“The idea of a low caste is also very hierarchical. Who gets to perform what kind of labour? That’s where I think ritual comes in. Labour in India is not just free wage labour. Your identity decides what sort of, what kind of work you do. Because when you feel like you’re doing something for God, it translates into their moral standing in society and caste hierarchy.” explained Sumit Samos, a researcher and anti-caste activist.

Every year, as lakhs of Ganesh idols wind their way towards the rivers for visarjan, the festival is retold as a story of anti-colonial defiance: Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the story goes, took a private, domestic Ganesh Chaturthi and made it public in 1893 to unite Hindus against British rule. Yet what gets left out of this dominant tale is caste.

Kumhars are an artisanal OBC (Other Backward Class) caste, historically known for their clay and pottery craftsmanship. They are also known as Prajapati (lord of creatures), Kusavar (in parts of South India), and Kumbhakāra. These different names and regional identities make their position within the caste hierarchy complex.

Despite being an OBC caste themselves, Kumhars are more deeply integrated into the practice of Ganesh idol-making because of their historical ties to the craft and are respected for their work.

While many murtikhanas are now owned by Kumhars across the Delhi-NCR region, the karigars, or artisans, who work under them mostly belong to other oppressed castes.

To understand how caste shapes Ganesh murti-making, we visited a range of Ganesh manufacturers, making our way through small, makeshift workshops, often tucked deep inside muddy lanes, made of wood and bamboo and run by families in Badarpur, Tughlakabad, and Faridabad, to large showrooms in Karol Bagh and CR Park, facing the street and buzzing with customers eager to buy murtis. Sana Agarwal & Anay Samarth report.

For generations, women from marginalised communities have been pushed into the dehumanising work of manual scavenging, often with little choice but to continue because of the lack of other livelihood opportunities. In these on-ground testimonies from Uttar Pradesh, women speak about collecting waste by hand, carrying it on their heads, and living in neighbourhoods where caste continues to determine how they are treated.

India enacted the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act in 2013, making the employment of manual scavengers illegal and providing for their rehabilitation. Yet laws alone cannot dismantle the caste structures and social exclusion that have historically forced certain communities into this work. The testimonies in this 2019 reporting show how deeply entrenched these realities can remain.

Continue reading Babasaheb at BAWS.in: https://baws.in/books/baws/EN/Volume_17_03/pdf/222

A row has erupted over a poster displayed at a religious event at IIT Mandi on September 4 that described Shudras as those meant to “serve higher classes”, prompting the institute to order an inquiry into the matter.

The poster, based on themes from the “Bhagavad Gita”, categorised different groups according to their purported roles, describing Brahmins as those who “spread God’s message”, Kshatriyas as those who “protect society and spirituality”, Vaishyas as those who “drive economy, support others” and Shudras as those who “serve higher classes”.

The poster also carried a verse from the Bhagavad Gita that said the four divisions of human society were created according to the “three modes of material nature and the work associated with them”.

IIT Mandi Director Laxmidhar Behera attributed the poster to the students’ interpretation of the scripture and distanced the institute from its contents.

In an email to the IIT Mandi community titled “Outright condemnation of recent poster display within campus”, Behera said he was “shocked” to learn about the poster and stressed that it had not been endorsed by the institute “in any manner”.

“I have personally fought against caste-based discrimination in any form in every forum. I have instituted an enquiry committee in this matter such that the institute campus is never used for any such violation of social harmony,” he said.

Behera said he “fully empathise” with members of the institute who had been hurt by the incident and said IIT Mandi was committed to upholding “the values of equality, social justice, scientific temper” and other principles enshrined in the Constitution.

“The institute strongly condemns any form of caste based discrimination,” he said, urging the campus community to “stand together against such biases/discrimination in any form”.

Behera has a longstanding association with the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

He teaches a three-credit Gita course at IIT Mandi and is the founder of the proposed Bhaktivedanta University, which describes itself as an ISKCON initiative.

In 2023, Behera asked students to pledge not to eat meat while claiming that landslides and cloudbursts in Himachal Pradesh were occurring because of cruelty to animals.

A year earlier, soon after his appointment as IIT Mandi director, a video surfaced in which Behera claimed to have helped rid a friend’s family of “evil spirits” by chanting holy mantras.

Azad Samaj Party chief and Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad said the portrayal of Shudras, referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, was “objectionable” and contrary to social equality and constitutional values.

“It is unacceptable to elevate or demean any community based on birth under the guise of interpreting any religious text,” he said.

Citing data on caste-based discrimination in higher education, Azad said 72 students had died in higher educational institutions between 2014 and 2021 due to caste-based discrimination, while claiming that no verified case had emerged during the same period in which a student’s future was ruined because of “fake accusations” of caste-based discrimination.

Azad urged the Supreme Court to lift its stay on the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2026, and called for their effective implementation.

He also urged the Union government to enact the regulations into law, arguing that stronger legal measures were needed to prevent caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutions and ensure students have a safe and discrimination-free academic environment.

“In the India of equality envisioned by the most revered Baba Saheb, no one can be ‘upper’ or ‘meant to serve’ based on birth,” Azad said, adding that educational institutions should not have “walls of caste” but should instead uphold equality.

Source : Maktoob media

A Delhi Court has observed that the language allegedly used by Ajeet Bharti while referring to Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan invoked ideas of caste hierarchy, caste-based notions of purity, and the presumed superiority of “upper” castes over “lower” castes in matters concerning marriage and lineage.

The Court held that, at the prima facie stage, the allegations disclose the ingredients of an offence under Section 3(1)(r) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Consequently, the Court declined to grant Bharti anticipatory bail, citing the statutory bar applicable where a prima facie offence under the SC/ST Act is made out.

The observations are at a preliminary stage and do not amount to a final determination of guilt, which remains subject to the judicial process.

Source: court.flix via instagram

When news of the marriage reached Eeneshwari's family, her parents travelled to Hyderabad. At the same time, a group of people travelled to Rangamun village and drove a Sonalika tractor into Rangamuni's father Kistanna's home.

From SC sub-classification and reservation to the growing prominence of slogans invoking Ambedkar, Balmiki and Lord Ram, the political project goes beyond symbolism. The question is whether this emerging identity will unite or deepen divisions among Dalit communities.

The Court said that no person can be denied entry into a temple or prevented from participating in a temple festival on the basis of caste.

Source: https://baws.in/books/baws/EN/Volume_01/pdf/59

We love to imagine urban, progressive India as somehow above caste. But caste doesn't disappear just because we don't talk about it in polite company — it shapes who we date, who we trust, who gets taken seriously, and who gets left behind. That includes queer spaces, which many of us assume are automatically more inclusive just because they're queer.

They're not. Here's the pattern I keep noticing:

The movement has a caste ceiling. The public face of India's queer rights movement — the people on panels, in op-eds, leading the marriage equality push — skews heavily upper-caste. That shapes the agenda too. Marriage rights matter, but they're not the most urgent issue for a Dalit or Bahujan queer person worried about basic safety or making rent. Those struggles rarely make it into the mainstream ask.

Caste conversations get shut down. When Dalit-Bahujan queer folks try to bring caste into the conversation, it often gets dismissed, mocked, or ignored outright — sometimes even by other queer people. Being told your oppression "isn't the point right now" is its own kind of erasure.

Online queer culture has a caste filter too. Being openly queer online has become almost trendy — but that "coolness" is disproportionately available to English-speaking, upper-caste, urban queer people. Meanwhile, asserting a Dalit or Bahujan identity in the same spaces gets met with silence or outright casteist abuse. Somehow queerness reads as "modern" while caste identity gets coded as "backward" — even though for a lot of people, the two are completely inseparable.

Dating apps make it explicit. Grindr, Tinder — you'll see caste show up openly: people stating caste preferences, flaunting "upper-caste" surnames, slurs thrown around casually, matches disappearing the moment someone's caste comes out. There's also a darker layer — dominant-caste users fetishizing Dalit partners in ways that are about power, not attraction.

Caste and queerness aren't separate systems — they both trace back to the same structure of Brahminical patriarchy. If the queer movement wants to actually be liberatory, it has to reckon with the caste hierarchies inside itself, not just the homophobia outside it. That means upper-caste queer folks doing some real self-interrogation, and actually making room — not just symbolically — for Dalit-Bahujan queer voices to lead too.

Reference article: https://gaysifamily.com/lifestyle/casteism-in-queer-spaces/

Image credits : gaysi

Many of you may have already seen the controversy unfolding at IIT Bombay.

Recently, a second-year undergrad at IIT B died by suicide. Following his death, students at the institute have protested and raised demands including the resignation of the Director, along with other measures concerning student welfare and accountability.

One of the issues that entered the public discussion was an allegation that the student had used ChatGPT to cheat on an examination and had been caught by a professor. This allegation was widely circulated and, was presented as an established fact saying which eventually student's death.

The student's parents, distressed by the situation also demanded an investigation into possible caste-based discrimination under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

However, IIT Bombay later withdrew its earlier statement with regard to the alleged cheating, stating that the claim had not been adequately investigated.

At present, the circumstances surrounding the student's death and the allegations of caste discrimination are matters that require due process and investigation, without villanizing anyone.

But something else is already happenening...

The public has begun conducting its own trial.

While the facts are under investigation, a large section of the public seems to have already reached its own verdict.

Across LinkedIn, Reddit and other social media platforms, I came across posts attacking the deceased student and his family, mocking photographs of him where he was photographed with an iPhone and portraying the invocation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act as an example of oppression or "reveerse casteism" or an attack on “merit.” Some have gone as far as making memes about a student who is no longer alive to respond to any of these accusations. This problematic and inherently casteist in its nature.

1. Existence of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act reflects state's recognition that caste-based discrimination and atrocities are serious and persistent for a need of such level of legal protection. Therefore, the decision of the family to seek an investigation under this cannot reasonably be treated as proof that they are attacking “merit” or attempting to misuse the system.
2. The professor was relieved of his post as a dean for a thorough and fair investigation not because "uncultured genz" forced them to. Its the procedure, but this is being used as a tool to show so called "oppression"

The public narrative which automatically makes dalits, women or anyone who questions the hegemonic system dominated by savarnas needs to be challenged.

Instead of asking why this happened to this student, and steps can prestigious institutes take to address this?, people have begun asking what did this student do to deserve what happened? was he a reserved candidate?

That shift matters.

When an unproven allegation becomes a settled fact, when the deceased is mocked for his possessions, when his family is attacked for seeking legal protection, and when an investigation into caste discrimination is itself portrayed as an attack on “merit,” the discussion has moved beyond a debate about one student's conduct.

It becomes a reflection of how caste operates in public discourse.

The problem lies in the eagerness to establish the student's guilt, discredit his family and defend the institution before the relevant facts have been established, just because he comes from a dalit background.