Caste Matters, a book that delves into the complexities of the caste practices prevailing in the Indian society, authored by Dalit scholar Suraj Yengde was released by Sashi Kumar, chairman of Media Development Foundation, at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) here on Tuesday.
First-person account
At the event organised by Penguin India and MIDS, Mr. Sashi Kumar said the book reflected the angry tone of the author who penned it as a first-person account.
It focussed on how caste was perpetrated and sustained systematically over centuries, he said.
Mr. Yengde was also critical of some of the opinions of Marxist academicians and compared liberation with emancipation of the oppressed masses.
In the debate that followed, professor Nalini Rajan, Dean of Students, Asian College of Journalism, pointed out how that the onus had always been on the Dalits to be Ambedkarites and not on other communities. Semmalar of Loyola College pointed out how the book didn’t elaborate much on the oppression of the Dalits by the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
She said Dalit feminism must have been as a separate chapter.
Social activist Srinivasan Ramanujam also participated in the debate.
Mr. Yengde, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, said Dalit oppression must be fought against, not only by the Dalits, but also others in their respective communities. He also sought to make a clear distinction between Brahmins and Brahmanism and how only the latter was to be defeated in the struggle for equality.