{"title":"Folk Horror and Witchcraft: Exploring the Rhetoric of Tribal Evil Tradition and Marginalization of Women in Baso-jhi by Sowvendra Sekhar Hansda and Reincarnation of Parasuram by Anil Ghorai","authors":"Santanu Bera","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231224839","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231224839","url":null,"abstract":"Sowvendra Sekhar Hansda, a writer from Jharkhand and an ethnic member of the Santhal community, and Anil Ghorai, a Bengali writer have come forward with their powerful literary oeuvre to bring to the surface the helpless agonies of marginalized subalterns and Adivasi women and allow them a voice against the oppression and violence. Both the writers possess extraordinary knowledge and firsthand experience of tribal culture, tradition and practices. They were very much conscious about the bleak ground reality of oppression and abashment practiced either by the money-minded bourgeois class in the name of progress or by the rest of the society under casteism. And when this subjugation comes to the women, different layers began to be added. The most exploited and primitive weapon in this regard comes in the version of witchcraft, black magic and sorcery within their segregated society and which is already fighting against so much odds. The present article attempts a critical appraisal of ‘Baso-jhi’ by Sowvendra Sekhar Hansda and ‘Reincarnation of Parasuram’ by Anil Ghorai to bring to the surface the layered patriarchal marginalization of women within their community and the menace that this barbaric practice of witch hunt exercises upon womenfolk and finally the horror that embodies the entire folk existence.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139845964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identifying Barriers to SDG Awareness Among Scheduled Caste Youth in Tamil Nadu","authors":"S. Lalitha, N. Karpagam, S. Sona, Avilash Roul","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231225857","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231225857","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) emphasis on inclusion, marginalized youths are denied full participation due to discriminatory practices. Despite a few studies examining the SDGs and their social targets, none has examined young people’s awareness of the SDGs in Scheduled Castes (SCs). In our study, we analysed the narratives of 40 SC youth in seven districts of Tamil Nadu, who have historically been marginalized. In this study, we examined how SC youth experience social exclusion and what factors contribute to their lack of awareness of schemes and programmes. We suggested ways to promote the involvement of SC youth in achieving Tamil Nadu’s SDGs.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139804318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identifying Barriers to SDG Awareness Among Scheduled Caste Youth in Tamil Nadu","authors":"S. Lalitha, N. Karpagam, S. Sona, Avilash Roul","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231225857","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231225857","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) emphasis on inclusion, marginalized youths are denied full participation due to discriminatory practices. Despite a few studies examining the SDGs and their social targets, none has examined young people’s awareness of the SDGs in Scheduled Castes (SCs). In our study, we analysed the narratives of 40 SC youth in seven districts of Tamil Nadu, who have historically been marginalized. In this study, we examined how SC youth experience social exclusion and what factors contribute to their lack of awareness of schemes and programmes. We suggested ways to promote the involvement of SC youth in achieving Tamil Nadu’s SDGs.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139863967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Bhangya Bhulya, Subjugated Nomads: The Lambadas Under the Rule of the Nizams","authors":"Sabyasachi Chatterjee","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231223051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231223051","url":null,"abstract":"Bhangya Bhulya, Subjugated Nomads: The Lambadas Under the Rule of the Nizams. Orient BlackSwan, First Paperback Edition 2022, xxiii + 296 pp., ₹695. ISBN: 9789354420726.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139954711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Narayana Sukumar and Paul D’Souza (eds.), The Journey of Caste in India: Voices from Margins","authors":"Ankur Kumar","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231221868","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231221868","url":null,"abstract":"Narayana Sukumar and Paul D’Souza (eds.), The Journey of Caste in India: Voices from Margins. New York and London: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2023, 222 pp., ₹11439 (Hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-032-31977-3, ISBN: 978-1-003-31717-3.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139954712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caste Wise Earning Discrimination among Rural Non-farm Sector Workers in India","authors":"Shiba Shankar Pattayat","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231221871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231221871","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates wage discrimination among non-farm workers, including both regular and casual workers, in rural India between the forward caste (FC) and backward caste (BC). Using data from NSSO unit-level employment and unemployment surveys from 2004–2005 and 2011–2012, as well as periodic labour force surveys from 2017–2018 to 2019–2020, the study found that the wage differential between FC and BC non-farm employees increased over time, with BC workers being paid less than FC workers. To determine the factors contributing to the wage difference, a linear regression model was used, and the decomposition method was employed to examine whether the difference was due to endowment or discrimination effects. Overall, the study highlights the persistence of caste-based wage discrimination in rural non-farm employment in India. For the betterment of BC workers and to reduce discrimination, the policies and programmes which are implemented by the government need to be revived.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139533955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caste Prejudice, Colonial Education in Kumaon: Dynamics of Depressed Class Education, 1881–1947","authors":"Isha Tamta","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231209802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231209802","url":null,"abstract":"From the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the East India Company slowly acquired the area which is now called Uttar Pradesh. Territories were acquired from different powers by the company were initially kept under Bengal Province. However, in 1833 these, areas were separated and a new province called North-Western Provinces was created. Again, after the annexation of Oudh, this province came to be called in 1877 as North-Western Provinces. The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was changed to United Provinces in 1902 which later became present Uttar Pradesh. Colonial rule wanted to control the knowledge systems of the colonized. The epistemology and knowledge systems produced by the colonial state sought to create the feeling of interiority among the colonized people. Education is one such area through which the colonial state wanted to justify their rule. The British argued that Indians were inferior and justified their monopoly of all higher posts. They, further, pointed out that untouchability, rigid caste system are some of the reasons for inferiority. In this article, I would like to discuss the colonial state policy towards education of lower castes and depressed classes in Kumaon division of United Provinces of British India. I argue that although the British professed that it wanted to educate all people, yet in practice the colonial state gave in to the caste prejudices of the society and also because of its own ambivalent policy towards depressed classes. Doms constitute majority of Dalit community in Kumaon division of United Provinces from whom Shilpakar community emerged gradually.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139446025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conceptualizing the Paradigm Shift from Prosocial Communism to Violent Communism and Pogroms of Dalits to Adivasi Guerrillas in India: A Systematic Literature Review","authors":"Roopak Kumar, Shashikanta Tarai","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231217576","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231217576","url":null,"abstract":"In India, the violent communist movement encompasses 70 districts of 10 states with substantial support from the marginalized people with arms in their hands. Why does the transformation process from a communist political party to violent communism take place in India? How does communism in its violent form still survive in India? These questions are addressed by reviewing the literature on the left-wing extremist movement in India from 2005 to 2022. It is found that the violent version of communism has largely succeeded in the domain of suppressing caste-based exploitations of the landless lower castes and gaining support from the indigenous tribes on land and forest-related issues. Therefore, the destination of communism in India is an important eventuality to study its survival strategies, diverse forms and processes.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139447572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caste and Gender Politics: An Understanding of Dalit Consciousness in the Poems of Contemporary Dalit Writers","authors":"Gunja Patni, Sheehan S. Khan","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231209628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231209628","url":null,"abstract":"Dalit women face endemic gender and caste discrimination and violence as a result of extreme unequal social, economic, and political power equations because of their vulnerability at the bottom of India’s caste, class, and gender hierarchies. Their socio-economic weakness and lack of political power, combined with the main risk factors of being Dalit and female, heighten their exposure to potentially violent Circumstances, hindering their rights to live with dignity and reach their full potential. The poems of three contemporary Dalit feminist writers, namely, Meena Kandasamy (1984–), Aruna Gogulamanda (1970–) and Sukirtharani (1973–) appear to be an encyclopaedia of painful catalogues, some heard and some experienced. Their witty arguments and unbashful and uncompromising writing style not only unleash the power/caste/sexual politics at hand but also suggest ways of emancipation for women and an era of liberation for them. The article aims to uncover the intersectionality of caste and gender—through a reading of select poets’ works—exposing the exploitation, oppression, violence and marginalization that reflects on the Dalit female body inhibiting from and affecting the physical, psychological, economic and social dimensions. It will do so by employing various post-modern critical scholarships on caste/gender politics, politics of the body, identity, self, subjectivity, agency, and its attendant issues. Thus, by using the female body as an ingress the article through critical analysis of the select poems will showcase a paradigm shift in understanding the self via body hence suggesting ways for Dalit women’s agency/emancipation. By highlighting the experiences of marginalized female voices, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of gender dynamics, caste politics within Indian society, ultimately prompting discussions on the need for caste and gender equity and inclusivity in contemporary India.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139445960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intersection of claim for Scheduled Tribe Status and Identity Politics among the Kurmi Mahto of Chotanagpur Region in India","authors":"Sachchidanand Prasad, Abhijit Mitra","doi":"10.1177/2455328x231207500","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328x231207500","url":null,"abstract":"Various forms of protest such as rail-road roko and election boycott have been displayed by the Kurmi community to show their strength and legitimacy in their claim for Scheduled tribe status. By analysing pre-independence census data by British anthropologists, their study of culture and tribal way of life, and current socio-economic and political standing, the authors have attempted to trace the location of Kurmis (Mahto) of Chotanagpur region in the indigeneity discourse and their claim for ST status.","PeriodicalId":53196,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Voice of Dalit","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138946650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}