Search Results (35)

This article discusses caste dynamics within the Punjabi diaspora in Italy—the largest in the EU—by focusing on the case of the Ravidassia community and describing its evolving relations with the local Sikh community. Previous research on Punjabi migration to Italy mainly focused on issues of labor exploitation, intermediation, and Sikh identity, often conflating the entire Punjabi population with its majoritarian—but far from exclusive—Sikh-Jatt component, thereby overlooking its internal heterogeneity of caste, religion, and class. Despite the growing number of Ravidassia-Chamar migrants in Italy—evidenced by the proliferation of Ravidassia temples and associations across the country—their migratory experiences, employment patterns, socioreligious practices, and inter-caste relationships remained unexplored. This article offers, for the first time, an overview of the history, geography, and identity politics of the Ravidassia in Italy. Drawing on data collected with Punjabi migrants during multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, it illustrates the alternative strategies adopted by the Ravidassia to assert their identity in this diasporic context, focusing on cases in which their relations with the Sikh manifested their complex nature. It concludes by discussing the advantages and drawbacks of each strategy, in light of the history of power relations between the Ravidassia and the Sikh. Full article

This article considers two Malayalam films, each of which uses ‘the child’ to reflect on ‘precarious childhood’. Ottaal (2014, Dir. Jayaraj) and Veyilmarangal (2019, Dir. Bijukumar Damodaran) present the ontological relationality of their child characters within their context and the political and social realities of the people in Kerala. The ecological disasters, economic catastrophes, and multilayered forms of social abjection push the children out of human primacy, predominantly through their birth and existence as ‘nameless’ Dalits. The child characters, who contrast with the adults, negotiate a space for themselves amidst the question of belongingness through their relation with animals and the environment around them during the phase(s) of displacement. Borrowing Haraway’s concept of ‘companion species’, we expound on their assemblage with the environment through which they are able to survive the complex realities of daily life. Furthermore, the children are singularly and effectively extensions of animal personhood in their inability to determine the terms of their existence. In response to the larger question of precarity and childhood in the context of Kerala, this paper explores how these Malayalam films, by realistically portraying the idea that human primacy is oblivious to its precariousness, address the ecological predicament and the interconnectedness of all living things, emphasizing values of cohabitation and mutual care, which are central themes in posthumanist thought. Full article

Deras are generally perceived as an alternative socio-religious space frequented mostly by lower castes and economically weaker sections of society. They promise to make a significant difference to the lives of such vulnerable sections of society by lending them much needed spiritual, moral, and social support. Within the sprawling premises of Deras, downtrodden find a welcoming ‘counter-public’ enriched with social capital, which offers them an egalitarian domain free from the afflictions of caste discriminations, social exclusion, and subtle indignities often faced by them within the mainstream religious spheres. The growth of Deras thus may be seen as an index of subaltern socio-cultural and syncretic religious realms generating a rich haul of social capital. Full article

A cross-disciplinary rapid scoping review was carried out, generally following the PRISMA-SCR protocol to examine historical racial and caste-based discrimination as structural determinants of health disparities in the 21st century. We selected 48 peer-reviewed full-text articles available from the University of Memphis Libraries database search, focusing on three selected case-study countries: the United States (US), Canada, and Nepal. The authors read each article, extracted highlights, and tabulated the thematic contents on structural health disparities attributed to racism or casteism. The results link historical racism/casteism to health disparities occurring in Black and African American, Native American, and other ethnic groups in the US; in Indigenous peoples and other visible minorities in Canada; and in the Dalits of Nepal, a population racialized by caste, grounded on at least four foundational theories explaining structural determinants of health disparities. The evidence from the literature indicates that genetic variations and biological differences (e.g., disease prevalence) occur within and between races/castes for various reasons (e.g., random gene mutations, geographic isolation, and endogamy). However, historical races/castes as socio-cultural constructs have no inherently exclusive basis of biological differences. Disregarding genetic discrimination based on pseudo-scientific theories, genetic testing is a valuable scientific means to achieve the better health of the populations. Epigenetic changes (e.g., weathering—the early aging of racialized women) due to the DNA methylation of genes among racialized populations are markers of intergenerational trauma due to racial/caste discrimination. Likewise, chronic stresses resulting from intergenerational racial/caste discrimination cause an “allostatic load”, characterized by an imbalance of neuronal and hormonal dysfunction, leading to occurrences of chronic diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, and mental health) at disproportionate rates among racialized populations. Major areas identified for reparative policy changes and interventions for eliminating the health impacts of racism/casteism include areas of issues on health disparity research, organizational structures, programs and processes, racial justice in population health, cultural trauma, equitable healthcare system, and genetic discrimination. Full article

This article looks at how Sikh ethical principles are informing how Sikh diasporic activists approach contemporary social justice issues around caste abolition. The article is divided into three different sections that look at the history of castes within Punjab and the North American Sikh diaspora, especially in the late 19th c. but with some reference to contemporary history. Later, I utilized my interviews with Sikh activists who have supported recent legislation in Seattle and California around caste discrimination. Finally, the article discusses the work of a Sikh queer collective, a group I have worked with over a period of two years, to examine how notions of queerness and anti-caste politics within Sikh principles might be a path forward towards caste abolition. Full article

This article draws on a twenty-year relationship of short-term interventions with Dalit communities living in informal settlements, sub-cities and urban villages in Mumbai, that have sought to create public theatre events based on research by and with communities that celebrate, problematise and interrogate sustainable urban living. In looking back over the developments and changes to our working methods in Mumbai, I explore how the projects priorities the roles of the community as both researchers and artists. I consider where a specific applied theatre project, which focuses on site specific storytelling with Dalit communities in Worli Koliwada and Dharavi, functions on a continuum of interactive, participatory, and emancipatory practice, research and performance. Applied Theatre practices should not and cannot remain static, they need to be constantly reformed and as practitioners and researchers we need to constantly re-examine the ways in which we work. This chapter poses two central questions: firstly, can this long-term partnership between practitioners, researchers and artists from the UK and India working with community members genuinely be a space for co-creating knowledge and theatre? And secondly, if so, is this Theatre-based Research or Research Based Theatre? I interrogate Applied Theatre’s potential to create a space of cognitive justice, which must be the next step for applied theatre, along-side its more widely accepted aims of searching for social and spatial justice and which places the community as both artists and researchers. The Dalit social reality is one of oppression, based on three axes: social, economic and gender. The chapter explores how working as co-researchers and the public performance of their stories has been a form of ‘active citizenship’ for these participants and is a key part of their strategy in their demand for policy changes. In looking forward I ask how working in international partnerships with community members can promote cognitive justice and go beyond a merely participatory practice. I consider why it is vital for the field that applied theatre practice includes partners from both the global south and north working together to co-create knowledge, new methods of practice to ensure an applied theatre knowledge democracy. In doing so I will discuss if and how this work might be considered to be Theatre-based Research. Full article

What are the implications of a bejeweled dancer in fine silk on the proscenium stage performing a piece that undeniably centers caste? As the Bharatanatyam field reflects on the art form’s appropriation from the hereditary dance community, analyzing choreography reveals different bodily representations of caste. Many Bharatanatyam dancers globally perform excerpts of the Nandanar Charitram, by Tamil composer Gopalakrishna Bharathi. The plot traces Nandanar, a Dalit saint who is not allowed in many temples and ends with his immolation, allowing his “purified” self to unite with the Hindu god Shiva. I study performances of the Nandanar Charitram comparing two Bharatanatyam showings and the 1942 film “Nandanar”. To recognize how caste is both articulated and understood, I analyze choreography, interviews conducted with dancers, and forums where audience members share their responses to the works. I use Judith Butler and Dwight Conquergood’s theorization of performativity, acknowledging that while Bharatanatyam choreography is often “iterative”, it has the potential to “disrupt” dominant norms on caste and politics. Nandanar remains the most prominent Dalit figure seen in the Bharatanatyam repertoire. By studying representations of his story, I highlight the relevance of bodily caste politics in the South Asian diaspora today. Full article

Developmental impairment remains an important public health problem among children in many developing countries, including Nepal. Iron deficiency in children may affect development and lead to anaemia. This study on 1702 children aged 6–59 months aimed to assess the association between nutritional anthropometric indices and iron deficiencies. Data for this study were extracted from the 2016 Nepal National Micronutrient Status Survey. Three nutritional anthropometric indices (stunting, wasting and underweight) and their association with anaemia and iron deficiencies (ferritin and sTfR biomarkers) were assessed by conducting multivariate statistical analyses. The prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among children aged 6–59 months was 35.6%, 11.7% and 29.0%, respectively. Most of the children were not stunted (64.4%), not wasted (71.0%) and not underweight (88.3%). Belonging to castes other than the Janajati, Dalit and Brahmin castes increased the odds of anaemia and iron deficiency (ferritin biomarker). Children in the age group 6–23 months were significantly at higher odds of having anaemia and iron deficiency (ferritin and sTfR biomarkers). Stunting significantly increased the odds of anaemia [adjusted odds ratio (OR): 1.55; 95% confidence interval (CI): (1.11, 2.17)], iron deficiency (ferritin biomarker [OR: 1.56; 95% CI: (1.16, 2.08)] and sTfR biomarker [OR: 1.60; 95% CI: (1.18, 2.15)]). Further, underweight significantly increased the odds of anaemia [OR: 1.69; 95% CI: (1.12, 2.54)] and iron deficiency (sTfR biomarker [OR: 1.48; 95% CI: (1.14, 1.93)]). Interventions to minimise the occurrence of anaemia and iron deficiencies among children in Nepal should focus on providing appropriate healthcare services that would reduce the burden of stunting and underweight. Full article

In the closing decades of the 19th century, a wide range of Tamil authors and public speakers in colonial India became acutely interested in the notion of a Dravidian “race”. This conception of a Dravidian race, rooted in European racial and philological scholarship on the peoples of South India, became an important symbol of Tamil cultural, religious, and social autonomy in colonial and post-colonial Tamil thought, art, politics, and literature. European racial thought depicted Dravidians as a savage race that had been subjugated or displaced by the superior Aryan race in ancient Indic history. Using several key works of colonial scholarship, non-Brahmin Tamil authors reversed and reconfigured this idea to ground their own broad-reaching critiques of Brahmin political and social dominance, Brahmanical Hinduism, and Indian nationalism. Whereas European scholarship largely presented Dravidians as the inferiors of Aryans, non-Brahmin Tamil thinkers argued that the ancient, Dravidian identity of the Tamil people could stand alone without Aryan interference. This symbolic contrast between Dravidian (Tamil, non-Brahmin, South Indian) and Aryan (Sanskritic, Brahmin, North Indian) is a central component of 20th- and 21st-century Tamil public discourse on caste, gender, and cultural autonomy. Tamil authors, speakers, activists, and politicians used and continue to use the symbolic frame of Dravidian racial history to advocate for many different political, cultural, and social causes. While not all of these “Dravidian” discourses are meaningfully politically or socially progressive, the long history of Dravidian-centered, anti-Brahmanical discourse in Tamil South India has helped Tamil Nadu largely rebuff the advances of Hindu nationalist politics, which have become dominant in other cultural regions of present-day India. This piece presents a background on the emergence of the term “Dravidian” in socially critical Tamil thought, as well as its reversal and reconfiguration by Tamil social thinkers, orators, and activists in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The piece begins with a brief history of the terms “Dravidian” and “Aryan” in Western racial thought. The piece then charts the evolution of this discourse in Tamil public thought by discussing several important examples of Tamil social and political movements that incorporate the conceptual poles of “Dravidian” and “Aryan” into their own platforms. Full article

In this article, author and artist Meena Murugesan analyzes their creative process and research in the making of Dravidian Futurities, a multi-channel video installation with live performance. Methodologies of auto-ethnography, visual aesthetics, embodied movement practices, Tamil historiographies, queer futurities, caste analysis, and poetics are applied to treat the issues at hand. Dravidian Futurities draws connections between communities of South Indian and Sri Lankan Shudra and Dalit caste backgrounds, Dravidian, and Afro-Indian peoples, depending on the historical era examined. As someone of the Shudra caste, the author draws connections between agriculture, land, and earth, as being rooted in Shudra identities, and in opposition to brahminical systems. Therefore, the movement forms of somatics, improvisation, and nature-based embodiment practices are investigated as possible embodied inroads to grapple with caste within brahminized bharatanatyam. Notions of futurity and place-making are unearthed from the depths of the Indian Ocean with a hypothetical sunken landmass called Lemuria or Kumari Kandam that might have once connected South India, Sri Lanka, and Madagascar. Dravidian Futurities also dreams into existence this speculative landmass as a possible utopia we might co-build, similar to that which Dalit mystic saint Guru Ravidas imagined five hundred years ago with Begumpura (“land without sorrow”) as a casteless, stateless utopia. Full article

In January 2017, millions of people occupied various public places across the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, protesting the Supreme Court’s ban on Jallikattu, a bull-wrangling contest considered central to Tamil identity. Social media was thought to have triggered this ‘leaderless’ protest. Seven days in, a police crackdown splintered the protest’s seemingly unified front. Academic commentators have argued that social media present radical possibilities, ‘short-circuiting’ older forms of broadcast media, which had already been colonized by the state. Taking as discursive sites two videos, one of them posted by a popular Facebook group and another by a YouTube channel centred around Dalit issues, I argue that an a priori claim of new media having a lesser or greater potential to resist colonization is largely untenable. The possibility of such resistance is contingent on the micropolitics of contestation within concrete, localized sites. I analyse narratives of loss and rage on two different social media spaces, elicited from a fishing community near one of the protest sites, after their homes were attacked and their local market had been burnt down by the police. By focusing on tactics of interviewing, I demonstrate that, in the span of a week, the same technological platform credited with sparking the protests that brought the Tamils together as one, now constitutes the limits of the formation of radical subjectivity, as Tamil society finds itself fractured once again. Full article

India’s complex social fabric is marked by a rigid caste system that has perpetuated discrimination and marginalisation for centuries. The caste structure not only establishes clear boundaries between castes through endogamous social relations, but also determines control over resources, productivity, and sexuality. Among the most vulnerable groups within this hierarchical structure are Dalit women, who face compounded forms of oppression due to their caste and gender, spanning economic, physical, and mental aspects. At the core of this oppression lies the Dalit woman’s body, a battleground where power dynamics intersect and the struggle for autonomy and dignity unfolds. This paper delves into the exploration of female Dalit body politics in India, with a particular focus on two influential literary works: Baburao Bagul’s When I Hid My Caste (2018) and Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit (2019). The aim is to unveil, through these texts, the intersectionality of caste and gender, both past and present, revealing the violence, exploitation, and marginalisation that reflects on the Dalit female body, stemming from and affecting the economic, physical, and psychological dimension. Full article

The German and Swedish Lutheran Mission was a major and pioneering Protestant mission society that started its mission work in Tamil Nadu. The Halle Danish, Leipzig mission, and Church of Sweden mission societies had a larger mission field in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Christians are intimately associated with the German Lutheran Mission and Swedish Mission. The first German Lutheran missionaries, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, came to India in 1706. From then on, many Lutheran missionaries came to Tamil Nadu. Afterwards Tamil Nadu became a thriving Christian center for decades, with a strong Christian congregation, church, and several institutions. The majority of these Christians are descendants of Dalits (former untouchable Paraiyars) and Kallars who embraced Christianity. From a life of near slavery, poverty, illiteracy, oppression, and indignity, conversion to Christianity transformed the lives of these people. Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Dalits and Kallars found liberation and have made significant progress because of the Christian missionaries of the Church of the German and Swedish Mission. Both the German and Swedish Mission offered the Gospel of a new religion to not only the subaltern people but also the possibility of secular salvation. The history of Lutherans needs to be understood as a part of Christian subaltern history (Analysing the Indian mission history from the native perspective). My paper will mainly focus on Tamil Lutheran Dalit and Kallar Christians. In this paper, I propose to elucidate the role of German and Swedish Lutheran missionaries in the social, economic, educational, and spiritual life of Tamil Lutheran Dalits and Kallars. Due to the page limit, I am going to mainly focus on Swedish Mission and Kallar Lutheran Christians. Full article

Human dignity, in the Protestant traditions, was generally formulated in reaction to Catholicism. Initial assessments of human dignity were less than enthusiastic and framed soteriologically and contingent on God’s saving grace. In contrast, by the middle of the 19th century, human dignity in Protestant theology emerged as a positive anthropological affirmation with significant political consequences. To illuminate this evolution within the Protestant world, this paper provides a narrative sketch that: (1) orients initial notions of human dignity with reference to the ambiguous legacy of Martin Luther; (2) describes how substantial engagements with minority or marginalized populations in the 19th and 20th centuries around the world—including South Africa, India, and the USA—led to a revision and expansion of human dignity; and (3) exhibits the affirmation of a robust understanding of human dignity in Protestant traditions around the world. The argument is both (a) expansive because it highlights developments toward the positive embrace of human dignity across a wide geographic range while also remaining (b) limited because it merely argues that the Protestant traditions universally affirm human dignity, while also acknowledging that frequently there are limits to the performance of that affirmation based on matters of race, nationality, class, and gender. Full article

This article explores intersectionality of identities within Dalit and Adivasi traditions through a review of contemporary research on practices of witchcraft. Witchcraft practices occur all over the Indian subcontinent and form focal points of intersectionality beyond fixed structures and stereotypes. By approaching witchcraft through the perspective of the lived experience of the ones involved, we gain better understanding of the individuals involved, of the larger socio-economic context and of the practice itself without falling into the trap of recasting stereotypes. By approaching witchcraft from the perspective of lived experience, it becomes clear that the occurrence of witchcraft is the outcome of complex intersectional power structures, such as gender, caste, class and religion/spirituality. However, the approach accomplishes even more by addressing diversity, ambiguity and dynamics within intersectional (power) structures. The knowledge drawn from the approach of lived experience of Dalits and Adivasis leads to new academic discourses such as ‘Dalit and Adivasi Studies’, ‘Critical Caste Theory’, ‘Dalit Feminism’ and the ‘Dalit Queer Movement’. These discourses provide new counter-hegemonic knowledge, adding to and challenging academia. Full article