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FEATURING THENMOZHI SOUNDARARAJAN -  searing new book by Dalit American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan has laid bare Hinduism’s dirty secret: caste apartheid. Born into a family hailing from India’s lowest caste, Soundararjan was traumatized as a child born to immigrants in Southern California when she found out what her parents’ religion had prescribed for her, and when she saw how caste privileged Indian Americans began treating her. As an adult she has taken on caste apartheid inside and outside India–and become the target of a violent backlash against Dalits.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is the founder and executive director of Equality Labs, a Dalit civil rights organization. I spoke with her for Yes! Magazine about her new book, The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Suvivorship, Healing, and Abolition.

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