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 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?

‘Sangharsh’ is a documentary made by Nicolas Jaoul, a French anthropologist, who provides a grassroots glimpse into Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh. Shot in the late 1990s just after the BSP lost political power and… Read More »Documentary Screening – Sangharsh – Times of Strife