A Dalit community’s generational wait to see god — and the backlash for breaking barriers

In West Bengal’s Gidhagram village in Purba Bardhaman district, hundreds of Dalits down the years had been prevented from praying at a local Shiva temple. On March 12, under the watchful eye of the district administration and the police, five people of the community climbed the 16 steps to the sanctum sanctorum. Shrabana Chatterjee finds that while the castes mingled socially before, the