The Dalit movement appropriated and reformulated colonial/Western anthropological theories of untouchability, thus locating caste within an essentialized notion of culture, while nevertheless reintroducing historicity at an abstract and distant level. Lately, this dominant cultural model… Read More »The Dalit Movement’s Perspectives on Caste: From Anthropology to Social History?
Adivasi communities in India have long been subjected to structural exclusion, marginalization, and misrepresentation within mainstream society and state policies. My presentation will offer a comprehensive analysis of Adivasi struggles in both historical and contemporary… Read More »ADIVASI STRUGGLES AND REPRESENTATION: EXCLUSION AND RESISTANCE
This lecture explores the tensions between Gandhi’s vision for India and the trajectory of Indian democracy. It raises questions about how far the country has moved from his ideals, and what this means for India’s… Read More »HOW INDIAN DEMOCRACY DESTROYED GANDHI’S DREAM
In this presentation, Sambhaji Bhagat explores the evolving dynamics of cultural politics in contemporary India, particularly through the lens of folk traditions, resistance art, and the Ambedkarite movement. He reflects on how marginalized voices use… Read More »CULTURAL POLITICS IN TODAY’S CONTEXT
This discussion examines the political power of dominant cultural ideologies, focusing on India’s current context through the lens of Gramsci’s theories. Gramsci argued that capitalist democracy is inherently contradictory, sustained by hegemonic cultural values that… Read More »REAPPRAISING CASTE: DOES A GRAMSCIAN LENS HELP?
This seminar explores the comparison between caste and race, a topic of increasing scholarly interest. The concept of “caste” is often used to shift focus away from biological ideas of race, emphasizing instead systemic, inherited… Read More »CASTE, RACE AND THE POLITICS OF COMPARISON
Despite constitutional guarantees and the enactment of laws such as the Protection of Civil Rights Act (1955) and the Prevention of Atrocities Act (1989), caste-based discrimination remains a persistent reality in India. The assertion of… Read More »CASTE ATROCITIES, LAW AND POST-COLONIAL STATE
This presentation is concerned with oppression and discrimination along the lines and caste and tribe in India. The Nehruvian expectation that caste and tribe based oppression would be ‘overcome’ by capitalism and modernity is all… Read More »DALITS AND ADIVASIS IN INDIA TODAY: DISCRIMINATION AND RACIAL CAPITALISM
In political ecology, nature is not only a resource tap, it is a sink of waste. All economies, all of us, create waste. Paraphrasing Gandhi “the true measure of any society can be found in… Read More »CAST AND CASTE: THE WASTE ECONOMY AND ITS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL RELATIONS