Dalit History Month
This Dalit History Month, we want to remind ourselves to engage with writings about caste, from different perspectives—books that explore Ambedkarite philosophy in the present day, personal memoirs, and historical perspectives.
‘Karukku’ by Bama, the first autobiography by a Dalit woman, and translated from Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström, is a powerful exploration of intersectionality in the South Indian social context. Bama uses a nonlinear narrative style to chronicle her experiences as a Dalit Christian woman. Yashica Dutt’s ‘Coming Out As Dalit’ also blends the personal and the historical to tell a powerful story exploring oppression and equality.
Revisiting Ambedkar’s words in the modern day can illuminate the ways in which the Dalit movement, and our country at large, have evolved and changed over time. ‘Conversations With Ambedkar: 10 Ambedkar Memorial Lectures’ collects ten lectures by different academics, engaging critically with the philosophies of Ambedkar. From independent Dalit publisher Panther’s Paw comes ‘Ambedkar 2021: Meanings Of Loving And Hurt’, a prose-poetry book accompanied by portraits of Ambedkar by artist November.
Finally, ‘Under My Dark Skin Flows a Red River’ collects stories, essays, poems and extracts from autobiographies by Dalit women writing in Bangla, edited and translated by Debi Chatterjee and Sipra Mukherjee.
We hope you find something to engage with in these books, and continue to reflect on the questions they raise beyond the month of April.