Contemporary Anti-Caste Utopias: A Dalit Bahujan Discourse of Emancipatory Social Transformation

This panel aims at investigating how the ideas of the historical anti-caste thinkers resonate today in the works of new intellectual leaders, histories, iconography, literature, social movements and oral narratives reproducing and re-actualizing the anti-caste intellectual tradition.

Convenors:

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Long Abstract

The Real Utopias Project was started in early 1990s by Marxist sociologists in search of alternatives to existing structures of power, privilege and inequality. However, this philosophical framework did not widen its study to diverse categories, dimensions and manifestations of class in different societies outside Western world. This panel intends to critique, engage and expand The Real Utopias Project within a Dalit Bahujan framework of emancipatory social transformation. In a deeply hierarchical Indian society, any notion of equality and self-respect can be considered a fantasy. However, the anti-caste thinkers in India envisioned utopias to contradict their inhuman reality. In the alternate epistemology proposed by Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar, Tarabai Shinde and Rokeya Hussain to name a few, human suffering was foregrounded in ‘here and now’, not in some remote sinful past. In the process, they dwelt on equal resource distribution, a sense of collectivity and a more equitable society. The ideas and works of the historical anti-caste intellectuals have received significant academic attention. However, what needs to be explored further is the reproduction of the anti-caste thought and tradition. What is the relevance of the historical anti-caste thinkers in the present day context? How do their ideas spread and ramify through new thinkers, ideologies and social movements? This panel aims at investigating how the ideas of the historical anti-caste ideologues resonate today in the works of new Dalit Bahujan intellectual leaders, histories, iconography, social movements, oral narratives reproducing and re-actualizing the anti-caste intellectual and political tradition.

Presentations

• Beef as Anti-Caste Utopia (Kristina Garalyte)
• Dalit Utopia Interrupted: Violence and Exclusion in Higher Educational Institutions (Bidhan Chandra Dash)
• Diluted Dalit Rights and Justice in the Post-Mandal Era (Maya Suzuki)
• E V RAMASAMY PERIYAR AND HIS RATIONAL HUMANISTIC,SELF-RESPECTING, INTELLECTUAL ENGAGEMENTS (Raja Chandrashekhar M)
• Leadership In Dalit Movement: Analyzing Post-Ambedkar Dalit Leadership in Maharashtra (Rahul Sonpimple)
• Negotiating Political Spaces (Mrudul Nile)
• Periyar: Forging a New Female Self (Shailaja Menon)
• Reproduction of Anti-caste Discourse in Contemporary Visual and Verbal Forms (Prashant Ingole)
• Scrutinizing the Politics of the Usages of term ‘Dalit’ in Anti-Caste Tradition: an Inquiry through Nomenclatural Perspective (Komal Rajak)
• Teaching Dalit Bahujan Utopias: Notes from the Classroom (Sukumar Narayana)
• The Utopia of Annihilation of Caste and Cultural Revolution: A Critical Reflection on Ambedkar and Mao’s Method of Social Change (Dinesh Kumar Ahirwar)
• The “Struggle for Equality” and the Pasmanda Movement: Understanding anti-caste movements among the Muslims (Azeem Ahmed)
• ‘Long Live Ambedkar, Periyar and Marx’: Arunthathiyar Movement and Assertion in Tamil Nadu (Ramkumar Govindan)
• ‘This is also a symbol of protest!’: Tracing Dr Ambedkar Through the Films of Pa. Ranjith (Daniel Bilton)