An illustration by Siddhesh Gautam created amid the controversy over the poster for Madam Chief Minister. “Dalit representation in cinema is important,” Gautam wrote on Instagram, “because savarnas have been appropriating Dalit culture for almost a century through films made with unapologetic savarna gaze.” SIDDHESH GAUTAM An illustration by Siddhesh Gautam created amid the controversy over the poster for Madam Chief Minister. “Dalit representation in cinema is important,” Gautam wrote on Instagram, “because savarnas have been appropriating Dalit culture for almost a century through films made with unapologetic savarna gaze.” SIDDHESH GAUTAM The month of January is marked by the birth and death anniversaries of Rohith Vemula. Five years ago, after he was pushed to take his own life at the University of Hyderabad—in what Dalits aptly described as an institutional murder—I reported on the defiant politics of Vemula and the Ambedkar Students’ Association that he was part of, and how they were trying to create a “universal language of discrimination” for the country’s marginalised.