Page 2 - Dalit Movement News Today

Kotiganahalli Ramaiah, co-founder of the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti in Karnataka and a poet and cultural activist, recounts Gaddar’s impact on revolutionary songs.

There is an urgent need to revive Dr Ambedkar’s Republican ideology to save our socialist secular democracy.

From Granville Austin’s ‘The Indian Constitution’ to Malika Amar Shaikh’s ‘I Want to Destroy Myself’, a list of essential reading.

An independent India reading list

These deletions from the Class XII textbook are among the series of other prominent removals and revisions – including the 2002 Gujarat riots, Emergency, Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of building dams, sedition law, and Naxalism – in NCERT textbooks.

The fellowships carry with them a Rs 6 lakh stipend and aim to bring Indian-language texts with historical and cultural significance to a wider audience.

The Rs 6-lakh awards go to each of the three projects, which involve translating historically significant non-fiction texts from India.

Since Ambedkar’s passing, Ambedkarites have been leaving a mark in various arenas, from politics to academia to employees’ organisations and more. Yet, as Anand Teltumbde puts it, “Every Ambedkarite, whether they are conscious of it or not, experiences some crisis."

In their bid to maintain political visibility, various factions of the Republican Party of India have struck up alliances with "secular" and "non-secular" parties. They have not adequately utilised the progressive undercurrents of the Dalit consciousness to connect with other deprived communities to form a dynamic coalition.

Interestingly, in her bid to run down the Congress, she took recourse to the party not considering Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar for a Bharat Ratna.