MoC: Caste Assertiveness /on the wall
| << Pamphlets showcasing the acrimonious debates revolving around caste questions in campus spaces. This specific selection from 2016 engages with the uproar following the suicide of Dalit student activist in the University of Hyderabad. This material is exhibited on a wall panel as part of the Memories of Change exhibition. |
Amidst its several metamorphoses over the centuries, the importance of caste hierarchy continues to imbue the social landscape, inside and outside campus spaces. Keeping endogamy and inequality of opportunities at its core, caste is less a traditional village-based ritual pollution and more a collective pride assertiveness crystallized by political social engineering. In universities, it structures the reality of campus life in at least four different ways. Like a gruelling obstacle race, the Dalit students endure hindrances that affect their academic results and their university socialisation, lowering their professional prospects. Such reality has pushed numerous Dalit student groups to organise politically on the line of caste, emulating the relative success of Dalit parties in some parts of the country. From the left to the right, it pushed other student organisations to embody the Ambedkarite ideology, with more of less enthusiasm, in their political agenda. Using campus as a reformist intellectual platform, feminist, queer, Marxist, environmental and Hindu nationalist movements are urged to introspect on the caste-undertones of their regional groundings, while they in turn challenge Dalit-centric student groups for their secular, yet sectarian understanding of India.
Protest call denouncing atrocities committed against Dalits and other minorities. University of Hyderabad. Joint Action Committee for Social Justice. 2016.
Commemorative panel discussion one year after the death of Dalit student activist Rohith Vemula. Calicut. Students Islamic Organization. 2017.
Continuation of the Rohith Vemula movement, University of Hyderabad. Joint Action Committee for Social Justice. 2016.
Continuation of the Rohith Vemula movement, University of Hyderabad. Joint Action Committee for Social Justice. 2016.
Cartoon deriding the ‘upper caste’ identity of the Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad Central University. Free Students. Undated.
Chit denouncing Rohith Vemula’s death, one day after his suicide. Democratic Students’ Federation. Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2016.
Poster attacking communism and absolving the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad for the death of Rohith Vemula, few days after his suicide. Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2016.
Protest march to the Ministry of Human Resource Development in Delhi, 10 days after the suicide of Rohith Vemula. Joint Action Committee for Social Justice. 2016.
Chit denouncing Rohith Vemula’s death, one day after his suicide. Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association. Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2016.
Protest march to the Ministry of Human Resource Development in Delhi, two days after the suicide of Rohith Vemula. All India Students’ Association. 2016.