilation of 

castes. Therefore, there was nothing 

surprising about them outlawing 

untouchability. However, untouchability 

was an integral manifestation of castes 

and could never disappear as long as 

castes survived. As such nothing really 

happened by outlawing untouchability. 

It is being rampantly practiced as the 

surveys after survey right from 1950s to 

just the previous day, NCAER (National 

Council of Applied Economic Research) 

report, reveals. Castes instead of being 

annihilated were given a new lease of life 

in the Constitution. As is known the alibi 

was to provide for the reservations. 

PM - Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru signing [30] 

a copy of the Indian Constitution (1950) 

When the colonial rulers instituted 

reservation policy in favour of Dalits, 

it, although not described in so 

many words, had a basic feature of 

being an exceptional policy measure 

for exceptional people. When the 

transfer of power took place, could this 

policy be discontinued? Although the 

theoretical answer to this question could 

be affirmative, none having political 

acumen could say so. Politically, it would 

have been the riskiest folly on the part 

of the rulers. If so, the reservations 

were not to be freshly instituted; 

they were principally stabilized in the 

colonial times. More importantly, the 

colonial powers, despite their zest for 

marshaling everything to serve their 

divide and rule strategy, had created 

an administrative category of ‘scheduled 

caste’ to supersede the religion-ordained 

caste of the Untouchables. There 


was a clear opportunity for the new 

ruling classes, who took over from 

the British, to outlaw castes too. But 

they hoodwinked people outlawing only 

untouchability. They had not stopped at 

that; they diluted it by extending it to 

potentially all and sundry. They created 

a separate schedule for the tribals to have 

ditto provisions of the scheduled castes. 

Notwithstanding the lack of foolproof 

criteria to identify people in this schedule 

for tribes, they could have been merged 

into the existing schedule (suitably 

renaming it) and thereby diluted the 

caste stigma associated with the schedule 

for Dalits (because the tribals did not 

have caste). They haven’t even stopped 

at that. They would create a vague 

provision that the state would identify 

the ‘backward classes’ (read castes) so as 

to extend similar provisions in future. It 

verily amounted to constructing a can of 

caste worms the lid of which could be 

opened at an opportune time in future 

as the Prime Minister VP Singh did in 

1990. The entire schema about castes 

being kept alive comes out clear when 

we see similar scheming around religion, 

the other weapon to divide people. 

VP Singh, Prime Minister of India (1990) [31] 

The Constitution scrupulously 

avoided the term ‘secular’ that could 

create a separating wall between religion 

and politics with an alibi to have space 

for the state to carry out religion-related 

reforms. The only reform that one could 

imagine was in the form of passing 

the Commission of Sati (Prevention) 

Act, 1987 in the wake of burning of 

Roop Kanwar on her husband’s pyre. 

It is important to understand these 

matters because they directly cross the 

emancipation agenda of Dalits. The 

answer to the second part of your 

question is thus yes. 

The post-independence ruling classes 

had overtaken the colonial masters 

in treachery. Castes, instead of an 

opportunity to annihilate as explained, 

were given a new lease of life. They have 

used the colonial policy but mutilated 

it in such a way as to forge a 

powerful weapon out of it. The Mandal 

Commission was a part of this schema. 

It was, as I said, a can of caste worms. 

Its implementation led to re-castization 

of society. The reservations for Dalits 

and Adivasis were almost normalized but 

the Mandal reservations opened up the 

entire issue of reservations and brought 

the reservations of Dalits into question. 

It was a mix of age old prejudice against 

Dalits as ‘inferior’ people, accentuated 

by their cultural assertion, and the 

perceived favour of the state which grew 

as the electoral competition increased 

by the late 1960s. The reservation 

became an open ended policy which 

could be granted to any caste if it could 

prove to be ‘socially and educationally’ 

backward. The agitations of castes broke 

out everywhere demanding reservations 

as the OBCs or the Scheduled Tribes but 

never as the Scheduled caste, proving 

thereby the salience of castes. The 

political parties promoted it to garner 

votes in elections. 

How does Casteism differ in Urban & 

Rural spaces? 

Caste has been a life - world of people 


which adapts to its surroundings like any 

organic life. The urban setting is not 

amenable to the kind of observance of 

castes as in remote villages where one 

confronts its crude forms. Largely, caste 

remains at the level of prejudice. 

As stated above, the castes have 

been reduced to simple class like divide 

between Dalits and non-Dalits. Among 

non-Dalits it stays as cultural residue 

sans any ritual sense. But it is more 

pronounced at the classical kink in the 

caste continuum dividing Dalits and 

non-Dalits. Over the decades, Dalits 

have made significant progress, thanks 

to reservations. Although minuscule 

compared to their population, this class 

became visible in cities and towns. 

Urban spaces [32] are not immune to Casteism 

The operation of castes, however, 

presents a complex pattern. It is seen that 

the salience of castes is often associated 

with the material aspects. It depends 

upon options available. For example, 

in situation of supply constraints, Dalits 

are accepted as in the IT sector. They 

may, however, be marked down vis-à-vis 

their counterpart. The phenomenon is 

commonly seen in our elite institutions, 

where Dalit students are picked up 

readily but generally marked down 

vis-à-vis their non-Dalit counterpart. The 

explanatory variables to some extent are 

cultural attributes that the Dalit students 

do not reflect the class upbringing that 

the recruiters expect but the influence 

of caste also plays a part. There is 

a tacit association of inferiority with 

Dalits. These days the second and 

third generation Dalit students appear 

to perform as good as any other in 

admission tests. But it is commonly seen 

that in personal interviews they are never 

given good marks because of the bias that 

if they are given marks they deserved, 

they would come into open merit and 

deprive a general category seat. I have 

experienced this play of prejudice all 

through my career. 

In organizations, particularly the 

public sector undertakings (PSUs) where 

Dalits land up for security reasons, a 

different kind of dynamics plays out. The 

PSUs are monitored for their compliance 

with the statutory provisions for the 

SCs/STs in terms of numbers. As 

anywhere, the discrimination is often 

associated with other secular factors. A 

Dalit employee who is more pliable is 

preferred and elevated as a demo-piece 

to demonstrate non-discriminatory 

treatment of Dalit employees. They 

are used as official representatives of 

their caste as required by the policy to 

validate actions of the management. It 

helps management to size up assertive 

Dalit employees. Since a favoured Dalit 

employee would be extra-beholden to 

his managers, it serves the interests of 

the latter even in manipulative practices. 

It is simplistic therefore to talk about 

caste discrimination being only due to 

caste without reference to other factors. 

Caste may be understood as premium 

or discount over the base price. The 

Brahman gets a premium and Dalit gets 

discounted. In societal matters, it varies 

with the scale of economic prosperity; 

the upper layer facing lesser of prejudice 

and the bottom ones more. Many inter 


caste marriages have happened; typically 

well placed Dalit boys marrying upper 

caste girls (scarcely vice versa) but it has 

not necessarily led to social assimilation. 

The caste in rural areas operates 

at varied intensity, from mere prejudice 

to crudest form. In normal course, 

the village community appears tranquil, 

really reflecting friendly relations. The 

tranquility lasts until Dalits abide by their 

space and do not intrude upon others as 

ordained by tradition. The moment they 

question this understanding, the problem 

starts. 

How do the constructs Caste & Class interact? 

Is it possible to successfully integrate 

Caste into Class? 

This duality of caste and class frankly 

amuses me. It is all right to speak 

and distinguish them at theoretical or 

conceptual level but not so when one is 

looking at a society from the perspective 

of bringing about change. If one uses 

class in Marxian sense then one has to 

mind that classes are defined in relation 

to ones place in the production system. 

Contrary to commonplace notion classes 

are not economic but subsume whole 

hog of things. Marx did not define 

class as he left many other things also 

undefined. But Lenin confronted the 

problem and had to give definition. 

His definition says: “Classes are large 

groups of people differing from each 

other by the place they occupy in a 

historically determined system of social 

production, by their relation (in most 

cases fixed and formulated by law) to 

the means of production, by their role 

in the social organisation of labour, and, 

consequently, by the dimensions of the 

share of social wealth of which they 

dispose and their mode of acquiring 

it". To what extent does this definition 

apply to castes? One would find 

that to a large extent castes can be 

viewed as classes. The only problem 

is that classically castes are numerous 

and would render themselves useless if 

considered as classes. However, many 

castes can be co-located in terms of 

their relations to labour and means 

of production. And this way it is 

possible to subsume castes within classes. 

Classes eventually should enable you 

to see contradiction and articulate class 

struggle. 

Strength in Solidarity (1917) - A cartoon [33] 

Castes are the all encompassing 

life-world of people and cannot be left 

out in class analysis. There cannot 

be dual categories in Marxian theory. 

The notion of pure classes is erroneous. 

Classes are to be conceived in concrete 

conditions. They cannot confirm to 

theory and would have traces of other 

modes of production, which I termed in 

one of my books as hybrid mode. It is the 

dominant mode that would decides the 

major classes in contradiction. With this 

methodology, the classes corresponding 

to the dominant capitalist mode will 

have castes embedded within them and 

would warrant anti-caste struggles to be 

embedded within the class struggle. 

How do you compare and / or contrast 

Casteism with Racism? 

If you ask me whether race is caste 


purely academically, then my answer 

is no. As Ambedkar concluded, there 

is no racial difference across castes in 

India; all Indians belonged to same 

racial stock. Castes have essentially their 

origin in tribal identities, superimposed 

by hierarchical social structure which 

is fortified by religious ideology. Over 

the years they became the life-world of 

people. Castes, rather caste system, 

have evolved into a very intricate 

system, with cybernetic characteristics of 

self-organizing and self regulating, which 

explains their longevity. In contrast, race 

is essentially biological and is marked by 

the hereditary transmission of physical 

characteristics. 

Racial diversity of Asia’s peoples, 

from Nordisk familjebok [34] (1904) 

Race is discerned in terms of gene 

frequencies differing between groups in 

the human species. Scientific research 

shows that the genes responsible for the 

hereditary differences between humans 

are extremely few as compared with the 

vast number of genes common to all 

human beings regardless of the race to 

which they belong. As there is as much 

genetic variation among the members 

of any given race as there is between 

different racial groups, the concept of 

race is dismissed as unscientific. Races 

arose as a result of mutation, selection, 

and adaptational changes in human 

populations. The nature of genetic 

variation in human beings indicates 

there has been a common evolution for 

all races and that racial differentiation 

occurred relatively late in the history of 

Homo sapiens. Theories postulating very 

early emergence of racial differentiation 

stand scientifically refuted. Thus, there 

is nothing natural in both race as well as 

caste. 

Attempts were made to classify 

humans since the 17 th century as an 

extension of classification of flora and 

fauna. From that they began attributing 

cultural and psychological values to the 

‘racial’ groups and evolved theories of 

superiority of races. This approach, 

called racism, culminated in the vicious 

racial doctrines of Nazi Germany, and 

especially in anti-Semitism. Castes, 

originally the innocuous tribal identities 

while settling from the nomadic phase to 

settled agriculture, came to become the 

ranked groups based on heredity within 

rigid systems of social stratification when 

the varna system was overlain on the 

society. As tribal identities itself they 

were in huge number unlike races spread 

over the vast area of subcontinent. With 

hierarchized notion, their number swell 

to such an extent that any determinate 

ordering became impossible, giving rise 

to invisible contentions between castes 

for superiority with others in vicinity and 

in turn preserving the macro structure 

of castes. Thus there is a difference 

between race and caste for sure. 

Casteism & Racism 

But when it comes to racism and 

casteism, which are the systems of 

discriminations, the difference collapses. 

Both involve inequality and prejudice 

based on birth and descent. Both 


are covered under the broader social 

rubric of identity. Both are ascribed 

and hereditary identity. While racism 

emphasizes skin colour or some other 

physical feature, the casteism stresses 

hierarchy based on birth with supposed 

religious and social justification. Their 

practice in daily life is reflected in 

differential treatment, discrimination 

and prejudice against people who do 

not form part of one’s coherent and 

homogeneous social groups/community 

(race or caste). Thus, on salient 

parameters of practice, both the systems 

appear similar. 

Promotional poster [35] for 

World Conference Against Racism, 2001 

The issue whether caste and race 

could be equated flared up during the 

World Conference Against Racism, Racial 

Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related 

Intolerance (WCAR), organised by the 

United Nations in Durban in 2001. Since 

there is no UN forum on castes, the 

Dalit groups collected there contended 

that caste discrimination also should be 

included in the conference. India had 

signed and ratified the convention in 

1969 but had not yet given accession 

and succession. According to Article 

1 of the Convention, the term ‘racial 

discrimination’ meant ‘any distinction, 

exclusion, restriction or preference based 

on race, colour, descent, or national 

or ethnic origin which has the purpose 

or effect of nullifying or impairing the 

recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on 

an equal footing, of human rights and 

fundamental freedoms in the political, 

economic, social, cultural or any other 

field of public life.’ 

The stand of the government was 

that while it is committed to eliminating 

discrimination in all forms, it did 

not consider caste as part of ‘racial 

discrimination’. The government as well 

as its sponsored intellectuals claimed 

that ‘caste is not race’, and that ‘caste 

is not based on descent’. They were 

wrong. It was not a question of race 

and caste being equal, the issue was 

whether racism and casteism, the praxis 

of them, were equal or not. The answer 

is unequivocal yes. 

How did most political parties deal 

with Casteism - right from Dalit massacres 

(such as Khairlanji), all the way 

to Subtle Discrimination? 

For political parties, as explained above, 

caste has been the staple food. No 

political party participating in Indian 

elections, which are based on the FPTP 

system, can ignore castes. Not even the 

parliamentary communist parties could 

really ignore the caste arithmetic. The 

caste arithmetic includes all kind of 

dynamics depending on the situation. 

It includes promoting consolidation of 

castes as well as splitting them; it may 


e supporting castes and also opposing 

them. 

Caste atrocities provide them great 

opportunity to show concern for the 

Dalits. All political parties rush to mark 

their presence. But thereafter the pure 

politics starts. As I explained in my 

book on Khairlanji, the main perpetrators 

of atrocity had a backing of BJP and 

NCP politicians. At the ground level the 

contradiction between the ruling class 

parties vanish and in contrast, it surfaces 

among the ruled ones, especially dalit 

parties. Both the BJP and NCP had varied 

influence over the state functionaries 

connected with the incident. They 

ensured initially that the incident is 

suppressed. Then they coloured it to 

show as though it was an affair of illicit 

relationship, suppressing the caste of the 

victims. Then they projected it to be 

the case of moral outrage of innocent 

villagers against the defiance of a woman 

that unfortunately culminated in killings 

of her and children. 

When the public agitation 

exposed the incident, and forced the 

investigation, the parties managed to 

take out the main culprits and get 

the dummies in. During the trial, it 

was ensured that the Atyachar Samiti’s 

proposal for nominating their public 

prosecutor was not accepted and one 

of their poster boys, Ujwal Nikam, was 

nominated as public prosecutor. They 

drove the trial to produce a ‘design 

judgement’ to assuage the public opinion 

but simultaneously ensured that the 

case is weakened. The judgement 

firstly denied that the case had a caste 

dimension, there was any assault on 

modest of women and even a criminal 

conspiracy behind the crime. It is 

even known to school boy that the 

incident was a caste atrocity; it could 

be clearly discerned from history of past 

clashes that caste prejudice against the 

Bhotmanges was the main reason. The 

naked women’s bodies found out by 

people had bruise marks all over and 

injuries to their genitals, which proved 

that they were sexually assaulted. And, 

the criminal conspiracy was writ large 

all over since the incident of beating of 

Siddharth Gajbhiye took place. 

Having denied all the substantial 

grounds of the case, the court had 

awarded six people with death penalty 

and two with life imprisonment. Any 

sensible person could understand that 

after painting the incident like a 

road accident, the death penalty was 

unwarranted. It would not stand in 

the higher court when it goes there 

for validation. But the Dalit party 

celebrated it. Expectedly the High Court 

did exactly that, commuted deaths to life 

imprisonment. 

The Bombay High Court [36] 

Dalit politicians see the atrocities as 

their opportunity to bargain out with the 

ruling class political parties. Dalits look 

forward to them for support but they 

strike deals and betray them. This is not 

the lone incident, in most cases of caste 

atrocities, this dynamics can be noted in 

varying degree. So, all political parties 

including those of Dalits prey upon the 

caste atrocities like vultures to maximize 


their gains. It is not a moral problem but 

a systemic one. The electoral system that 

we adopted for our politics promotes this 

behaviors. 

What has been the role of mainstream 

media in the same? 

Mainstream media’s role is determined 

by its objective of profitability; outlook, 

which it inherits from the larger society; 

and limitations of the people coming 

from upper caste/class backgrounds. 

There is a little difference along these 

dimensions between the vernacular and 

English media. The electronic media 

because of its format and reach, turns 

out to be worse. The overall role they 

play shows gross apathy, lack of empathy, 

and often times discriminative treatment 

of caste issues. 

Nirbhaya Movement (22 nd December 2012): 

Students protest [37] at Raisina Hill in New 

Delhi against the rising violence on women 

Nearly 45,000 caste atrocities 

take place in the country as per the 

NCRB, which compiles the data coming 

from police records. Now anyone 

who has little knowledge of caste 

operation in villages can see the degree 

of understament embedded in these 

statistics. Scholars opine that they be 

scaled up by a factor of 10 to 100 

for a realistic picture. The bare figure 

itself should be shocking enough but 

we scarcely see their reflection beyond 

the local media. When an incident 

of rape and killing of a Delhi middle 

class girl took place, the media had 

run a campaign over several days and 

brought about massive turnout of people 

in support of ‘Nirbhaya’. But as this 

campaign was on, there were at least 

three similar cases of rape and killing 

took place on Dalit girls in vicinity of 

Delhi but they went totally unnoticed. 

Such bias is pervasive in media. 

In the context of Khairlanji, the 

indifference and bias of media was 

exposed by some journalists themselves. 

A senior journalist - Rakshit Sonawane 

- had admitted that there was no 

serious media reportage on Khairlanji for 

about a month. Political parties and 

the media woke up to the Khairlanji 

massacre only when the agitation broke 

out in Vidarbha. The Delhi based 

electronic media, which had carried 

out a tenacious campaign in respect of 

Jessica Lal Murder and Priyadarshani 

Mattoo case, and catalysed a powerful 

movement of protest against the corrupt 

Police force and forced the Delhi police to 

reopen the case and send the accused to 

jail, did nothing about Khairlanji beyond 

some news channels customarily flashing 

the news in its bottom bar. Shahrukh 

khan’s 40th birthday was more important 

to it than this, one of the most horrific 

incidents ever. The television channels 

woke up only when shaken out of their 

slumber by the agitating Dalits. For quite 

some time the coverage was shoddy and 

sans passion that was seen in the above 

mentioned campaigns. 

A content analysis of their 

programme could easily reveal ‘the 

underlying social perceptions and 

political motives around the issue of 

atrocities’. Yogesh Pawar of NDTV had 

confirmed that the initial response of 

television was to treat it like a crime 

story. It was only when he spoke to other 


Dalits in the village that he got a sense 

of the true story. While the story moved 

from being a crime story to be a law and 

order story, it was still not treated as a 

story of caste atrocity. 

Why do media ignore 

Caste / Dalit issues? 

Apart from the prejudice media people 

share with the larger society, there 

are other reasons too. The media 

is concerned with their readership/TRP 

(television rating points) that brings 

them advertising revenue. Gone are 

the days when media was considered 

as missionary activity. Even when they 

became corporate long back and was 

concerned as business, there was an 

element of moral responsibility displayed 

by them from a long term perspective. 

They did know that their long term 

profitability was hinged onto credibility 

which they could not afford to damage. 

Indian Newspapers for sale [38] 

at a vendors shop in New Delhi 

But in the neoliberal era, which 

almost killed the long term, and brought 

in ‘here and now’ approach to things, 

the media ceased to bother what is 

not instantly profitable. They would 

therefore go after sensation and care 

for what appeals to their reader/viewer 

segment. Who is interested in caste/Dalit 

issue? Dalits are largely low educated or 

may not even have television to watch. 

So they could be ignored. Caste issues 

could be shown but when it has aspects 

of interests to others. For instance, 

reservation evokes general interest and 

hence often gets written on or discussed. 

With the advent of some Dalit channels 

and Dalit papers, of late the mainstream 

media perhaps realized that there is a 

significant numbers of Dalits who are 

educated and who have television and 

increased their dose of Dalit news. But 

the general prejudice against Dalits still 

dampen their coverage and quality of 

content. 

In your view, what are the biggest hurdles 

in annihilating the caste system? 

The biggest hurdle in annihilation of 

caste is the political system that we 

have. As explained above, the castes 

were considerably weakened under the 

onslaught of capitalist relations. As 

a matter of fact left to themselves 

they could have further weakened 

and eventually rendered themselves 

irrelevant. But paradoxically, taking 

shelter under the Dalit argument, they 

were consecrated into the constitution 

with an alibi to institute social justice 

measures. As explained earlier, it was 

not an innocent act but an act with full 

design. The reservation is an exception 

to the general principle of equality 

and should be sparingly and diligently 

designed. It needs to be designed so 

as to act against the circumstances that 

warranted it. From this perspective if one 

looked at reservations that are in vogue, 

the colonial institution of them in favour 

of the Dalits appears fulfilling at least the 

first condition. 

There could not be an argument 

that the Dalits who were socially 


excluded for centuries did not qualify 

to be an exceptional people to warrant 

exceptional policy measure. As a matter 

of fact, it was accepted by the larger 

society. The second condition warrants 

formulation of policy in such a way that 

it would hit at the root of the problem. 

This formulation was obvious but never 

paid attention to. If the reservations 

were projected as an antidote for the 

disability of the society to treat its 

own members with equity, the society 

would be motivated to overcome it and 

end the reservation. But it is made 

out that the Dalits were backward and 

needed a helping hand of the state for 

coming up to the normal level. It 

naturally provokes adverse reactions that 

why should the society of ‘meritorious 

persons’ be made to subsidize or support 

the ‘unmeritorious’ ones. Worse, it 

endorses the age-old prejudices that the 

Dalits are inherently backward. The 

reservations in this form also appear 

perpetual because of its premise as well 

as absence of any statement on its 

terminability. 

Prof. Teltumbde - after speaking 

at an event [39] organized by Ambedkar 

Periyar Study Circle, IIT - Madras (2015) 

But whatever positive attributes this 

colonial policy possessed were mutilated 

and reservations were surreptitiously 

forged into a weapon in the hands of 

the ruling classes. They firstly violated 

the exceptional principle and extended 

it to the tribals. It is not my argument 

that the tribals were not the excluded 

people or were not prejudiced against, 

although they are not a part of the caste 

system. If they needed to be extended 

these reservations, the existing schedule 

could have been expanded to include 

them. It would have dampened the 

stigma associated with the schedule for 

Dalits. It was easily doable but this was 

not done. 

The design behind all these intrigues 

was to keep castes alive. The British 

had created a separate schedule for the 

Dalits and left behind their association 

with the Hindu caste system. If the ruling 

classes wanted, the castes also could 

have been outlawed. The outlawing 

of untouchability then would have been 

redundant. But all this was not done. Not 

only reservation principle was diluted, it 

was made open ended by incorporating 

an article in the constitution which would 

provide for the state (read politicians) 

to identify such classes (read castes) 

which were socially and educationally 

backward. We have discussed this part 

already. 

What needs to be understood is that 

reservations can never substitute the 

basic policy of empowerment of people 

in terms of health care, education, and 

security of livelihood. In absence of such 

a policy in place, they will always remain 

a tool in the hands of the ruling classes to 

manipulate masses. 

Thus, the castes were consecrated 

into the constitution. It may not be 

wrong to say that much of the castes that 

we suffer today are the constitutional 

castes. It is an unfortunate paradox 

that the constitution, because of its 

association with Babasaheb Ambedkar as 


its chief architect, which was supposed to 

be the benefactor of the Dalits, has been 

their bane. The constitutional schema 

to preserve castes and religion and 

adoption of the FPTP election systems 

are the biggest hurdles in the path of 

annihilation of castes. The entire schema 

only produces and reproduces identity 

politics and identity movements which 

strengthen castes instead of weakening 

them. 

Can you give us some examples of initiatives 

that have reduced the menace 

of casteism? 

I do not think I have any examples 

to cite. However, it is my observation 

that the radical movements that mobilize 

all castes towards some goal dampen 

the consciousness of castes. I may 

cite Ambedkar’s own experiment during 

1930s when he had launched the 

agitation against Khoti (a system 

of zamindari in Konkan region of 

Maharashtra) mobilizing tenants of 

all castes, Dalits and Kunabis, as an 

example. His experiment during the 

decade when he formed his first party, 

the Independent Labour Party (ILP), 

describing it as the party of working class 

and he as the workers’ leader, had shown 

promise. But later developments forced 

him to return to the caste politics. It can 

be verily seen that the Scheduled Caste 

Federation that succeeded the ILP did not 

get him much fruit. 

Whenever caste identities are 

dampened and the class unity is 

emphasized, it automatically dampened 

castes. Once caste is invoked, even 

innocuously, it tends to split anything. 

Caste is an identity unlike any; it 

only tends to split like amoeba. The 

inference is clear that the viable project 

of annihilation of castes could only be 

through the movement based on class 

unity of people. 

Dr B.R Ambedkar addressing a rally in Nasik, Maharashtra on 13 th October 1935 [40] 


Regular Features 

Book 

is division of labour accompanied by this 

unnatural division of labourers into watertight 

compartments. The caste system is 

not merely a division of labourers - which 

is quite different from division of labour - 

it is a hierarchy in which the divisions of 

labourers are graded one above the other." 

Photo 

Annihilation of Caste 

by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar 

Annihilation of Caste (1936) [41] is a 

speech prepared by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar 

for the annual conference of Jat - 

Pat - Todak Mandal of Lahore, but 

was not delivered. This was because, 

the reception committee cancelled the 

conference on the ground that the 

views expressed in this speech would be 

unbearable to the conference. 

An excerpt [42] from the speech - 

"It is a pity that caste even today has its 

defenders. The defences are many. It is 

defended on the ground that the caste system 

is but another name for division of 

labour; and if division of labour is a necessary 

feature of every civilised society, then 

it is argued that there is nothing wrong 

in the caste system. Now the first thing 

that is to be urged against this view is that 

the caste system is not merely a division 

of labour. It is also a division of labourers. 

Civilised society undoubtedly needs division 

of labour. But in no civilised society 

Artwork [24] by students of University of 

Hyderabad in solidarity with Rohit Vemula, 

drawing parallels to the character Eklavya 

from the Hindu religious text Mahabharatha 


Cartoon [43] 


Documentary 

The Death of Merit [44] is a part 

of a series of efforts by InSight 

foundation to document caste based 

discrimination prevalent in institutes 

of higher education that has resulted 

in large number of suicides of Dalit 

students in Indian campuses. Manish 

Kumar Guddolian (first row, right), aged 

20 years, was a 2 nd year student at IIT 

Roorkee. He allegedly committed suicide 

by jumping from the 5 th floor of his hostel 

on 6 th Feb 2011. In addition to the story 

of Manish, this series of documentaries 

has examined the alleged suicides of 

Dalit students Balmukund Bharti (first 

row, left) and Senthil Kumar (first row, 

middle) among others. 

The Death of Merit 

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commons license. 

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