Content Warning: This episode includes discussion of sexual assault and suicide.

For Dalit History Month, Women’s March Geneva read Coming Out as Dalit by Yashica Dutt. The memoir explores Dutt’s own personal history and the history of Dalit discrimination and activism throughout Indian history.

To gain a further understanding of issues that Dalits face, we sat down with Manjula Pradeep, an activist and founder of the Wise Act of Youth Visioning and Engagement (The WAYVE Foundation), to discuss Dalit activism, alliances between Dalit groups and other marginalized communities, tension between mainstream feminism and Dalit feminism, and how we can support their fight for equality.

Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica Dutt, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43969859-coming-out-as-dalit

WAYVE Foundation website https://www.wayve.net.in/

WAYVE Foundation Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wayvefoundation/?hl=en

4 Dalits stripped, beaten up for skinning dead cow, Pallavi Chakravorty, Times of India

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/4-dalits-stripped-beaten-up-for-skinning-dead-cow/articleshow/53184266.cms

Forced Prositution in the Name of God, Manjula Pradeep https://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Dalit_Women/Forced_prostitution_in_the_name_of_God.pdf

India’s engineers have thrived in Silicon Valley. So has its caste system., Nitasha Tiku, Washington Post https://www.inquirer.com/business/indian-caste-system-silicon-valley-microsoft-apple-oracle-facebook-20201029.html

Leave no Dalit Woman Behind, Manjula Pradeep, Smashboard, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUMtfn3gnmc [video]

Untouchability still prevalent in rural Gujarat: survey, Manus Dasgupta, The Hindu https://bit.ly/3n9jhzb

Study shows Roma descended from Indian ‘untouchables’, Nick Holdsworth, University World News https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20121207171926304

Photo by Srimathi Jayaprakash on Unsplash