Podcasts about adivasis

Send us a textKathy and Burk react to the trailer for Narivetta, a Malayalam film starring Tovino Thomas and Suraj Venjaramoodu, directed by Anuraj Manohar and released on May 16, 2025. The film explores themes of state-sanctioned violence and its impact on marginalized communities. It is inspired by real events, including the 2003 Muthanga incident, where police opened fire on Adivasis protesting land allotment. Support the show

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. In India, calls for conserving Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's 'tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to extinction facing tigers and other wildlife? Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, this book offers a global intellectual history of efforts to 'protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also critiques the activist's impulse to cry 'Save the tigers!' and 'Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all Indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly regarding Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Ezra Rashkow is an Associate Professor of History at Montclair State University in New Jersey, USA. Before joining the faculty at Montclair, he completed his PhD and a teaching fellowship at SOAS, University of London. Then, he held a position at the University of Virginia (UVA) as a Lecturer in Modern South Asian History. As well as publishing several articles on modern South Asian history, world environmental history, and the history of colonial anthropology, he has published two books: the co-edited Memory, Identity and the Colonial Encounter in India: Essays in Honor of Peter Robb (Routledge, 2017); and a monograph, The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes,' Extermination & Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford University Press, 2023). He is currently working on his next book, a global history of efforts to conserve indigenous and tribal cultures within national parks and other protected areas, tentatively titled People Parks: Histories of Preserving Inhabited Wilderness. Much of his work engages with the experiences of indigenous peoples in modernity and global debates over the relationship between biological and cultural diversity. In particular, the concept of "endangerment" has become a unifying strand throughout his body of work to date. His research thus explores historical discourses and policies that protect biological and cultural diversity as similarly endangered and in need of similar or simultaneous forms of conservation. Working in western and central India, he collects oral histories of Bhil, Gond, Baiga, Kurku, and other Adivasi communities facing conservation- and/or development-induced displacement. He then situates these oral histories in dialog with the colonial archive, anthropological accounts, and activist engagements with these communities' histories.

Birsa Munda, the legendary tribal rebel who died more than 120 years ago, is at the center of a heated political battle. Sangh Parivar outfits are using his memory to co-opt Adivasi identities into the saffron fold while demanding that tribals who have converted to ‘non-indigenous' religions, such as Christianity, be excluded from the Scheduled Tribes list. Adivasis maintain that they are distinct from Hindus with their own religious and cultural identity. Central to this battle is Birsa Munda's legacy. Please listen to the latest episode of All Indians Matter.

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India's history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008. Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population's resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota's analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state's classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism. Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by independent journalist Rahul Singh.Rahul talks about his report on the shortcomings of the public distribution system in Jharkhand. He says despite the online mechanism, food security is poor in rural areas, and instead of helping, the system “is emerging as a hurdle” for the Adivasis.Basant reported on people falsely named as beneficiaries of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra in a report by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, which also claimed their farm incomes doubled in 2022. He shares how he found out the factual errors in the government body's book. Tune in.Timecodes00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:14 - Lok Sabha Election00:07:57 - Issues in getting Ration in Jharkhand00:25:21 - Farmers' income00:36:45 - RecommendationsRecommendationsRahulJawanBasantScoopMedia Ka LoktantraProduced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2024 has been dubbed the year of elections, as at least 64 countries – including the UK – are heading for the polls. Tom Sutcliffe and guests explore the state of democracy.The political philosopher Erica Benner reflects on the tensions in liberal democracy in her book, Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power. From her childhood in post-war Japan, to working in post-communist Poland, and with forays into ancient Greece and Renaissance Erica Benner looks at the role of ordinary citizens in keeping democracy alive.Democracy in India has a long history with roots in ancient councils of elders, although its modern manifestation began with independence from British rule in 1947. But the anthropologist Alpa Shah raises questions about how far democratic institutions are failing in India, as minority groups - the Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims - are targeted and demonised, in her new book The Incarcerations. The UK will have a general election this year, and although satisfaction with politics ranks very low in relation to other countries, faith in democracy continues to rise. The research is by the Policy Institute at King's College London, and its director Bobby Duffy says that while there's little support for authoritarian forms of government, the idea of Citizen Assemblies are becoming more popular.Producer: Katy Hickman

In Episode 8 of Season 12, explore Ruby Hembrom's journey as the founder and director of adivaani, an archiving and publishing outfit of and by Adivasis (the indigenous peoples of India). Ruby is an Adivasi cultural practitioner, documentarian, writer, and publisher based in Kolkata. Her documentation initiative grew out of a need to claim Adivasi stake in historical and contemporary social, cultural, and literary spaces. Ruby holds a law degree from Calcutta University and an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science, earned during her fellowship as an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity. This conversation offers valuable insights on advancing impact careers at the intersection of culture, rights, and beyond. Key Lessons: Discover the power of storytelling in advocating for marginalized communities and driving change Learn strategies for creating spaces for underrepresented narratives to thrive Gain insights into navigating challenges and biases as a changemaker in traditional industries Understand the transformative power of cross-disciplinary experiences, lifelong learning, and fellowships Explore the role of advocacy and activism in advancing rights and empowering communities

On 21st and 22nd December, 2023, authorities in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district cleared thousands of trees over hundreds of hectares for the phase-2 extension of coal mines in the Hasdeo Arand forest.  Over the past one decade, Adivasis have been a part of a struggle to save Hasdeo Arand forests that stretch across over 1,500 km through Chhattisgarh. The area is home to India's tribal communities, with an estimated five billion tonnes of coal buried under the dense forests.  In this episode of Climate Emergency, Suno India's Sneha Richhariya speaks to Adivasis from villages in Korba and Sarguja districts of Chattisgarh, to understand their concerns regarding the felling of trees in Hasdeo for coal mining.  She also speaks to Alok Shukla, the convenor of Chattisgarh Bachao Andolan and has been associated with the Hasdeo moment for a decade. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

This week, host Anmol Pritam is joined by Newslaundry's Basant Kumar and The Mooknayak's Satya Prakash Bharti and Ankit Pachauri.Satya talks about his report on women collecting oil left over in lakhs of lamps lit in Ayodhya by the UP government on Diwali to “make a Guinness World Record”. He says at least over 30,000 litres of oil were left at the site, which many marginalised women were collecting to use for cooking and other household chores.Basant shares his experience of reporting from Chhattisgarh. He sheds light on the BJP's purported communal experiment to make its way into the state. In Saja constituency, the party fielded a labourer who lost his son in a communal clash against a seven-time Congress MLA.Meanwhile, Ankit delves into his report on Adivasis living in remote areas of Madhya Pradesh. He says incidents of malnutrition are rising among tribals as government schemes are not working on the ground. He also highlights the lack of other basic necessities such as water, roads, and electricity in tribal villages.Tune in.Timecodes00:00:00 - Introduction00:03:08 - Diyas in Ayodhya00:10:04 - Chattisgarh Politics00:13:30 - Adivasis in MP00:35:58 - RecommendationsRecommendationsBasantNo power, roads in villages of MP rural minister's constituency despite ‘Rs 22,000 cr' spendingDear ZindagiAnkitJeevan Mein SamvidhanAnmolHow to Become a TyrantProduced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, and recorded by Naresh Kumar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by The Quint's Himanshi Dahiya and independent journalist Anand Dutta.Himanshi talks about her report on Mizoram's struggle to protect women from cervical cancer. She explains how stigma, poor health infrastructure, and religious beliefs have made the situation worse.Anand reported on how 233 caste groups and communities across the country are demanding tribal status. He says the issue is also being politicised, which could have a “fatal impact on our society”.Tune in.Timecodes00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:35 - Cervical cancer 00:21:08 - Adivasis and politics00:34:33 - RecommendationsRecommendationsHimanshiHow Prime Ministers DecideAnandGunayatanBasant'Waiting To Die': In Mizoram, a Struggle to Protect Women from Cervical Cancerक्यों लगी है होड़ आदिवासी बनने कीThaharti Sanson Ke Sirhane Se : Jab Zindagi Mauj Le Rahi Thiकैंसर और ज़िंदगी जीने की ज़िदProduced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is the caste system and why it still continues nowadays in India?Dalit women and girls are placed at the bottom of the caste system, why is it so? What are some cultural or religious norms negatively affecting Dalit and Adivasis women and girls? How do they differ from castes in Northern India? Despite all the domestic and international human rights laws focusing on protecting caste marginalized communities, why structural violence and sexual violence persists against them? How can States work through "reforming" centuries old societal/economic/religious organization systems to "fit" current times? Are there limits to what "States" can do to ensure inter communal violence doesn't occur? What if there are "non-negotiables" for societal and ethnic organizations, different than states structures, depending on a country's history? An interview with Christina Dhanuja, Convenor of the Global Campaign for Dalit Women and co-founder of the #DalitHistoryMonth project. Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir. Listen to related episodes: 50. Postcolonial Feminism 101 - Which Women's Experiences Do We Know More About? 149. Kirthi Jayakumar on Anticolonialism in International Relations 151. Dr. Luke Moffett on Reparations in Post-Conflict Societies 159. Dr. Shraddha Kale Kapile on Menstrual Health, Hygiene & Education in Mumbai Slums Recommended readings of this episode: Global Campaign for Dalit Women Official Website Global Campaign for Dalit Women Programs GCDW Instagram ⁠Christina Dhanuja Official Website⁠ Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition The Internationalisation of Caste The Dalit: Born into a life of discrimination and stigma Attacks on Dalit Women: A Pattern of Impunity Hathras case: Dalit women are among the most oppressed in the world The Rape Of India's Dalit Women And Girls

In May 2023, violent clashes between two communities erupted in India's Manipur state, leaving entire villages burned and displacing tens of thousands. The ongoing conflict is between the state's majority Hindu Meitei community and the Christian Kuki population and has seen the direct targeting of religious symbols and places of worship and refuge. More than 250 churches of different denominations have been burned or damaged across the state. Religious freedom in India has declined in recent years, marked by the promotion and enforcement of discriminatory laws and practices that negatively impact the country's minority Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Adivasis populations. In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the State Department designate India as a Country of Particular Concern for systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.USCIRF Policy Analyst Sema Hasan joins Supervisory Policy Advisor Jamie Staley to discuss the current conflict in Manipur and religious freedom conditions in India. Read USCIRF's 2023 Annual Report Chapter on IndiaWith Contributions from:Jamie Staley, Supervisory Policy Advisor, USCIRFSema Hasan, Policy Analyst, USCIRFVeronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

With the second phase of the caste survey beginning in Bihar, other political parties such as the Congress are also raising a pitch on the issue. Last month, there was a heated political war over sections of the Ramcharitmanas in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with some leaders arguing that the text “abuses” Dalits, Adivasis and backward castes.  Here we discuss how these developments compare to the high noon of Mandal mobilisation in the late 1980s and 1990s. Guests: Mona G. Mehta, Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University; Amit Ahuja, fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara Host: Sobhana K. Nair

So who really spearheaded India's Freedom Struggle? Millions of ordinary people-farmers, labourers, homemakers, forest produce gatherers, artisans and others-stood up to the British. People who never went on to be ministers, governors, presidents, or hold other high public office. They had this in common: their opposition to Empire was uncompromising. In The Last Heroes, these footsoldiers of Indian freedom tell us their stories. The men, women and children featured in this book are Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, Brahmins, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. They hail from different regions, speak different languages and include atheists and believers, Leftists, Gandhians and Ambedkarites. The people featured pose the intriguing question: What is freedom? They saw that as going beyond Independence. And almost all of them continued their fight for freedoms long after 1947. The post-1947 generations need their stories. To learn what they understood. That freedom and independence are not the same thing. And to learn to make those come together. This episode of BIC Talks is adapted from a conversation between P Sainath and Indu Prasad at Bangalore Literature Festival 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

A survey of nearly 10,000 people carried out for the Status of Policing in India Report 2023 suggests a high level of support for certain forms of government surveillance but reveals a lack of public awareness regarding critical issues such as the Pegasus spying scandal. The report, prepared by the NGO Common Cause and Lokniti, CSDS, finds that three out of four people believe CCTVs can help monitor and reduce crime. The poor, Adivasis, Dalits and Muslims are the least trusting of the police. Interestingly, 44 per cent of those surveyed across 12 states and union territories believe that the police should not have the freedom to check people's phones without a warrant.  So, what is the bigger picture from the survey? Why choose this theme at this time? How does surveillance impact dissent? 

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

Perhaps no category of people on earth has been perceived as more endangered, nor subjected to more preservation efforts, than indigenous peoples. And in India, calls for the conservation of Adivasi culture have often reached a fever pitch, especially amongst urban middle-class activists and global civil society groups. But are India's ‘tribes' really endangered? Do they face extinction? And is this threat somehow comparable to the threat of extinction facing tigers and other wildlife?  Combining years of fieldwork and archival research with intensive theoretical interrogations, Ezra Rashkow's book The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020 (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a global intellectual history of efforts to ‘protect' indigenous peoples and their cultures, usually from above. It also offers a critique of the activist impulse to cry ‘Save the tigers!' and ‘Save the tribes!' together in the same breath. It is not a history or an ethnography of the tribes of India but rather a history of discourses—including Adivasis' own—about what is perceived to be the fundamental question for nearly all indigenous peoples in the modern world: the question of survival. Examining views of interlinking biological and cultural (or biocultural) diversity loss in western and central India—particularly in regard to Bhil and Gond communities facing not only conservation and development-induced displacement but also dehumanizing animal analogies comparing endangered tigers and tribes—the book problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse. In doing so, it shows that fears of tribal extinction actually predated scientific awareness of the extinction of non-human species. Only by confronting this history can we begin to decolonize this discourse. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

Indigenous people play an important role in protecting the environment. The tribals  or adivasis as they are called in India depend on the forest for their survival. They have developed sustainable practices that preserve natural resources. Indigenous people are also increasingly being recognized as key partners in conservation efforts and are being included in decision-making processes related to natural resource management. But contrarily in India, many tribals are still being jailed and are being harassed says the report "Wildlife Policing- The reign of criminilization in the forests of Madhya Pradesh " by Criminal justice and police accountability project. For this episode Host, Rakesh Kamal, brings you a very interesting conversation with Mrinalini Ravindranath and Nikita Sonavane who are two of 13 authors of this report. Link to the report https://cpaproject.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-Release-Draft_P-120th-jan.pdf Additional Resource:  https://youtu.be/fDA8DU_LgkMSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. This Thursday APEX Express proudly presents “South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement.” This episode highlights Sandhya Jha, a pastor, founder and former Executive Director of the Oakland Peace Center, and racial, housing, and labor justice activist. In the first half of the episode, we discuss Sandhya's life, their path into organizing, and what they're up to now. The second half is dedicated to their recent project with the South Asian American Digital Archive's Archival Creators Fellowship Program. This episode was interviewed, produced, and edited by Swati Rayasam Follow @Sandhya Jha on Facebook and check out Sandhya's website https://sandhyajha.com/    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Listen to the episode live on KPFA 94.1 in San Francisco, 89.3 in Berkeley, and online at KPFA.org.  References throughout the Show and Links: Without Fear Consulting Interfaith Alliance Oakland Peace Center Book – Blueprint for a Revolution Book – The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad Podcast – Bending Toward Justice: Avatar the Last Airbender for the Global Majority The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action – ASATA Bay Area Solidarity Summer South Asian American Digital Archive Archival Creators Fellowship Program Sandhya Jha's project, you can listen to all of the oral histories here. Solidarity Forever Online Exhibit Arab Resource and Organizing Center Block the Boat No Tech for Apartheid  University of California Labor Center Equality Labs California Trade Justice Coalition NAFCON – National Alliance for Filipino Concerns Filipino Community Center Madhvi Trivedi Patak Transcript: South Asians and Labor Justice  [00:00:00]  [00:00:00] Swati Rayasam: Good evening everyone and Happy Thursday, my name is Swati Rayasam. While I'm usually in the background of APEX Express editing, this week I'm honored to bring you a piece from a dear friend of mine Sandhya Jha. We explore Sandhya's background as a mixed race kid, a housing, labor, and racial justice organizer, and a faith leader.  [00:00:50] Swati Rayasam: And then we dive into an amazing project, Sandhya did for the South Asian American Digital Archive's Archival Creators Fellowship program. Stay locked in.[00:01:00]  [00:01:00] Swati Rayasam: I'm really excited actually today to talk to Sandhya Jha, who is a really close friend of mine. Hi Sandhya. Hi there. Sandhya is, a Pastor is a consultant and has been working on this really amazing project with the South Asian American Digital Archive that will get into later in the episode. But yeah, Sandhya I'm just really excited to learn more about you and to hear more of your story and, let's just dive in. [00:01:26] Swati Rayasam: Absolutely.  [00:01:27] Swati Rayasam: We should first talk a little bit about how we know each other, you have this long organizing background. I've been in the Bay Area for the past seven years and I would be totally lying if I said I have not historically been, or I'm not even currently an active fangirl of yours. You are literally a pastor. You are a movement worker, how did you get involved in organizing? [00:01:53] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. So I am the product of my parents who were generous, compassionate [00:02:00] people who thought about the world beyond themselves, but were never involved in organizing or activism or anything like that. I think for anybody who comes from immigrant backgrounds, it's hard to tell our stories without naming who we come from. Right. And so my father was Sunil Kumar Jha from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal. My mother, who is still alive is Jeanette Campbell Jha. She is from Glasgow. So I come from a mixed religion and mixed race home. My parents chose not to name me Sandhya Campbell Jha not to give me that kind of grounding, but I was called Sandhya Rani Jha, which is a lot to live up to, well, yes, Rani does mean Queen. But it was actually handed down to me, part of the reason they wanted that middle name was it was my aunt's name, Durga Rani Upadhyay and she was the one who really [00:03:00] brokered my mother's acceptance into the Indian family and I think that there was something about being accepted on the Indian side of the family and not for many, many years on the Scottish side. That caused my parents and particularly my mother to double down on making sure I knew who I came from and who I came from was my people in the village of Tildanga. [00:03:23] Sandhya Jha: I grew up in Akron, Ohio, so we immigrated to this country when I was a toddler, in the late 1970s, which was a complicated time for Asian immigrants to be in the Midwest because it was a time that the rust belt was rusting and there was a growing sense that we were the reason. But also I grew up alongside folks who were trying to figure out how to put food on the table. So I think that landscape shaped me in a lot of ways. And I also come from people who grew up in poor working communities. And[00:04:00] when I went off to college, there was an organizing campaign. The board of directors of the university had created a for-profit corporation with the exact same board.  [00:04:15] Swati Rayasam: Oh wow.  [00:04:16] Sandhya Jha: So that the universities could subcontract all of their catering, all of their custodial work to this… basically Shell corporation.  [00:04:28] Swati Rayasam: Are we telling on the university?  [00:04:29] Sandhya Jha: Mm, Yeah. Why not? It was Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I think that's relevant because the tension between Black communities next to Johns Hopkins Medical School and the school itself were very real because this was part of a very long history of exploiting community members. So the workers were organizing, and you know, I had read about activism, I cared about it. I paid as much attention as I could for a high school student. But when I got to college, this organizing [00:05:00] campaign was going, and the workers were really clear, Hey, college kids who are excited about this, we do have a role for you. It's to fill the crowd. It's to cheer us on. It's to when we ask you communicate to the university that our well-being matters to you because they will listen to you in different ways. But the campaign centered the workers and was really clear with us about what our role was because we were the folks with all the privilege by getting to be there, right? We had tons of privilege and it was a really good lesson for me. I am so grateful. The first organizing campaign I was a part of was a labor campaign that understood what it meant to center the people who were the most impacted by injustice and I think that shaped the rest of my career.  [00:05:46] Swati Rayasam: And that's so special too because I think for many people who come into organizing, and I will definitely cop to this myself, like coming up and organizing through high school and college level organizing. When you are a student, nobody ever [00:06:00] tells you that actually you are the least useful kind of organizer that exists. Right. You are in this incredibly enclaved community. Your oppressor, the university, all they have to do is wait for you to graduate institutional memory will not keep you. Yeah. Right. And I think that it is, it's this perfect storm of, you have actually sometimes cool ideas, sometimes very rudimentary ideas, but you also have this turnover issue and you have this sense of self import, which often comes with your teens, early twenties. Yep. As you're just figuring all of that out. So Yeah, self differentiation, right? It's a narcissistic phase in our development. .  [00:06:46] Swati Rayasam: It absolutely is and I think that's so important, and I can't imagine how my life would be shaped if I didn't have to spend a lot of time unlearning the self import and narcissism that I had gained through student [00:07:00] organizing. [00:07:00] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. No, I am really, really grateful for it.  [00:07:02] Sandhya Jha: My first job outta college was working for a member of Congress, which sounds super fancy and pretentious, but, a member of congress from Akron, Ohio. So put that all in perspective. His name, believe it or not, was Tom Sawyer. Oh, wow. What I loved about Tom was back in those days, he believed very strongly that 80% of legislation was nonpartisan and that was the part that he spent most of his time on. He would weigh in with his party, when they were dealing with that 20% pretty consistently. But he was more interested in the stuff that everybody could agree on and I remember for about 15 years after I worked for him, I looked back and found myself thinking that was so naive. How did he not understand where we were about to head with the divisions between the political parties? But at this point in my life, I realize the people I respect most in organizing work keep pointing out that the binary of [00:08:00] left and right actually doesn't serve us very well. One of my biggest heroes in the movement right now is the Reverend Dr. William Barber,  [00:08:07] Swati Rayasam: Hometown hero of mine. Yes.  [00:08:09] Sandhya Jha: Poor People's campaign from North Carolina. And he always talks about how it's not about right and left. It's about right and wrong. And it turns out that when we engage in organizing with the awareness that there are huge swaths of things that most of us are well served by, we can do better organizing. And that was actually how Tom was legislating. And at a certain point I realized that my deep passion was around racial justice, but the distinct experience I had in a multi religious household was an awareness of how religion was being used as a weapon. I had an obsession. Every paper in college I wrote was about the Christian coalition, this right wing, organizing body in the nineties. So a friend of mine [00:09:00] said, You know, there's an interfaith organization working against the Christian Coalition. And it was called the Interfaith Alliance. Her mom had been a superintendent in Washington state in eastern Washington and was a pretty conservative person by my standards. [00:09:18] Sandhya Jha: But, Dr. Chow believed in multiculturalism and believed in teaching evolution. And the Christian coalition had organized to push her out of her position as superintendent and the Interfaith Alliance of Washington State had supported her in that time. [00:09:38] Sandhya Jha: And so Liz said, you know, they've got a national chapter, a national office. And that's where I ended up, cutting my adult organizing teeth which was great because talk about learning lessons for our current moment where religion is being weaponized in ways that are anti-trans, that are anti-queer, that are anti-women, that [00:10:00] are anti reproductive rights, that are anti-immigrant and refugee. I am really grateful to have experienced the power of multi-faith organizing, around a lot of those same issues. So that was what I did in the early two thousands and then I went to seminary and public policy school, and then I ended up out here pastoring a congregation of 10 people in a building of 40,000 square feet. [00:10:29] Sandhya Jha: And long story short, that's how the Oakland Peace Center was born, was out of this dream of cultivating deeper collaboration among nonprofits who were dedicated to a shared cause. The Oakland Peace Center, which is a collective of 40 different nonprofits committed to dismantling the root causes of violence in our community. I was the founder of that organization and it was when I was pastoring First Christian Church of Oakland that I asked the handful of folks who were members of that church, what they wanted to [00:11:00] contribute to the community, and they said they wanted to contribute peace in the midst of violence. And for a dozen folks to have given birth to a space that in non pandemic years, saw over a hundred thousand people do things like the Lawyers for Black Lives Conference and to do Kingian non-violence training and to be a part of food and clothing distribution, to participate in all the very diverse ways that we can create peace is pretty impressive.  [00:11:30] Sandhya Jha: And a couple of years ago, I left the Oakland Peace Center because a colleague of mine said, Anybody can run a non-profit. We need you to do what you're actually good at, and what she meant by that was we need more people of color doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is actually grounded in power analysis. That isn't just how do we be nicer to each other in the workplace, but how do we recognize the ways that systems of white supremacy [00:12:00] unconsciously often shape the culture of our workplaces? And what do we do to dismantle that white supremacy culture so that we can be building nonprofits and institutions of higher education and faith organizations, and even corporations that are dedicated to our full liberation, our liberation, the lands liberation. [00:12:23] Swati Rayasam: I mean coming, especially from the place that you come in grassroots organizing and in faith based organizing, what is it actually to transition into this kind of consulting space around racial justice and really interface with a lot of people that I feel like as organizers, we don't really talk to? [00:12:42] Sandhya Jha: One of my favorite things about this shift in my work is I love getting to work with folks who don't think of themselves as organizers, who, it turns out are organizers, Right. I think we sometimes create a cult of here's what an organizer looks like, you [00:13:00] have to be a Martin Luther King or a Cesar Chavez and what I love is getting to work with moms and with teenagers and with folks who think of themselves as caring, compassionate, individuals, and when I go into an organization and work with their handful of folks who care about this issue, the DEI team, I get to teach them how to strategically organize. I get to teach them how do you create culture shift over time? I get to teach them how do you figure out who your allies are? How do you figure out how to move people who are neutral? It turns out that there are a lot more organizers out there than we realize if we don't create one definition of what an organizer needs to look like.  [00:13:45] Swati Rayasam: I have been reading this political scholar Eqbal Ahmed, who really talks about the way the burden is on those of us who are deeply committed to movement work, narrow definition people, the burden is really on us to try and [00:14:00] create a liberatory future that feels both achievable. Mm-hmm. and safe for everybody. Because when people engage in mass struggle and in revolution, there are people who are a hundred percent willing to put their lives on the line. People who are willing to die for the cause. And we absolutely need those people. And there are many people along the spectrum who, if you can create a future that feels like it's within their grasp, they will come with you.  [00:14:30] Sandhya Jha: Yep. I teach a lot of organizing classes and have gotten a chance to teach alongside my beloved colleague BK Woodson at Allen Temple Baptist Church, they have a leadership institute there. And one of the books we use is Blueprint for a Revolution by Srđa Popović. And I feel like I learned a lot as we read that book together and thought about how to apply it to the work we're doing in Oakland. They talked about how by engaging in nonviolent direct action, [00:15:00] they created space for elders to be a part of their work and youth to be a part of their work and families to be a part of their work. By making the movement playful. They gave people hope and gave people courage because dictators are terrified of being mocked.  [00:15:17] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. And I think by being really restrictive or narrow about who we view as actually valuable organizers. And I think labor movements teach us this a lot, right? We really cut ourselves off at the knees on our ability to build a network or to be in touch with the general population, many of whom are more connected than we ever give them credit for.  [00:15:41] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Yep. it's part of why I love labor organizing. I talk with a lot of people who are disenchanted with organizing who ask me how I can have stayed involved for the past 25 years. And why I've been able to stay in it is cuz I'm organizing alongside workers and they have [00:16:00] full lives. And the work that they're doing in the movement is so that they can live their full lives. And there's something about having that perspective and recognizing the why all the time instead of getting lost in the weeds of the what. Is so important in this work. I think that has been a big theme of my organizing life is how do we build to the greatest common denominator? As my friend BK often says how do we build towards those shared values that often get erased when we are engaged in the right versus left debate. [00:16:39] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that it is so important and I also think that it's really hard in this moment of what feels like constant trauma and re trauma. [00:16:51] Swati Rayasam: And to some extent especially when we're talking about the left right dichotomy there are real concerns [00:17:00] about safety. Yep. And there are real concerns about security and who you are in community with and who you can find even the smallest level of acceptance from to ensure that you won't have violence visited upon you. And I think that these conversations of united front organizing, Right. trying to bridge across difference mm-hmm. for a shared goal, for a shared liberatory future Yep. Are really important. And they feel kind of impossible to achieve right now.  [00:17:31] Sandhya Jha: It's interesting cuz I think that in many ways that is true. There are a lot of conversations that I think people with privilege expect, people who are marginalized to engage in. And those expectations are unfair, what I found very frustrating was the number of people with a lot of privilege who would be like, Ugh, I just can't talk to those people. And I'm like, Then who's going to? Exactly. and so I do think that some of this is about being willing to have [00:18:00] hard conversations in the places where we have privilege and recognizing who's at actual risk and showing up in ways that are protective of who is at risk. But that doesn't mean walking away from people who aren't where we are. Right. Because the fact of the matter is everybody's on a journey. And I have watched at the same time some of the disposability culture in movements write off people without giving them any way to address harm, repair harm, and find a pathway back into community. [00:18:41] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that's why, at least I am feeling really hopeful about, what I've seen over the past couple of years, this really important track into transformative justice and restorative justice, to acknowledge that there is harm that has happened, there are harms that happen every day between people. [00:19:00] And also we are all on our own journey to unlearn the things that we have been taught either directly or indirectly by our upbringing, by our environment and that you cannot easily dispose of people and that people are able to come back into community. Now that comes with a very important caveat that like they recognize the harm. Mm-hmm. that. They have done or how they've been party to it, that they acknowledge that there is healing work that needs to be done both with the person that they harmed and also probably in internally.  [00:19:35] Sandhya Jha: Well, and the community, folks who don't do RJ on a regular basis tend to skip the community aspect. Yeah. That there is actually repair that needs to be done with community and there's work community needs to do to figure out how to re-embrace reabsorb people who have done harm in ways that still protect the person who's been harmed. [00:19:55] Swati Rayasam: Exactly. In ways that do not erase the harm that has happened, but [00:20:00] acknowledge, contextualize it and say, Okay, we are patching this and we are working to move forward in step with each other. Absolutely.  [00:20:09] Sandhya Jha: Can I just say that one of the other things that I think you and I have in common is a real passion for bringing joy back into the work of Justice I quote Fabiana Rodriguez a lot on this particular thing, because I was at an event she was doing eons ago, and she looked out at us and most of us were activists and she said, Listen, y ‘all you keep inviting people to a struggle. I'm on your side and I don't wanna join a struggle. I want to join a party. And that was like a call to arms for me when I heard her say that. I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. We are so much more fun. Like, I've hung out with people who are anti-trans and anti queer and anti-immigrant and anti refugee. They are not fun people. No, no. We have all of the best parties. So I don't know why we don't [00:21:00] capitalize on that more. So I think the role of joy and justice is so important. And this is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast that I launched recently. [00:21:11] Sandhya Jha: Right. Bending Towards Justice Avatar the last Airbender for the Global Majority.  [00:21:15] Swati Rayasam: So literally like bringing it together. Two of my favorite things right, is like TV shows, wholesome TV shows like Avatar, The Last Airbender that I deeply love and organizing. Yes. All the work that I love. And I think it's true You know, what is actually really the important work is to work to build toward a future that is desirable Yep. That people want to be a part of. Yeah. That people can see happen. Yeah. And I think that is a lot of the difficulty that I have seen in some organizing circles. We are so well versed in what we are against and all of the things that are bad that so many people have a really hard time seeing or visioning or communicating [00:22:00] what it is that we are fighting for. Yeah. Right. And it's not enough to say, I'm fighting for a world where we can all be safe. Right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm fighting for a world where we can all take long naps in the middle of the day if we'd like to do that. Right. Yeah. But like really building and visioning that future of like, in this world in which we are all safe, there will be harm that happens. How do we deal with that? Yeah. What do we do with that? How do we make sure that it is able to keep everybody safe and also able to account for the times in which it is not able to keep everybody safe. [00:22:38] Sandhya Jha: Visionary does not have to mean naive. And we need it to be visionary. And sometimes I forget to do the visionary stuff. I've got a colleague, Dave Bell, he's a farmer who is also an anti-racism trainer and we do a lot of work together. He's a white guy who lives in White Swan, Washington, on the reservation and I remember being at a training with him and I [00:23:00] was all fired up and I was so excited about the conversations we were having and the people were really ready to do the hard work and roll up their sleeves. And Dave says to them, I would like to not have to do this work. And I'm like, What is he talking about? This is amazing. We're doing such good work. And he says, I would like for us not to have to talk about racism all the time. I would rather be farming. I would rather be, taking care of the cows in my field. [00:23:26] Sandhya Jha: I would rather be talking about my pottery work that I'm doing badly but learning how to do, I would rather be doing anything than have this conversation. But I don't get to be on the farm with the wheat, with the cows, with my bad pottery until we figured out how to do this anti-racism work. And it was a really humbling moment for me because I also get into that like I'm an organizer, that's my identity space. And it was this reminder of Dave's doing this. So he gets to live in a world where he gets to hang out in the fields and he [00:24:00] gets to, love on the cows. There's something about being reminded that we're doing this so that eventually we don't have to do it. That I think is actually visionary in its own way and it's important.  [00:24:12] Swati Rayasam: Moving into a little bit more of the grit of like why I asked you to be on the show today. I met you originally when I moved to the Bay Area when you were the executive director of the Oakland Peace Center because At that time I was doing organizing work with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, which is a 20 year old bay area based organization, that was really founded around the Laki Reddy Bali Reddy sex trafficking. Yep. Caste and labor exploitation case that happened in Berkeley in 1999. And I was just so thrilled to be around and have in community so many rad desis. And you also did work with ASATA, right. Historically and are actively doing work with us.  [00:24:56] Sandhya Jha: Absolutely. One of the places I think I invested the most [00:25:00] energy in where we got to spend a lot of quality time in the kitchen was one of the projects, Bay Area Solidarity Summer, an organizing institute, camp, however you wanna refer to it. [00:25:10] Swati Rayasam: Political education, Summer camp.  [00:25:12] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. For young South Asian Americans who are committed to activism. What I think was the most beautiful part of that program when I was involved in it, and it's still the case today, is for young South Asians who think that they're the only ones who care about justice issues, who haven't met other people, who are South Asian, and identify as justice seekers first to meet each other and realize that there are people just like them. Then to look around and realize that those of us who are usually 10, 15, 20 years older than them are also committed to the work and have been doing it for decades. And then for them to get exposed to the long history of radical visionary organizing and activism of South [00:26:00] Asians here in the US and also in the homelands of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and diasporic countries all over the world. [00:26:13] Sandhya Jha: There's something about realizing, Oh, you have contemporaries, oh, you have elders, oh, you have ancestors. Mm-hmm. Especially in the face of the model minority lie that so many of us have had imposed on us, this lie that all we are all we're supposed to be is cogs in this larger capitalist machine that are non disruptive, which is why we're allowed to survive. And if we are non disruptive enough, we might even be able to be comfortable. And to discover that there's more to our story than that is so exciting and I love, love, love being a part of that.  [00:26:52] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that is like fundamentally one of the most important kind of activities that [00:27:00] happens in the ASATA universe, I was a kid who also grew up thinking that there were no other South Asians like me, or there were no other folks who were interested in justice. I spent a lot of time doing, reproductive and queer justice in the south; I always think about what would it have meant if I came in, BASS for 18 to 24 year olds. Yep. what would it have meant if I had come in at a fresh 18 and been able to basically be apprised of the fact that I have this history Yeah. That it's not just me. And that actually, immigration and white supremacy and neo-colonial culture has created this project of assimilation that all of our parents have been in on, in a way to survive Yeah. And to be safe. And I tell my, I tell my mom that a lot because she's always a little surprised about the organizing work that I do. And I was just like, Your job was to survive. My job is to liberate. Yeah. [00:28:00] You know? Yeah. And I could not do that if you were not so focused on creating that environment for me. [00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: I love that.  [00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: we'll drop in the show notes, but, BASS – Bay Area Solidarity Summer is solidaritysummer.org. So we'll put that in the show notes as well as ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action is ASATA.org. And yeah, I think that is a really good segue into how we got involved in this amazing project.  [00:28:31] Swati Rayasam: You're tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org.  [00:28:43] Swati Rayasam: I think it was Fall 2021 that you and I were talking. Yep. And you were telling me that you were involved in this amazing archival fellowship project. Is run by the South Asian American Digital Archive and [00:29:00] that you were going to do your project about labor. Mm-hmm. and South Asians. Yep. And my immediate, incredibly naive response was, how many South Asians are there in labor?  [00:29:12] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. And it's not naive. It's interesting cuz I think that this project actually emerged out of my favorite part of BASS, which was when the young adults would ask what their opportunities were in the world of justice. And I would say, you know, there's a place for us in labor justice. It had never crossed most of their minds. Right. We don't think of ourselves as having a role especially in formalized unions. And so SAADA, the South Asian American Digital Archives has an archival fellows project. And the whole purpose of it is to diversify their archives and collect the stories that are usually overlooked in the telling of South Asian American stories. [00:29:56] Sandhya Jha: And they have done a great job over the years of collecting the [00:30:00] stories of informal organizing, like the Punjabi Taxi Drivers campaign, the Bangladeshi Nail Workers Campaign. Those were informal labor organizing campaigns. That have been really well archived and they're amazing stories. I wanted to make sure that the next generation of South Asian activists knew about the South Asians who were actually part of the formal organized labor movement. [00:30:30] Sandhya Jha: And so I spent this past year interviewing, maybe a half a dozen or so South Asian American workers. Generally, not always, but mostly what would be classified as low wage workers who found a pathway into formal organizing bodies, unite here or the building trades or any number of the formal unions that keep [00:31:00] the labor movement alive across the country today. And I'm really proud of the fact that we do have South Asian workers who have moved up the ranks to be official organizers or to be at negotiating tables. And so that's part of the story I thought it was worth us telling. [00:31:19] Swati Rayasam: And I am, I'm so excited that we get to dive deeper into this project and I really love your framing too, around the three large bins that you have, solidarity, spirit and struggle. [00:31:34] Swati Rayasam: Right? Yeah. Yeah.  [00:31:35] Sandhya Jha: I started out with certain assumptions about what I was going to learn, partly because I've been doing labor solidarity work for 25 years at this point. I really thought I knew what I was gonna hear. And what I discovered was there were these consistent themes across, the interviews. that there were these notions of, Oh, what's meaningful to me is [00:32:00] getting to organize across cultures, getting to organize with people who, on the surface and even deep down are very different than me, but we share this vision of what our lives can be. And so that solidarity message I found really powerful. Also, and admittedly because I come out of a spiritual background, was probably looking for it. I was really struck by how many of the interviews ended up talking about the role of spirituality and shaping people's values. And in a couple of instances, organizers said, what my religion taught me was that religion needs to be challenged. And building up that muscle was what helped me challenge systems of injustice in other places. But others said that their journey with their faith tradition was what guided them into the work of labor organizing. [00:32:52] Sandhya Jha: And then that third bucket of struggle, I think is the lived experience of how [00:33:00] hard it is to take on oppressive systems of capitalism, how hard it is to take on decks that are stacked against us and what it means to have somewhere to turn in the midst of those struggles. I will say there were also a couple of lessons I was surprised by because my South Asian identity is so central to my organizing work, I was expecting to collect stories of people who were proud South Asians, who were also proud to be involved in the labor movement. And I assumed that they would see connections between those things because I certainly do. But what I discovered is for the most part, they were like, Yeah, I'm South Asian. I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but it's not super relevant to my organizing work. My organizing work is about [00:34:00] our cross-cultural solidarity. And that was something I hadn't been expecting that emerged as I did those interviews. Interesting. And I'm really grateful that the South Asian American Digital Archives likes telling all of the stories because I think I promised them that what they were going to get was, we're proud to be South Asian organizers. And what I got was, yeah, we're South Asian, we're proud to be organizers. And the that SAADA is like, yeah, that's part of our story too.  [00:34:28] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that's, that I think is incredibly important. We have this really, amazing series of audio clips from your SAADA interviews that really represent a lot of the themes that you were highlighting about solidarity, spirit, and struggle. And I'm just really excited to play them as we talk through these larger themes in your larger project and the experience of South Asian labor organizers. [00:34:55] Swati Rayasam: This clip is from somebody that you and I both know, which [00:35:00] is Prem Pariyar. I was so thrilled that Prem was a part of your project. I think Prem is an incredible organizer, so yeah tell our listeners a little bit about Prem. Prem  [00:35:09] Sandhya Jha: It was pretty exciting to get to work with him you know, he moved here from Nepal and in Nepal he had been a Dalit activist and he came to the United States and had this notion that in the United States there is no caste and he was disabused of that notion very quickly as a restaurant worker dealing with anti Nepali bias in Indian restaurants, dealing with caste bias in Nepali restaurants, well dealing with Caste bias in all the restaurants.  [00:35:35] Swati Rayasam: Hey, everyone, Narrator Swati here, I just wanted to put in an explanatory comma, a la W Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu to talk about some terms you just heard. Sandhya referenced that Prem was a Dalit activist and also talked about Caste bias. For those of you who don't know, Caste is a violent system of oppression and exclusion, which governs social status in many south Asian countries, although it is [00:36:00] most commonly associated with India. It works on an axis of purity and pollution, and it's hereditary. At the top of the caste system are Brahmins, by the way Sandhya and I are both Brahmin, and not even at the bottom, but completely outside of the system are Dalits who were previously referred to by the slur untouchable and Adivasis who are indigenous to South Asia.  [00:36:25] Swati Rayasam: Despite being “illegal” Caste bias, Caste Oppression, Caste apartheid, are still prevalent, both in South Asia and as Sandhya references, in the United States. It manifests in many ways that people experience racial injustice, via socioeconomic inequality, systemic and interpersonal violence, occupation, and through the determination of marriage and other relationships. You can learn more at EqualityLabs.org and APEX currently has a show in the works that delves into this more deeply. Now. Back to Sandhya  [00:36:58] Sandhya Jha: What is [00:37:00] delightful to me is Prem went on to get an MSW and is building out amazing mental health resources for Dalit communities for the Nepali community. Seeking to build out a program where there are more and more people in Nepal who are trained with MSW skills.  [00:37:21] Sandhya Jha: I met with one of his professors from CSU East Bay where he got his degree and she said, You know, that the entire Cal State system is adding caste to its anti-discrimination policies thanks to the work he started at CSU East Bay. And it was really beautiful to hear that because the focus of my conversations with him were more around how his experiences in the restaurants led him into the solidarity work with nail salon workers. [00:37:53] Swati Rayasam: To just, kick back to the caste abolition work that Prem has been doing, that caste abolition work [00:38:00] at CSU East Bay has been such critical work in these ongoing conversations around caste that have been in the South Asian community primarily, but have been percolating elsewhere. [00:38:13] Swati Rayasam: You know, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Cisco systems Yep. For caste discrimination in their workplace and there have been all these conversations around caste and tech work and interplay that with the no tech for apartheid work. Right. That has been happening in Palestinian liberation circles. Yeah. And really building that solidarity movement. So I think that Prem is an absolute powerhouse Yeah. In that regard. But yeah, let's listen to this clip.  [00:38:42] Prem: During that time, I got connected with other community organizer, like workers group. I got connected and so I was connected with nail salon workers, who were exploited at their workplace and with them, [00:39:00] I got to go to the capital in Sacramento. And so I thought I need to advocate for the restaurant workers. that was my first experience, like working with other workers and with the assembly members and like other other policy makers I shared what is happening what kinds of discrimination happening at the workplace. So I advocated for the restaurant workers at that time. I shared my stories and I supported the rights of nail salon workers. I was there to support them and they supported me as well, and it was wonderful. And finally that advocacy worked. And the bill was drafted and it was passed finally. And so it was huge achievement at that time.  [00:39:49] Swati Rayasam: I love that. I think that is such a perfect story of when you win, we all win.  [00:39:56] Sandhya Jha: And what I also love about it is he goes on [00:40:00] to talk about how he has remained in relationship with those nail salon workers. That they show up for each other, that they take each other food, that they show up to each other's baby showers and birthday parties, and there's this sense of community that emerges out of this shared struggle. And so that's a cross-cultural campaign. They were mostly Vietnamese. There were some Bangladeshi nail salon workers, but it was mostly people from a different culture than his. [00:40:27] Sandhya Jha: But somebody at the Asian Health Services program that he was at, saw his gifts, saw his passion, and he really responded to that in exactly, the most powerful way. I can imagine. [00:40:38] Swati Rayasam: And I think one of the nice things as well about that is that person at Asian Health Services connected Prem in and the Nail Salon Worker group, California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, Prem came from Nepal, I'm not sure, but the extent to which his organizing background and how comfortable he was in the US organizing space around labor [00:41:00] issues was probably significantly less that worker group took it upon themselves when they saw Prem come in to say, Oh, you are advocating on behalf of restaurant workers. Great. Why don't you join us? Let's help support and so the nail salon workers saw Prem, saw solidarity with Prem and said, It is our responsibility mm-hmm to bring you into this space to connect you in and to move in, struggle together. Yeah. Toward our shared goals of safety, of health, of rights. Yep.  [00:41:35] Sandhya Jha: Exactly.  [00:41:36] Swati Rayasam: So, we have this clip from Daljit, tell me a little bit about Daljit. Daljit [00:41:42] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Daljit was an attorney who now reads tarot for people because she needed a break from the toxicity of that career and how it was taking her away from her family. Daljit is a deeply spiritual person and, [00:42:00] as I mentioned before, this theme of spirit showed up in some really beautiful ways in some of the interviews. I loved the way she understood her Sikh tradition as foundationally being connected with the land and foundationally connected with the people who work the land. [00:42:15] Daljit: Agriculture is our culture and the religion that I was born into, Siki, the founder of that faith was a farmer. And so a lot of the scripture, the analogies, the metaphors, the poetry, the music, the songs, the boon, the traditional folk songs, that can be taunting and teasing banter, all that stuff the land is the framework for that. And my most favorite line from the Guru Granth Sahib, our holy book, is, [speaks Punjabi] and that basically means that, the waters our guru, the airs our father, but our mother is Earth. And that's the greatest of all , and that's adherence to ecosystem. That's the [00:43:00] indigenous Cosmo vision that should be paramount. And that's what I try to teach my children. And so I think that's what I was taught as a kid without necessarily being able to pinpoint it, but it was just infused throughout our songs, our music, our food, the Harvest, there's two times a year that our celebrations, whether it Baisakhi or Lohri. It's so connected to the harvest and what is coming out of the soil or not. And you're connected to the cycles of nature. [00:43:28] Swati Rayasam: The connection between nature land, spirituality the way that it shows up in so many faith backgrounds and so many faith organizers, I think is really, really beautiful.  [00:43:41] Sandhya Jha: And I love that Daljit Kaursoni who was raised in this tradition, has found her way to Buddhism and is raising her kids with those connections, but without ever losing this grounding in the liberation of the land, the liberation of the [00:44:00] people. [00:44:00] Sandhya Jha: And for that to be a key element of her spirituality, even as her spirituality evolves, I think it's pretty powerful.  Tafadar [00:44:08] Sandhya Jha: One of the other people I got to interview ,Tafadar, he's a Bangladeshi American in the building trades and is a deeply committed Marxist. For me, this was a particularly exciting interview because I'm Bengali, so from West Bengal, before partition, Bangladesh and what's now West Bengal, were one state. And so it was fun to get to talk with him and to say, Hey, this is our legacy as Bengalis is radical worker organizing. [00:44:40] Sandhya Jha: And I remember saying to him, Some people in the building trades are not super excited to be working with brown people. And some people in the building trades are a little biased against women. And as a very, very progressive South Asian? How do you navigate that [00:45:00] space? [00:45:00] Sandhya Jha: And he said, Here's the thing is, yeah, I organize alongside some moderate to conservative white folks from New Jersey and he said, but in the building trades, if that moderate to conservative white guy from New Jersey decides he doesn't like my feminist politics, or he doesn't like my brown skin, if he decides that's a reason not to train me, he might die. And it was really interesting because even though I've been doing labor justice work for a long time, it was one of those moments I was like, Oh, right. Your work is very dangerous and you all have to rely on each other whether you like each other or not. That is the magic of organizing that no one ever talks about. This is why we can do cross class, cross-cultural work because literally you have to trust each other with your lives. Right. That was a really clarifying moment for me. And it was one of those interesting moments where I was like, [00:46:00] Solidarity is not a romantic thing. Uh, it is very much a matter of life and death. [00:46:05] Sandhya Jha: And I think that is really important and that exact thing that you brought up, you don't even have to necessarily trust somebody. Right. But you do need them. Yep. Right. And like that really clear understanding that like your fates are intertwined and it is truly in everybody's best interest. If you are trained well, irrespective of whether or not at lunch, I'm interested in sitting anywhere near you. I think that's really great. [00:46:32] Sandhya Jha: One of the things that was really exciting about talking with Tafadar was the reminder that labor organizing and formal union organizing at its best can be in solidarity with other movements really worker justice and housing justice and racial justice are inseparable, on some level. And so, one of the most inspiring stories I got to hear across all of these interviews [00:47:00] was a campaign that brought together folks across the anti- gentrification, the immigrant rights, and the labor justice movement. [00:47:14] Tafadar: It's ironic, building affordable housing with deadly exploitation. And, um, to do this, the de blassio administration, they embark on massive major rezonings of poor areas to relax the local zoning laws to be able to bring in these developments. And a couple of years ago, my, my union in local 79's. Took a very sharp turn towards a community organizing approach because labor can't win on our own, and that's the perspective that all of labor should adopt. In order to fight against the sweatshops in our industry. We united with a lot of community organizations in the South Bronx. [00:47:53] Tafadar: We formed the South Bronx, Safe Southern Boulevard Coalition. And along with these groups, we [00:48:00] protested and did a whole lot of activism, lobbying, community organizing to stop the rezoning of Southern Boulevard, which is a massive stretch in the South Bronx, while the De Blassio administration had succeeded in another part of the Bronx where there's like massive displacement still underway right now. And we were determined to stop it there. And it was a beautiful thing that we can unite because on our end as labor, we had to prevent all these trash companies from coming in and exploiting workers. And we were working with these tenants who are afraid of being displaced. And people generally, we do need revitalization of our neighborhoods. We do need investment. We do need things to be changed and made better. For us. If it's not for us, if it's done without us, then eventually we're not even gonna be here anymore. So we had that alliance going on and not only did we manage to stop that rezoning, we also educated the local city councilman on why his position was wrong and supporting the rezoning. And he eventually completely flipped this [00:49:00] position. And now chairs the land use committee of the city council from the perspective that we educated him on, which it's just been a very interesting dynamic. But, there's a lot of rezoning battles all over the city that's like the main front of anti gentrification struggles. And I've been watching those kinds of campaigns go on since I began organizing about 15, 16. I've seen very different approaches to them, but I've never seen any model really work until that one kicked in where Labor and the community came together. So that was one of my favorite campaigns because of that lesson that we were able to concretely put into practice and set as an example for not only for community movements all over New York City, but also for Labor. [00:49:43] Sandhya Jha: I think this hit me in particular because I've done so much work around antis displacement in Oakland, and my experience has been. [00:49:53] Sandhya Jha: That while for most of us on the ground, the connection between housing justice and labor justice is really clear. When you [00:50:00] start getting into the technical policy issues and the funding issues, the folks who are running labor and housing justice or affordable housing, struggle to find ways to collaborate. And it's been one of my consistent heartbreaks for at least a decade at this point because I work at the intersection of those things and sometimes I despair of us being able to find ways to move forward together. And so to hear a story like this one and to be reminded at core, those justice issues can and must be we already knew, must be, but actually can function together to build a better community. That was actually really life giving for me to hear.  [00:50:45] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And I think the point that Tafadar as well brings in the clip of just saying we knew that we could do this, but we knew we couldn't do this without community organizing. Right? Yeah. That labor couldn't do this alone. Yeah. [00:51:00] And I think that is a lot of what, when we talk about solidarity politics, it's not just a backdoor way of inclusion for inclusion's sake, we have to all do this. Actually, it is integral that all of us are involved in any of these campaigns because it impacts all of us. And because we are not going to win with only a single constituency and in the very same way that, Tafadar was identifying that labor couldn't do that alone. in community organizing spaces that you and I have been in mm-hmm. , like we are constantly talking about how we cannot do any of this without labor. Yep. And I think a beautiful example of that is the Block the Boat campaign yeah that the Arab Resource Organizing Center, started back in 2014 and then again during 2021 to block the Zim ship from the port of Oakland. And like this community organization [00:52:00] AROC could not do that without working with the longshoreman to collaborate with the port workers. And I think that when we see the marriage of community organizing and labor organizing, that is when we get the power of grassroots organizing. [00:52:16] Sandhya Jha: Something I wanna mention about the SAADA Fellowship that I was really grateful for: two things. First off, they did a really good job of making sure we got trained in grassroots oral history. So they took really seriously what it meant for this to be justice work. And they made sure we had exposure to methodology that was gonna lift up and honor and foster the voices of people whose stories don't get heard often enough. And that was a really big deal to me. The other thing is they made sure that we had an advisory board, people who are in this [00:53:00] work who could help us, figure out who to talk with, who could help us build out an event strategy. And you helped me build out my advisory committee. Anibel Ferris-Comelo who is with the University of California Labor Center,  [00:53:14] Swati Rayasam: Prem Pariyar, a Nepali Dalit restaurant worker, organizer pushing for Caste as a protected category with Equality Labs, a Dalit feminist organization, and a social worker supporting the mental health needs of his and many other South Asian communities in Alameda county.  [00:53:31] Swati Rayasam: Will Jamil Wiltchko with the California Trade Justice Coalition, Terry Valen who I did a lot of organizing with at the beginning of the pandemic, around the struggles that seafarers were facing with the onset of COVID-19. And he's the organizational director of the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco. The president of NAFCON which is the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and just an all in all amazing organizer [00:53:57] Sandhya Jha: the last thing I wanna mention [00:54:00] is SAADA also helped me set up a digital exhibit with Art by Madhvi Trivedi Patak and I wanted to give them a shoutout because they're an incredible artist, but also they grew up in a working class family and didn't get exposed to what it looks like to do labor justice. And so as they developed the artwork to go with the digital exhibit, they got to experience the possibilities of labor solidarity that they hadn't gotten to experience as a child. And so I really loved that Madhvi was a part of this project as well [00:54:38] Swati Rayasam: All of the clips that you shared really identifying, again, these like huge fundamental pillars of solidarity and spirit and struggle. these clips were amazing. They are so rich and so layered with all of these people's varying and different experiences. Really showing in [00:55:00] all of these different walks of life at all of these ages with all of these experiences, that all of these people have this unified and shared identity in struggle, in spirit, and in solidarity for liberation. [00:55:14] Sandhya Jha: And one of the things that I think is worth celebrating is whether they see it as part of their South Asian identity or not. People who do identify as South Asian now have this resource that says there's a home for you in the labor movement. Yes, there are. There is a value to your voice. There is a value to your wisdom, there's a value to your experience in the labor movement. [00:55:36] Swati Rayasam: I think it's a beautiful project. Sandhya, I think it has been an amazing amount of work I've watched you do over the past year. These stories are so wonderful. I really encourage people to check it out. Where can they find your project? [00:55:49] Sandhya Jha: The website's www.saada.org/acfp [00:56:00] /exhibit/solidarity-forever. We'll put that in the notes. We'll definitely put that in the show notes. [00:56:05] Swati Rayasam: I just wanna make sure that we replug your podcast Bending Toward Justice Avatar, The Last Air Bender for the Global Majority and you can find that at tinyurl.com slash ATLA podcast, Capital P (tinyurl.com/ATLAPodcast). And then the last thing that I also wanna make sure that we plug is Without Fear Consulting. [00:56:27] Sandhya Jha: I love working with folks who know that their organization could be a little more liberative, and are, just not quite sure where to start. I love working with a team of folks who want to be about the work of incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the DNA of their organization and I love setting them up so that they can keep doing that long after I'm working with them. So please do find me withoutfearconsulting.com. If you're interested in that.  [00:56:58] Swati Rayasam: Amazing. Sandhya [00:57:00] Jha, Pastor, Racial Justice consultant, podcast host, archivist, singer songwriter, amazing cook. You can do it all. I think you deserve a nap. it has been amazing talking to you. I am so glad to be able to hear about your project and also to hear a lot more about your life.  [00:57:23] Sandhya Jha: Yay. Thank you so much. [00:57:25]  Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.  The post APEX Express 1.5.23 South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement appeared first on KPFA.

Achim Nuhr führt durch den Urwald zu den Adivasis, dann zu den Bewohnern der Slums und Apartmentblöcke. Wie lebt man mit Leoparden als Nachbarn, warum lebt man im Dschungel, wenn hinter den Baumwipfeln die Hochhäuser durchschimmern? Umgeben von Slums und Hochhäusern liegt mitten in der indischen Metropole Mumbai der Gandhi National Park: ein Urwald, in dem Menschen und Leoparden in enger Nachbarschaft leben. Diese "Adivasis" kennen die Raubkatzen und kommen mit ihnen aus. Aber der Park ist nicht umzäunt: Die Leoparden streifen auch durch anliegende Straßen und Gassen, wo sie Anwohner verletzen, manche töten. Achim Nuhr führt durch den Urwald zu den Adivasis, dann zu den Bewohnern der Slums und Apartmentblöcke. Wie lebt man mit Leoparden als Nachbarn, warum lebt man im Dschungel, wenn hinter den Baumwipfeln die Hochhäuser durchschimmern?

This is one of a handful of episodes during the recording of which I wept. Bhanwar Meghwanshi, a Dalit, was fanatically devoted to the RSS, ready to go to war for its cause and even die for it. He joined the RSS as a child, eased into it by his school teacher and indoctrinated through games and music. Bhanwarji was jailed for trying to participate in the kar seva at the Babri Masjid site and he worked hard to spread the Sangh's ideology. But, over time, he began to be subtly reminded of his Dalit-ness and was told he couldn't become a pracharak because he was from a lower caste. The food he prepared for RSS members and priests was thrown away because it would “pollute” them. Exposed to its true face, disillusioned and shattered, he attempted suicide. Bhanwarji left the RSS and spent years trying to find himself. Eventually, there was an epiphany and he has since devoted his life to uniting Indians of all religions, castes and sections. He is also a civil liberties activist and works with Dalits, Adivasis and nomadic tribes. He tells his story to All Indians Matter.

Are Adivasis Hindu? | Koenraad Elst | #SangamTalks SrijanTalks

Indians belong either to castes or to tribes. What makes the tribal people tribal or adivasis? What have been there cultural traditions, their thought patterns and their philosophy of life? What led to some of them getting branded as ‘criminal tribes'? What is the future of the culture of the Adivasis in the 21st century world? This lecture will present views of the speaker based on his experience of creating the Adivasi academy at Tejgadh and a global network of the indigenous peoples. The lecture will offer a perspective on the rapidly disappearing continent of culture that the indigenous of the world inhabit. This episode of BIC Talks is an extract from the second of a series of four masterclass lectures by Prof. G N Devy, titled Memory, Culture and The Being of India that took place in the BIC premises in early February 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app!

Shownotes “I would say that this report presents a contradictory picture, which is probably a feature of this report. And this contradiction is about rich Adivasi and poor Adivasi. Rich Adivasi in terms of their world view and cultural practices, but poor Adivasi in terms of the deprivation”  The 78th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, is a follow up episode, on the first ‘Status of Adivasi Livelihoods' (SAL) Report by PRADAN. The report based on a survey of around 5000 households from across 16 Adivasi dominated districts of Jharkhand and Odisha, paints a grim picture of Adivasis as one of the most deprived sections of Indian society.  India has several laws and constitutional provisions that recognise the rights of indigenous peoples to land and self-government. The Indian Constitution also provides for positive discrimination in employment, higher education and political representation in the Indian parliament and state assemblies. However, these positive discrimination efforts do not seem to have worked.  The big question is WHY? Who is measuring the impact of development programmes and interventions? Adivasi leaders, activists and academics believe this is because policy makers do not recognise them as different, which in turn does not allow them to define and design their own development agenda.  The main purpose of the Status of Adivasi Livelihoods report is to develop a more nuanced understanding of Adivasi livelihoods and the socio-cultural setting that shape these livelihoods, in order to evolve a better response to improve their plight. As we navigate a deeply divided world on the cusp of climate crisis, it would make sense to learn from the deep knowledge and wisdom of the Adivasis who are not a part of caste society. Adivasis possess a worldview which is different from the non-Adivasis. They do not consider themselves superior to other creatures of nature and do not believe in the accumulation of wealth and exploitation of nature for human purposes. This worldview shapes their relationship with nature and society and influences their practices including livelihoods. “Programmes and schemes for tribal communities need to align with their values of togetherness, living in harmony with nature and non-exploitative livelihood practices. That is the only way to ensure the challenges being faced by the Adivasis are addressed without compromising the Adivasi way of living.” Listen here

In Episode 137 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores two of the many under-reported internal conflicts in India, which are rooted in unresolved issues left over from the colonial era in spite of 75 years of Indian independence. In the east-central interior, the Naxalite insurgency has been met with harsh repression from the security forces—especially against the Adivasis, or indigenous peoples who make up the movement's support base. In the remote Northeast, the long struggle of the Naga people is still met with massacres at the hands of the military today. For three generations the Naga have been fighting for their independence, keeping alive their indigenous culture, and protesting the genocide of their people—to the silence of the international community. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon—or $2 for our special offer! We now have 45 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 46!

The Rangnath Mishra Committee and the Sachar Committee reports too acknowledge the poor condition of Dalits and Adivasis of the Muslim faith. ----more---- https://theprint.in/opinion/dont-limit-caste-census-to-hindus-include-tribals-dalits-of-muslim-sikh-christian-faiths/1006298/ 

What happens when a million-dollar mining corporation eyes a pristine ecological space protected by constitutional safeguards? Plenty of corruption for sure! This episode unravels the conflict over bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills, Orissa, and looks at the contest between private commercial and constitutional interests. Plus, starting with this episode, The Longest Constitution embarks on a mini-history of free speech in independent India, beginning with the first constitutional challenge on free speech, the Romesh Thapar case, 1950. On Romesh Thapar: https://www.india-seminar.com/2017/697/697_arudra_burra.htm https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/thappar-v-madras/#:~:text=Case%20Analysis,-Case%20Summary%20and&text=Romesh%20Thappar%20filed%20a%20petition,public%20safety%E2%80%9D%20was%20too%20broad.On the Niyamgiri conflict: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-diverging-paths-of-two-young-women-foretell-the-fate-of-a-tribe-in-indiahttps://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/dongriaOn parliamentary privileges: Madhavan, MR, (2016), “Legislature: composition, qualifications, and disqualification”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, OUP: New Delhi. If you have missed out on The Longest Constitution Season 1, check here: ( "The Longest Constitution with Priya Mirza")You can follow Priya on social media:Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thelongestconstitution_/ )Twitter: ( fundamentallyp )Linkedin: ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mirza-73666310/ )You can listen to The Longest Constitution podcast on IVM Podcasts Network, Spotify, YouTube Music, Gaana, or wherever you get your podcasts from.Find other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: ‎IVM Podcasts, or on any other major podcast app.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Does our social identity, be it caste, religion, or tribe, affect how long we live? Two papers show that Dalits, Adivasi and Muslims have a disadvantage when it comes to life expectancy as compared to the higher caste Hindus. In this podcast Suno India's Menaka Rao spoke to demographers Aashish Gupta, Sangita Vyas, both research fellows at the research institute for compassionate economics or r.i.c.e. While Aashish is a David E Bell Fellow at Harvard University. Sangita is soon-to-be assistant professor at Hunter College, in New York.  Menaka also spoke to Anjela Taneja, Oxfam India Lead Specialist in Health, Education and Inequality to understand how Dalits and tribals are at a disadvantage in India's health system. REFERENCES Large and Persistent Life Expectancy Disparities between India's Social Groups – Gupta – – Population and Development Review – Wiley Online Library Social disadvantage, economic inequality, and life expectancy in nine Indian states | PNAS https://twitter.com/aashishg_/status/1511528303483568131?s=20&t=hcL437GBhqEAvtDeYkmroQ Securing Rights of Patients in India http://clinicalestablishments.gov.in/WriteReadData/8431.pdf Racism and Health | Health Equity | CDC How Serena Williams Saved Her Own Life Why do women live longer than men? – Our World in Data See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Support LCAhttps://lightscameraazadi.in/support-lca/https://www.patreon.com/azadiAashish Gupta - https://twitter.com/aashishg_Payal Hathi - https://twitter.com/aashishg_Aditi Priya - https://twitter.com/aditipriya_0301Guest ProfileAashish Gupta is a demographer. He holds a Ph.D. in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MA in development studies from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Payal is a PhD student in Demography and Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Research Fellow at r.i.c.e. Her research interests center on social inequality and health.Aditi Priya is the founder of Bahujan Economists and is an upcoming graduate student at Brown University.Timestamps3:30 Life journey of Aashish and Payal16:15 Some eye-opening incidents 20:10 Research and challenges in explaining the work they do to friends & fa32:53 Summarizing the sanitization work and is it connected to life expectancy. 42:45 Presence of caste in the indicators and other religions.50:30 Sanitation workers and their struggles. The situation in government hospitals1:00:10 Understanding the research on life expectancy1:18:00Hypothesis on why life expectancy is low in Dalits and Adivasis 1:38:00Changes in life expectancy in each state1:43:20Response from academiaImportant LinksJoothan -https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Joothan/0i5TtbXz36IC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcoverAnnihilation of Castehttps://www.amazon.in/Annihilation-Caste-B-R-Ambedkar/dp/9391523390/ref=asc_df_9391523390/?tag=googleshopdes-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=545019405814&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9892539633617798177&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007765&hvtargid=pla-1570789976633&psc=1Gender and caste inequality, and their role in persistence of environmental health harms https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X21002977https://www.epw.in/journal/2017/1/review-rural-affairs/understanding-open-defecation-rural-india.htmlWhy a Dangerous Lack of Hygiene Persists in Government Hospitalshttps://www.epw.in/journal/2020/16/special-articles/caste-prejudice-and-infection.htmlFor a Bahujan Economicshttps://www.theindiaforum.in/article/bahujan-economicsSome Key findings by Aashish, Payal, and Aditihttps://twitter.com/aashishg_/status/1511528299079553024

Since 2020, USCIRF has recommended that India be designated a Country of Particular of Concern, or CPC, due to the Indian government's promotion of Hindu nationalism, and engagement and facilitation of systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. The othering of those that are non-Hindu through the misuse of national and state-level legislation has turned India's diverse and pluralistic society into more of a hostile state for many religious communities, particularly Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Adivasis, and Dalits.Today USCIRF Commissioner Anurima Bhargava joins us to discuss the growing climate of intolerance toward non-Hindus in India.Read USCIRF's 2022 Annual Report Chapter on IndiaWith Contributions from: Dwight Bashir, Director of Outreach and Policy, USCIRFAnurima Bhargava, Commissioner, USCIRF Gabrielle Hasenstab, Communications Specialist, USCIRFNiala Mohammad, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF

First Brahmins benefited from the pro-English agitations of Tamil people. Now Amit Shah's agenda is harming Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi global job prospects. ----more---- https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-brahmin-baniya-profited-from-english-bjp-rss-want-to-deny-that-to-dalit-adivasis/911712/

Although the role of Birsa Munda has been seminal in championing the Adivasi cause, his political movements and legacy have been distorted, like other prominent Indian historical figures, including B R Ambedkar and M K Gandhi. Despite misrepresentations, Birsa Munda and his politics continue to inspire not just Adivasis but also Dalits and other marginalised sections in their pursuit of attaining social justice. Birsa Munda, a young freedom fighter and a tribal leader was born and raised in the tribal belt of Bihar and Jharkhand. Although he lived a very short span of life, Birsa managed to mobilise the tribal community against the British regime and he forced them to introduce laws to protect the land rights of the tribal community. This podcast is based on the article “ Setting the Record Straight on Birsa Munda and His Political Legacy” which was authored by Dr Joseph Bara. The article was published in EPW journal on 25th July 2020. Dr Bara is an independent scholar on tribal history and education in modern India and was formerly with Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is currently based in Ranchi. This is part two of the podcast. You can find Part-I here.

Although the role of Birsa Munda has been seminal in championing the Adivasi cause, his political movements and legacy have been distorted, like other prominent Indian historical figures, including B R Ambedkar and M K Gandhi. Despite misrepresentations, Birsa Munda and his politics continue to inspire not just Adivasis but also Dalits and other marginalised sections in their pursuit of attaining social justice. Birsa Munda, a young freedom fighter and a tribal leader was born and raised in the tribal belt of Bihar and Jharkhand. Although he lived a very short span of life, Birsa managed to mobilise the tribal community against the British regime and he forced the crown to introduce laws to protect the land rights of the tribal community. This podcast is based on the article “ Setting the Record Straight on Birsa Munda and His Political Legacy” which was authored by Dr Joseph Bara. The article was published in EPW journal on 25th July 2020. Dr Bara is an independent scholar on tribal history and education in modern India and was formerly with Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is currently based in Ranchi. This podcast is in two parts and this is the part one. Please make sure you listen to part two as well.

Tuhin A. Sinha is an Indian author and politician. He is known for the novels Mission Shengzhan, a topic of a previous episode on Bharatvaarta, and today's topic of discussion, The Legend Of Birsa Munda; a dramatized account of one of the unsung heroes of India's independence movement. In 19th century India, deep in the heart of what is now the state of Jharkhand, the Adivasis have been leading a life of absolute misery and darkness. The colonial state, with the help of its scheming local collaborators, has cast a net of abuse and exploitation that is tightening around these Adivasis, much like a hangman's noose does. Everything they hold dear – their land, homes, history, traditions, religion, families – has fallen victim to the grand colonial plan of building a magnificent but merciless empire for the Queen. At the heart of the rebellion against the colonials is the twenty-five-year-old Birsa Munda. He decides what must be done to save his community and leads the Adivasis in fighting back to reclaim their lives. Based on true events, this epic tale of courage is a tribute to the life of Birsa Munda, who in his very short life, mobilized the tribal community, rebelled against forced conversions, envisioned a fairer, more just society and died fighting for it. The Legend of Birsa Munda is the story of a subaltern tribal hero, whose contribution to India's struggle for independence must never be forgotten. This podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Google, Spotify, Breaker, Stitcher, and other popular platforms. If you like this episode, then please rate, subscribe and share! For more information, do check out www.bharatvaarta.in. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfBfBd-1kvCOPxVll8tBJ9Q/join

Tuhin A. Sinha is an Indian author and politician. He is known for the novels Mission Shengzhan, a topic of a previous episode on Bharatvaarta, and today's topic of discussion, The Legend Of Birsa Munda; a dramatized account of one of the unsung heroes of India's independence movement. In 19th century India, deep in the heart of what is now the state of Jharkhand, the Adivasis have been leading a life of absolute misery and darkness. The colonial state, with the help of its scheming local collaborators, has cast a net of abuse and exploitation that is tightening around these Adivasis, much like a hangman's noose does. Everything they hold dear – their land, homes, history, traditions, religion, families – has fallen victim to the grand colonial plan of building a magnificent but merciless empire for the Queen. At the heart of the rebellion against the colonials is the twenty-five-year-old Birsa Munda. He decides what must be done to save his community and leads the Adivasis in fighting back to reclaim their lives. Based on true events, this epic tale of courage is a tribute to the life of Birsa Munda, who in his very short life, mobilized the tribal community, rebelled against forced conversions, envisioned a fairer, more just society and died fighting for it. The Legend of Birsa Munda is the story of a subaltern tribal hero, whose contribution to India's struggle for independence must never be forgotten. This podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Google, Spotify, Breaker, Stitcher, and other popular platforms. If you like this episode, then please rate, subscribe and share! For more information, do check out www.bharatvaarta.in. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfBfBd-1kvCOPxVll8tBJ9Q/join

As India’s mega businesses push to exploit our forest wealth, Adivasi communities pay the price. They have lost their lands, their homes and their way of life. From the fire of this saga has emerged a rich cache of resistance literature and poetry. Jacinta Kerketta, a young Adivasi poet and independent journalist from the Oraon Adivasi community in West Singbhum district in Jharkhand speaks to All Indians Matter.

This podcast features a conversation with Dr Peggy Froerer (Reader, Anthropology) and Dr Gunjan Wadhwa (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Education), Brunel University London. It discusses Dr Froerer's work with the historically marginalised Adivasi communities in rural parts of Central India (Chhattisgarh) with a particular focus on young people's engagements with education and its entanglements with work and livelihoods. Dr Froerer critically highlights the continuities and tensions between the global discourses of development and modernity and the local lived realities of the Adivasis, and the impacts of this on young people's aspirations. The conversation brings out the methodological and theoretical challenges of doing research in rural contexts, working with marginalised social groups and undoing the dominant frameworks. Dr Froerer emphasises paying attention to the context to understand intersections of religion, ethnicity and gender in relation to her work, along with the work of the state in the current socio-political conditions.​ Dr Peggy Froerer is Reader in Anthropology at Brunel University London and author of Religious Division and Social Conflict. She is currently working on her second book, which considers how marginalized young people's differentiated engagement with school education articulates with their livelihood options and aspirations for a better future. Peggy is also co-Investigator on a collaborative, multi-regional research project (ESRC-DfID, 2016-2018) which examines education systems, aspiration and learning outcomes in remote rural areas of India, Lesotho and Laos. She has directed an ethnographic film (Village Lives, Distant Powers; produced by Margaret Dickinson), which is based on her research on development, the state and corruption in central India. Dr Gunjan Wadhwa is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Education at Brunel University London on 'Rural youth identities in India'. Her research troubles the dominant discursive strains that produce the post-colonial nation-state and citizen, and through this position marginalised groups like the Adivasis and rural youth in opposition to ideas of the ‘modern'. Gunjan's recent publications include Ethics of Positionality in Capturing Adivasi Youth ‘Voices' in a Village Community in India (Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People, 2021) and (Un)Doing Rights: Adivasi participation in governance discourses in an area of civil unrest in India (The International Journal of Human Rights, 25:7, 2021). Edited by Yashita Jain Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

This podcast features a conversation with Dr Peggy Froerer (Reader, Anthropology) and Dr Gunjan Wadhwa (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Education), Brunel University London. It discusses Dr Froerer's work with the historically marginalised Adivasi communities in rural parts of Central India (Chhattisgarh) with a particular focus on young people's engagements with education and its entanglements with work and livelihoods. Dr Froerer critically highlights the continuities and tensions between the global discourses of development and modernity and the local lived realities of the Adivasis, and the impacts of this on young people's aspirations. The conversation brings out the methodological and theoretical challenges of doing research in rural contexts, working with marginalised social groups and undoing the dominant frameworks. Dr Froerer emphasises paying attention to the context to understand intersections of religion, ethnicity and gender in relation to her work, along with the work of the state in the current socio-political conditions.​ Dr Peggy Froerer is Reader in Anthropology at Brunel University London and author of Religious Division and Social Conflict. She is currently working on her second book, which considers how marginalized young people's differentiated engagement with school education articulates with their livelihood options and aspirations for a better future. Peggy is also co-Investigator on a collaborative, multi-regional research project (ESRC-DfID, 2016-2018) which examines education systems, aspiration and learning outcomes in remote rural areas of India, Lesotho and Laos. She has directed an ethnographic film (Village Lives, Distant Powers; produced by Margaret Dickinson), which is based on her research on development, the state and corruption in central India. Dr Gunjan Wadhwa is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Education at Brunel University London on 'Rural youth identities in India'. Her research troubles the dominant discursive strains that produce the post-colonial nation-state and citizen, and through this position marginalised groups like the Adivasis and rural youth in opposition to ideas of the ‘modern'. Gunjan's recent publications include Ethics of Positionality in Capturing Adivasi Youth ‘Voices' in a Village Community in India (Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People, 2021) and (Un)Doing Rights: Adivasi participation in governance discourses in an area of civil unrest in India (The International Journal of Human Rights, 25:7, 2021). Edited by Yashita Jain Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

I joined JNU's Centre for Historical Studies in 1995, and found that books and archival materials on Dalits and Adivasis were scarce. Keeping up the Brahminical caste status was a primary motive of these studies.

Shownotes:  Indigenous people make up 8.6% of the Indian population i.e. a staggering 104 million people (give or take) but they continue to live on the fringes of society and development.  In terms of scale only 13 countries in the world have a population over 100 million.  In India, they are known as Adivasis (or the earliest inhabitants of the continent), they are not a part of caste society. Their world view is of a non-hierarchical relationship with nature and people. A worldview considered backward by majority, modern industrial society worldview. Non-Adivasi Indians have very little or no idea about this non-homogenous group of people and have very little interface with Adivasis or their way of life.  India has several laws and constitutional provisions that recognise the rights of indigenous peoples to land and self-government. The Indian Constitution also provides for positive discrimination in employment, higher education and political representation in the Indian parliament and state assemblies. However, these positive discrimination efforts do not seem to have worked. The HDI, human development index of Adivasis in India is 30% lower than the national HDI.  Adivasi leaders, activists and academics believe this is because it does not recognise them as different and does not allow them to define and design their own development agenda.  From a measurement point of view there is a shocking absence of systematic effort to periodically track the impact of various development programmes.  So, on 9th August which is the 'International Day of World's Indigenous Peoples' PRADAN announced India's first every 'Annual Adivasi Development Indices Report' or (AADI).  Listen to my conversation with Dibyendu Chaudhuri from PRADAN to learn more about this brilliant initiative.  The photo is of Jacinta Kerketta, poet, writer and freelance journalist and Gunjal Ikir Munda an assistant Professor, folk musician and folklorist talking about the Adivasi worldview and celebrating the language and culture.  Memorable Passages from the conversation: 

Sumit is the Founding Editor of The Shudra Media and The News Beak. In the past Sumit has held various positions with ABP News, Zee News, India News and News Nation. It's a well known fact that there is close to nil representation of Dalits in Indian Media. In the recent by The Media Rumble in partnership with Oxfam India, it was revealed that out of 121 leadership positions surveyed in newsrooms, none are held by those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Three out of every four anchors of flagship debates are upper caste. Not one is Dalit, Adivasi, or OBC. Only 10 of the 972 articles featured on the cover pages of the 12 magazines are about issues related to caste. No more than 5 percent of all articles in English newspapers are written by Dalits and Adivasis. (Source: Newslaundry) In this podcast we talked about. 1. Sumit's experience of working with India media and the ways in which he has seen the casteism that operates in these Upper Caste Castles. 2. The reason behind low representation of Dalits and Bahujan voices. 3. Why even the Upper Caste media personalities who claim to be progressive have failed in creating diversity in their organisation. 4. Is the new digital media bringing new hope in the area of social justice. 5. The flawed concept of TRP. 6. Advice for upcoming Journalists. Support my work: 1. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anuragminusverma 2. BuyMeACoffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Anuragminus 3. PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/AnuragMinusVerma?locale.x=en_GB Link to Sumit's Channel: The Shudra: https://theshudra.com/ Sumit's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sumitchauhaan?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Stan Swamy would have preferred to die amongst his adopted children, the Adivasis of Jharkhand. But the government and the NIA thought otherwise.----more----Read article here: https://theprint.in/opinion/stan-swamy-lived-a-life-of-service-to-the-poor-and-oppressed-he-paid-for-his-commitment/690439/

India’s abysmal record on hunger has intensified after the COVID-19 pandemic after being worsened by demonetisation. A survey showed that 77% of tribal families, 76% of Dalits and 54% of Adivasis said their food consumption decreased in September-October 2020 as compared to the pre-lockdown period. Meanwhile, anaemia among women of reproductive age continues to soar – with 51.4% of those aged 15 to 49 are affected. Why hasn’t India been able to beat chronic hunger? Dr Jean Drèze speaks to All Indians Matter on this national crisis.

Two decades ago, a survey found that only about one in four Adivasis in Tamil Nadu's Gudalur town were literate and the rate among women was even lower. Adivasi student enrollment in specialised public schools was extremely low and the conditions of the schools were far from adequate. “Non-Adivasi teachers and staff showed little empathy or concern for the Adivasi children,” write the three guests for today's episode. This grim picture has transformed significantly in much deeper ways than the brush-stroke statistics shared above. We'll learn about the story of this transformation. A scholar and two educationists join us on Research Radio today. Amman Madan studied anthropology and currently teaches at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Dr Madan works on promoting dialogue and justice through education. Rama Sastry has been a passionate teacher who has taught marginalised children for four decades. B Ramdas has also been in the education space for four decades, and along with Rama, is a trustee of the Viswa Bharati Vidyodaya Trust, Gudalur, Nilgiris. Before we hear from them, a little more context: Rama and Ramdas, along with their colleagues, have worked to actualise the transformative potential of education for Adivasi students in the town of Gudalur, located in the Nilgiris. The town is home to five Adivasi communities: the Paniyas, the Bettukurumbas, the Mullukurumbas, the Kattunayakas, and the Irulas. They constitute about 10% of the population of Gudalur. And we'll learn more about their educational journey based on their article: "Social Movements and Educational Change: A Case Study of the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam." Audio courtesy: The last ones by Jahzzar [CC BY-SA 3.0].

She is a doyenne of Indian feminism, a poet, author, feminist and development activist. She is also the South Asia co-ordinator for ‘One Billion Rising'. So, I was thrilled and honoured to have Kamla Bhasin as a guest on my podcast. The most important takeaway for me was the power of alliances local and global to address inequalities in society/the world. Also, that it takes more than legislation to bring about social change.In this episode we speak about her journey to conscious feminism

In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma is joined by Newslaundry's Ayan Sharma and Prateek Goyal.Prateek begins with a discussion about his four-part NL Sena series on the plight of Adivasis in Chhattisgarh. He describes the beautiful geography of Bastar and the many tribes that are indigenous to the area. In what can only be called a cruel irony, these inhabitants have been suffering the worst end of the never-ending struggle between security forces and Naxalites. Thousands of Adivasis have been arrested and thrown in jail, often without a trial, for years. Prateek talks about how little it takes for an Adivasi to be jailed. He also explains why the locals of Bastar are unhappy with security forces. The discussion then moves on to Ayan's report on Delhi's Covid catastrophe. Ayan explains the various factors that contributed to the situation getting out of hand in the capital, despite the lockdown. The trio also discusses the cooperation between the Centre and the Delhi government. Tune in! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What land reforms does India need in 2020? How can we think about property rights, and a complicated legislative history and ground reality in India?Shekhar Shah and Pranab Ranjan Choudhury give host Pavan Srinath a masterclass on land and reform on Episode 142 of The Pragati Podcast. They discuss what constitutes property ownership in India, what land reforms have meant between the 1950s and 1980s in India, and what they can mean in 2020. The discussion spans rural land conflicts, weak land record systems, the challenges faced by Adivasis and tribal groups being denied their legitimate rights, land acquisition, the growth of private industries, and more.Dr Shekhar Shah is an Economist and the Director General of NCAER (@NCAER), the National Council for Applied Research in New Delhi. As a part of their Land Policy Initiative, they released the first edition of a Land Records Services Index in February 2020 and ranked Indian states and union territories. Learn more at http://www.ncaer.org/NLRSI/index1.htmlMr Pranab Ranjan Choudhury (@prchoudhury) works with the Centre for Land Governance in Odisha, and has worked for over 18 years on natural resources management and land governance across India. Read more about his work at http://centerforland.org/prchoudhury/Follow The Pragati Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/pragatipod &Follow Pragati on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinkpragati &Follow Pragati on Facebook: https://facebook.com/thinkpragatiSubscribe & listen to The Pragati Podcast on IVM Podcasts App, iTunes, Saavn, Spotify, Castbox, Google Podcasts, AudioBoom, YouTube, or any other podcast app. We are there everywhere.

Adivasis are the indigenous communities in India. There are 104 million Adivasis that speak a few hundred languages but only a handful of them have a access to media of their own. In this episode of O Foundation Conversations, our host Subhashish Panigrahi talks to Ankush Vengurlekar and Ashish Birulee of Adivasi Lives Matter, a platform dedicated to giving a voice to Advisi content producers. Shaped with inspirations from the Black Lives Matter movement, Adivasi Lives Matter provides training to many Adivasi youths on a regular basis who then create stories — text, audio and video. Even the hardship of COVID-19 lockdown has not stopped these content creators who are on a mission to promote their people, languages and cultures online. This episode is only a glimpse of the myriads of activities that Adivasi Lives Matter has been leading. PRODUCER: SUBHASHISH PANIGRAHI GUESTS: ANKUSH VENGURLEKAR & ASHISH BIRULEE MUSIC: https://freesound.org/people/0ktober/sounds/188828/, https://freesound.org/people/16HPanskaBenda_Jonas/sounds/503635/, https://freesound.org/people/mahammed/sounds/444271/, https://freesound.org/people/Tr4ck3r/sounds/132382/, https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/411162/, https://freesound.org/people/pjcohen/sounds/414447, https://freesound.org/people/SamplingSamTheMarylandMan/sounds/468520/, https://freesound.org/people/swapnil_gt/sounds/255115/, https://freesound.org/people/quetzalcontla/sounds/458425/, https://freesound.org/s/173564/ READING LIST: 1. Oxfam India. "Who Tells Our Stories Matters: Representation of Marginalised Caste Groups in Indian Newsrooms". https://www.oxfamindia.org/sites/default/files/2019-08/Oxfam%20NewsLaundry%20Report_For%20Media%20use.pdf 2. Rao, Aprameya. "The great Indian language trouble". Asian Age. https://www.asianage.com/age-on-sunday/091119/the-great-indian-language-trouble.html

A Poem A Day by Sudhanva Deshpande.Read on May 24, 2020. Art by Virkein Dhar.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Kaveree Bamzai, author and former editor of India Today, and Sanjay Rajoura, stand-up comedian and a member of Aisi Taisi Democracy. This episode was recorded live at Bedlam, Hauz Khas Village, Delhi.Mehraj kicked off the discussion explaining the recent Supreme Court judgement on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, and what it means for Dalits and Adivasis subjected to hate crimes.Speaking about the Delhi election, Kavaree says, “We were too excited by the fact that Delhi did not vote for the BJP, but what is worrying is how migrant-dominated northeast Delhi overwhelmingly voted for them.” She adds that the normalisation by the media of binaries such as “tukde tukde gang versus the rest of us” worries her. Abhinandan asks Sanjay why he feels his political commentary and that of fellow comedians isn’t making much difference when it comes to changing the minds of voters.“I don't have any such notion that what I am saying on stage will make any difference or have any kind of impact, neither do I have any intention of doing so,” Sanjay replies. “My aim is to make sure that the question stays alive.”Talking about contemporary trends in world politics and how they reflect in the Indian context, Mehraj argues that technocratic centrism is always just one crisis away from enabling an authoritarian takeover as has happened in the UK, US and Brazil, and that Aam Aadmi Party is destined for a similar fate if they do start providing an ideological alternative. On the controversy over the film Shikara, Manisha says, “I find the expectations from creative people to live up to political expectations to be tedious. The issue was actually that of marketing as they tried to sell the movie as ‘the untold story of kashmiri pandits’.”The panellists then fielded questions from members of the live audience, all of whom were Newslaundry subscribers since it was a subscriber-only event.Tune in! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Women forest dwellers struggle to defend their rights to the forests in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement in the forest rights case as their rights are compromised by the threat of eviction of millions of Adivasis and forest dwellers. MAKAAM - Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch - a nation-wide advocacy platform was created in 2014 with a mission to visibilise women farmers – especially marginalized women, with a development vision to create and secure rights over productive livelihood resources. In this episode, we reached out to Dr Soma KP, a researcher, a policy analyst and one of the leading members of MAKAAM to know more about the organisation and the struggles of women forest dwellers. This episode also features the voices of other members of Makaam, Rajhim Khewas from Chhattisgarh and Shubhada Deshmukh from Maharashtra.

Popular discourse about Maoists in India veers from the extremes of heroism to demonization with little attempt to address the nuances of the situation. Given that the movement draws its support from some of the most Marginalised communities in India, there's a need to unpack its appeal and its limitations. In this episode, we speak to Alpa Shah of the London School of Economics and Political Science about her recent book, "Nightmarch". On the shortlist for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay New India Foundation Book Prize, 2019 it is a deep examination of the contradictions of the Maoist movement in 21st century India, told in an accessible and engaging manner.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of India ordered state governments to begin eviction of Adivasis and Forest dwellers whose claims for forest rights under the Forest Rights Act had been dismissed. Following a backlash against the move from Adivasi communities, the Supreme Court put this order on hold. In this episode, we're joined by Rajni Soren an advocate-activist who works in issues related to forest rights and practices in the Chhattisgarh HC to talk about how the Adivasi movement have used the law and political institutions to protect their rights.

A recent UNDP report makes the astonishing claim that India has halved its poverty between 2006 and 2016. Moving us past the rosy picture, Alpa Shah and her co-author's  multi-authored, masterful Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st-Century India (Pluto Press, 2017) focuses on those left behind by, and indeed ground down by, India’s much touted growth. Based on intensive fieldwork in multiple locations across India, the book finds that in particular it is India’s ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) and ‘tribals’ (Adivasis) who toil at the bottom of the pyramid in thankless conditions and for little reward. Instead of eradicating inequalities of caste and tribe, the intensification of capitalism has in fact further entrenched them, transforming them into new mechanisms of oppression and accumulation. Analytical rigor paired with lucid prose makes this co-researched and co-authored book indispensable for scholars and citizens concerned with the Global South, inequality, capitalism, economic growth, and social difference. Aparna Gopalan is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University with interests in agrarian capitalism in rural Rajasthan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent UNDP report makes the astonishing claim that India has halved its poverty between 2006 and 2016. Moving us past the rosy picture, Alpa Shah and her co-author's  multi-authored, masterful Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st-Century India (Pluto Press, 2017) focuses on those left behind by, and indeed ground down by, India’s much touted growth. Based on intensive fieldwork in multiple locations across India, the book finds that in particular it is India’s ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) and ‘tribals’ (Adivasis) who toil at the bottom of the pyramid in thankless conditions and for little reward. Instead of eradicating inequalities of caste and tribe, the intensification of capitalism has in fact further entrenched them, transforming them into new mechanisms of oppression and accumulation. Analytical rigor paired with lucid prose makes this co-researched and co-authored book indispensable for scholars and citizens concerned with the Global South, inequality, capitalism, economic growth, and social difference. Aparna Gopalan is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University with interests in agrarian capitalism in rural Rajasthan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent UNDP report makes the astonishing claim that India has halved its poverty between 2006 and 2016. Moving us past the rosy picture, Alpa Shah and her co-author's  multi-authored, masterful Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st-Century India (Pluto Press, 2017) focuses on those left behind by, and indeed ground down by, India’s much touted growth. Based on intensive fieldwork in multiple locations across India, the book finds that in particular it is India’s ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) and ‘tribals’ (Adivasis) who toil at the bottom of the pyramid in thankless conditions and for little reward. Instead of eradicating inequalities of caste and tribe, the intensification of capitalism has in fact further entrenched them, transforming them into new mechanisms of oppression and accumulation. Analytical rigor paired with lucid prose makes this co-researched and co-authored book indispensable for scholars and citizens concerned with the Global South, inequality, capitalism, economic growth, and social difference. Aparna Gopalan is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University with interests in agrarian capitalism in rural Rajasthan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent UNDP report makes the astonishing claim that India has halved its poverty between 2006 and 2016. Moving us past the rosy picture, Alpa Shah and her co-author's  multi-authored, masterful Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st-Century India (Pluto Press, 2017) focuses on those left behind by, and indeed ground down by, India’s much touted growth. Based on intensive fieldwork in multiple locations across India, the book finds that in particular it is India’s ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) and ‘tribals’ (Adivasis) who toil at the bottom of the pyramid in thankless conditions and for little reward. Instead of eradicating inequalities of caste and tribe, the intensification of capitalism has in fact further entrenched them, transforming them into new mechanisms of oppression and accumulation. Analytical rigor paired with lucid prose makes this co-researched and co-authored book indispensable for scholars and citizens concerned with the Global South, inequality, capitalism, economic growth, and social difference. Aparna Gopalan is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University with interests in agrarian capitalism in rural Rajasthan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent UNDP report makes the astonishing claim that India has halved its poverty between 2006 and 2016. Moving us past the rosy picture, Alpa Shah and her co-author's  multi-authored, masterful Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st-Century India (Pluto Press, 2017) focuses on those left behind by, and indeed ground down by, India’s much touted growth. Based on intensive fieldwork in multiple locations across India, the book finds that in particular it is India’s ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) and ‘tribals’ (Adivasis) who toil at the bottom of the pyramid in thankless conditions and for little reward. Instead of eradicating inequalities of caste and tribe, the intensification of capitalism has in fact further entrenched them, transforming them into new mechanisms of oppression and accumulation. Analytical rigor paired with lucid prose makes this co-researched and co-authored book indispensable for scholars and citizens concerned with the Global South, inequality, capitalism, economic growth, and social difference. Aparna Gopalan is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University with interests in agrarian capitalism in rural Rajasthan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 70 years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations (Pluto Press, 2019), a prescient collection of essays, dialogues and commentary from scholars, activists and journalists, tries to come up with answers. India's pluralism has always posed a formidable challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity and tribe would bring about its demise. With the meteoric rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its solidity is once again called into question: is Modi's Hindu majoritarianism an anti-democratic attempt to transform India into a monolithic Hindu nation from which minorities and dissidents are forcibly excluded? With examinations of the way that class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy, this book interrogates the contradictions at the heart of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories and contestations. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at University of Pretoria. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010), We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism (Pluto Press, 2014), and Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018). Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Land Dispossession and Everyday Politics in Rural Eastern India (Anthem Press, 2018), and the co-editor of several books on Indian society and politics. Anand Vaidya is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 70 years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations (Pluto Press, 2019), a prescient collection of essays, dialogues and commentary from scholars, activists and journalists, tries to come up with answers. India's pluralism has always posed a formidable challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity and tribe would bring about its demise. With the meteoric rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its solidity is once again called into question: is Modi's Hindu majoritarianism an anti-democratic attempt to transform India into a monolithic Hindu nation from which minorities and dissidents are forcibly excluded? With examinations of the way that class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy, this book interrogates the contradictions at the heart of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories and contestations. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at University of Pretoria. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010), We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism (Pluto Press, 2014), and Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018). Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Land Dispossession and Everyday Politics in Rural Eastern India (Anthem Press, 2018), and the co-editor of several books on Indian society and politics. Anand Vaidya is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 70 years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations (Pluto Press, 2019), a prescient collection of essays, dialogues and commentary from scholars, activists and journalists, tries to come up with answers. India's pluralism has always posed a formidable challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity and tribe would bring about its demise. With the meteoric rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its solidity is once again called into question: is Modi's Hindu majoritarianism an anti-democratic attempt to transform India into a monolithic Hindu nation from which minorities and dissidents are forcibly excluded? With examinations of the way that class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy, this book interrogates the contradictions at the heart of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories and contestations. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at University of Pretoria. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010), We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism (Pluto Press, 2014), and Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018). Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Land Dispossession and Everyday Politics in Rural Eastern India (Anthem Press, 2018), and the co-editor of several books on Indian society and politics. Anand Vaidya is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 70 years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations (Pluto Press, 2019), a prescient collection of essays, dialogues and commentary from scholars, activists and journalists, tries to come up with answers. India's pluralism has always posed a formidable challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity and tribe would bring about its demise. With the meteoric rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its solidity is once again called into question: is Modi's Hindu majoritarianism an anti-democratic attempt to transform India into a monolithic Hindu nation from which minorities and dissidents are forcibly excluded? With examinations of the way that class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy, this book interrogates the contradictions at the heart of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories and contestations. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at University of Pretoria. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010), We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism (Pluto Press, 2014), and Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018). Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Land Dispossession and Everyday Politics in Rural Eastern India (Anthem Press, 2018), and the co-editor of several books on Indian society and politics. Anand Vaidya is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 70 years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations (Pluto Press, 2019), a prescient collection of essays, dialogues and commentary from scholars, activists and journalists, tries to come up with answers. India's pluralism has always posed a formidable challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity and tribe would bring about its demise. With the meteoric rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its solidity is once again called into question: is Modi's Hindu majoritarianism an anti-democratic attempt to transform India into a monolithic Hindu nation from which minorities and dissidents are forcibly excluded? With examinations of the way that class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy, this book interrogates the contradictions at the heart of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories and contestations. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at University of Pretoria. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010), We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism (Pluto Press, 2014), and Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018). Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Land Dispossession and Everyday Politics in Rural Eastern India (Anthem Press, 2018), and the co-editor of several books on Indian society and politics. Anand Vaidya is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Concerns about land and land rights have been key political issues from the beginning of the republic. Even as India urbanizes, these issues have not receded but taken new forms and new dimensions. Issues of land acquisition and redistribution, and forest rights have prompted mobilization in the recent past. How do we understand these movements and what are peoples relationships with land? To answer these questions and more, we have independent journalist Raksha Kumar join us for a discussion on these issues, talking about her reportage and field experience in these matters. Read the Scroll piece Raksha speaks about here: https://ivm.today/2TLZ6al You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here.

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Almost a decade in the making, Adivasis and the State: Subalternity and Citizenship in India's Bhil Heartland(Cambridge University Press, 2018) draws on collaboratively collected oral histories of two social movements in western Madhya Pradesh, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) and the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan (AMS). This longue-durée approach allows Alf Gunvald Nilsen to unravel the Indian state's everyday tyranny against its adivasi citizens. The deep tentacles of caste and class power embodied as the state reach into the Bhil everyday, not tethered to single issues of "development" induced displacement or the disappearing commons, but as an all-encompassing structural violence manifested in the realities of malnutrition, agricultural debt and seasonal migration. Alf Gunvald Nilsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. Madhuri Karak holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She tweets @madhurikarak and more of her work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

VICTIM OF DALIT ATROCITY VICTIM OF DALIT ATROCITY. A Crime is committed against a Dalit in India every 20 Minutes, according to Crime Clock 2004. Dalits suffer atrocities at the hands of the dominant caste based on the caste system. In spite of the fact that this was outlawed over 60 years ago cast. The number of atrocity cases against dalits is very high. And reflects the fact that religion and tradition continue to control the minds, beliefs and attitudes of people. Society believes that they must serve the dominant community. It is their duty according to Hindu religion and it is a sin if they do not practice it. The people who serve the dominant community in return do not reap benefits from their work. And as a result, the lower caste people are economically, socially and politically very backward. They are also denied education. The dominant people mostly use their political, economical and social power to oppress Dalit people. The lower caste people are denied their Human rights in spite of the fact that the Indian constitution grants equality to all, and in spite of the social development which has taken place in India over the past decade. HUMAN RIGHTS The Declaration of Human Rights was implemented by the United Nations on 10thDecember 1948. In addition to the rightsthat this grants all citizens of the world. Reformers such as Ambedkar and Phulefought against the caste system and untouchability. When Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar wrote the Indian constitution. He incorporated provisions upholding rights of depressed communities like the Dalits. The Indian legislature has also passed special laws to extend special protection to the Dalit and Adivasis. Including The Protection of Civil Rights Act. The SC and ST (prevention Atrocities) Act. Minimum wages Act. And Bonded Labour system (abolition) Act. Yet in spite of these legislation’s, Dalit’s still do not see justice. They are VICTIM OF ATROCITY NAVSARJAN TRUST During my visit to Navsarjan Trust. I realized that the Dalit people living in the Gujarat are in a very critical situation. They suffer from continuous atrocities at the hands of the dominant community. Dalit’s are often victims of atrocities, including beatings, sexual abuse (especially minor girl children) and Dalit women are often even murdered. The Atrocity prevention Act is not implemented properly. The police tend to compromise such types of cases because they too work under the pressure of the dominant community. They do not file FIR under the Atrocity prevention act. The Navsarjan Trust in Ahmadabad is one organization that is working for Dalit Rights and for justice of survivors of atrocities. The activists of the organization meet police and demand the proper implementation of the Act. Gujarat is a state where untouchability is still practiced even today – I visited one village where the dalit community is still housed in the outskirts of village. These people are not allowed to attend any social or religious events. VICTIM OF DALIT ATROCITY The Dalit’s are denied the resource of livelihood in Gujarat. The Dalit children do not get a good education. The people don’t have political influence in local governance. Even today Dalit people cannot demand their Equality before law is mentioned in the constitution, but this is not practiced. The Dalit people face Atrocities every day. Maharashtra as a state is supposed to be “developed”, yet. One can also find atrocities happening there in Khairlanji – the Bhotange family is one example. The Police Administration behave partial role with Dalit people. It is need to proper implementation of Atrocity Act and prevents the Atrocity cases. There is hope for change however. One small group from the Dominant community in Gujarat is advocating for repealing the Atrocity Act. They claim that it is misused by political leader and police machinery for their own interest, yet they are struggling to be listened to.

John Seed = Deep Ecology = One of Australia’s most articulate communicators of, and about, the web of life. John gets us in touch with the psychological dimension of our environmental crisis to get beyond the denial that most people greet the news - as to what is happening to our world – and if we are in denial about the terrible plight that our planet’s in –then our ability to celebrate the beauty of nature and the glory of the cosmos is severely hampered – because it’s resting on a very unstable foundation. John’s work over many decades has been in collaboration with Joanna Macy from the USA. They encourage people to recognise that our deepest feelings of despair and anguish about what’s happening to our world, are an integral part of us being able to celebrate and glory in the wonders of nature and the wonders of creation. That if we are in denial and are unwilling to feel and to share our pain as to what’s happening to our world, then we are also unable to truly celebrate the beauty, that surround us. This has led him to take people who are needing to be healed ‘on a journey’ so as to let them confront their hurt and fears and - from a  psychological standpoint reconcile and rectify the trauma that they are witnessing across the face of nature today. This is an Australian story of a seminal conflict between the forest industry and the conservation movement over rainforests in northern New South Wales. Battle for Forests The battle over logging the rainforests of Terania Creek in 1979 started the Rainforest War in New South Wales. Some claimed Terania Creek to be the last un-logged rainforest in Australia. The war was a clash of values and cultures, but three important lessons came about from this conflict. These being the influence of the media, the role of science and ecology, and the spirituality of forests. This ecological battle started a process that saw the eventual closure to logging and reservation in national parks of 900,000 ha of native forest, or about one third of the productive State Forests of New South Wales. This halted the logging and sparked the NSW government's decision to gazette the remaining rainforest in NSW as a National Park. John states “that even though we won that battle there are so many other battles...and in lots of ways they got worse." "We still find it really hard to imagine that it was the first time people actively got out and protected the rainforest." However John soon realised that in spite of the success of saving that forest and the wildlife that abounded, in looking at what was happening all around our planet - for every forest that was being protected, a thousand forests were being lost. And he saw clearly that there was no way we could save our planet at one forest at a time. Addressing the underlying Psychological challenge. That unless we address the underlying psychological or spiritual disease that afflicts modern humans one that somehow allows us to imagine that we can somehow profit from the destruction of our own life support systems – and that these actions are very enjoyable and rewarding for the participants - it would be of no particular significance to the future of the world. So John began to study to understand why do we behave is such a self-defeating manner?   He mentions: Paul Ehrlich  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich   The famous American ecologist and population commentator who said “we are sawing off the branch that we are sitting on.” Clearly this indicates a psychological problem no matter how much the timber in that branch might be worth – it can’t profit us to do this. And through this enquiry he came upon a philosophy of nature called Deep Ecology. Deep Ecology: And this is where he could understand why we were behaving in this way. Deep Ecology was coined by the Norwegian - the late Arne Naess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Næss the emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Oslo University who said the underlying all the symptoms of the environmental crisis was the illusion of separation between ourselves and that of the natural world. The illusion … and this has grown into anthropocentrism or human centeredness. The idea that we human beings are the centre of everything. This view sees us being the crown of creation - the measure of all being … and that nothing has any value except human beings – nothing is intrinsic. Things can have instrumental value if they are a resource for us. But really, we do not look at life as being a web or, if we do happen to see life as a web – we are the spider in the centre of it. We are still unable to understand the science of ecology and the wisdom of indigenous people reveals we are but one strand in that web and if we destroy the other strands we destroy ourselves. Connection to the Earth via Ceremony John’s workshops look to how most indigenous societies practice and reiterate the connection between human beings and that ‘all our relations’ are not severed. Every indigenous culture has ceremonies and rituals that allow the human family to celebrate our connectedness and to nourish that connectedness. And these ceremonies involve the entire community and the children are there and are watching and are learning this. Indigenous people have this knowing that we are rooted and draw energy and nourishment from the living earth and enact it with reverence for nature in all their ceremonies – so as to never forget their roots. (When were you last bare footed walking on the grass of the earth?) For 30 years John has been developing methods and skills to move us from a social identity to an ecological identity. This interview covers Wetko – the mind virus that has infected materialist man and what we need to recognise - to break free. That the First Nation American peoples - saw the very connection to Mother Earth when recently here in NZ one visitor put on a small campfire, a dry branch of wood and reverently stated “to all our relations” – that the tree is of life, giving us light and warmth as well as taking in Co2 and giving us oxygen back. Everything is connected. We are all in a grand cycle called life and it is this wonder of the web of life that is threatened by our foolish behaviour today.… The Council of All Beings An experiential process of deep connection – That Joanna  Macy & John designed back in the mid eighties – and the book ‘Thinking like a mountain towards the Council of all Beings… translated onto a dozen languages  - Now in Mandarin www.joannamacy.net/ Originally Joanna taught “despair and empowerment “ and it is now called “honouring our pain for the world.” Once certain boundaries are set – people are invited to share their deepest feelings of anguish, despair and horror at what’s happening to our world. This is a rare opportunity because if anyone even hinted at expressing their feelings around this subject - under ordinary circumstances people instantly want to change the subject as everyone feels threatened when such feelings are openly expressed. But, as people are taken through this exercise – what follows is empowerment and we discover that (listen to the broadcast that John eloquently shows us a way out) - the end result is a celebration that then becomes possible! Thomas Berry’s name is mentioned http://thomasberry.org/ A Catholic  theologian, who instead of focussing his attention on the Heavens to find God, became a geo seer –  studying  the Ancient Greek word Geo – where we get as a prefix …for geology, geography, geometry, geodesy, geopolitics  etc. Our planet. The study of the earth … Is another way to see our connection to the earth in such another way as to experience a deeper relationship and link to the earth. http://drewdellinger.org/  Poet who wrote the poetic introduction that John introduced us with at the state of this interview. Also http://www.genesisfarm.org/about.taf  Sister Miriam MacGillis of Genesis Farm that is dedicated to understanding the Universe and Earth as a single, unfolding process. That Genesis Farm offers diverse and innovative experiences that inspire a comprehensive approach to personal and social change. As a community facility it is open to all who are interested in exploring the sacredness of the land, their mission and their work.   Sister Miriam MacGillis created a process called the cosmic walk – and this is what John’s workshop will do on this coming Saturday night. (1st April 2017 at Kawai Purapura. See below) A spiralling story of the creation and the evolution of life. Which everyone participates in. IndiaJohn then tells of his work in India, which as a country he says has given him so much inspiration to awaken his spirituality - that:   Bruce Lipton’s name comes up again with his work in India around organics and farming. http://www.organicindia.com/  and Bharat Mitra. This became a movement in organic and biodynamic farming methods that were developed and practiced. The founder's mission being to offer safe effective herbal products to the world and he is the driving force behind an organic revolution that started with ORGANIC INDIA and is now taking root all across India.  Re forestation of the sacred mountain in South India https://naturedesignsjohnfranci.com/projects-implemented/ In 1988 John, who is a founder and Director of the Rainforest Information Centre (RIC) was asked to assist in the co-ordination of the Annamalai Reforestation Society’s project to green the sacred mountain of Arunachala in South India. Now the mountain reforestation has advanced a long way since then. There is a good collection of different organisations working together to ensure the the success of the project.  http://www.theforestway.org/greening/overview.html Land rights for the Poor of India. John has been assisting these people for some time. In December 2015, Rajeev wrote to John that the campaign to establish land-rights for the Katkari and other Adivasis was finally bearing fruit and “will help resolve the insecure village land issue in at least 600 – 700 Katkari villages”. http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/india/rajeev3-16proposal.htm The next steps are tree plantings to improve the fertility and productivity of their land. However, suitable native tree seedlings were not available and they are establishing a nursery “to ensure multiplication of diverse native plant species (fruits, uncultivated foods, vegetables, medicinal plants, fibre plants, sacred plants, flowering plants, natural dyes, etc)” This interview of John Seed shows a dedicated man working for the earth. Big Data Info:  http://rainforests.mongabay.com Johns Itinerary for Auckland New Zealand 2017 MARCH 23 “What is Ecological Identity?” Auckland University of Technology MARCH 24 “Fostering Ecological Identity” Auckland University of Technology MARCH 25-26 talks and workshops at the Voices of Sacred Earth festival, Auckland Kawai Purapura Mills Lane Albany. MARCH 28 “Weaving Together Maori Earth Wisdom with Deep Ecology” with Maikara Ropata & Sika, Pititahi Marae , Waiheke Island APRIL 1-2 “A weekend of Deep Ecology“ APRIL 3 Facilitator Training, Auckland For the best information go to https://workthatreconnects.org/event/john-seed-in-new-zealand/  

Prof. Sunil Khilnani profiles Birsa Munda, the young, charismatic healer who led his tribal community in revolt against the British and whose life, more than a century after his death, poses the question: 'Who owns India?' Scattered across the subcontinent, India's tribal peoples or Adivasis, match in size the populations of Germany or Vietnam. Yet the land rights of India's original inhabitants are regularly overridden in the name of development. One of history's great defenders of Adivasi rights was Birsa Munda, born in the late 19th century in what is now the north-eastern state of Jharkhand. At a time of famine and disease across northern India his community looked to the Birsa for healing and leadership. The young man who claimed he could turn bullets to water led a rebellion against the British, their Indian middlemen and Christian missionaries. The question 'Who owns India' takes Sunil Khilnani to a tribal community who are losing their land and access to food, fuel and water with the growing encroachment of luxury housing complexes - second homes for city dwellers. We also hear from author and political activist Arundhati Roy. "The fact that Adivasis still exist," she says, "is because people like Birsa Munda staged the beginnings of the battle against the takeover of their homeland. Though he died at the age of just 25, Birsa Munda has become a lasting symbol of tribal resistance. He's the only Adivasi whose portrait hangs in the Indian Parliament. "His was a firework of a life," says Sunil Khilnani, "but a life whose embers still burn". Producer: Jeremy Grange Executive Producer: Martin Smith Original Music composed by Talvin Singh.

Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Three Essay Collective, 2013) is a wonderful new book by Barbara Harriss-White and small team of collaborators – Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit, Pinaki Joddar, Aseem Prakash and Kaushal Vidyarthee – published by the Three Essays Collective. The book explores the ways in which economic liberalisation interacts with caste, specifically in reference to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, otherwise known as Dalits and Adivasis. A truly unique book, both in terms of how the data has been gathered and presented, the essays are variously wide and deep and ask a host of questions to inspire future research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Three Essay Collective, 2013) is a wonderful new book by Barbara Harriss-White and small team of collaborators – Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit, Pinaki Joddar, Aseem Prakash and Kaushal Vidyarthee – published by the Three Essays Collective. The book explores the ways in which economic liberalisation interacts with caste, specifically in reference to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, otherwise known as Dalits and Adivasis. A truly unique book, both in terms of how the data has been gathered and presented, the essays are variously wide and deep and ask a host of questions to inspire future research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Three Essay Collective, 2013) is a wonderful new book by Barbara Harriss-White and small team of collaborators – Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit, Pinaki Joddar, Aseem Prakash and Kaushal Vidyarthee – published by the Three Essays Collective. The book explores the ways in which economic liberalisation interacts with caste, specifically in reference to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, otherwise known as Dalits and Adivasis. A truly unique book, both in terms of how the data has been gathered and presented, the essays are variously wide and deep and ask a host of questions to inspire future research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Three Essay Collective, 2013) is a wonderful new book by Barbara Harriss-White and small team of collaborators – Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit, Pinaki Joddar, Aseem Prakash and Kaushal Vidyarthee – published by the Three Essays Collective. The book explores the ways in which economic liberalisation interacts with caste, specifically in reference to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, otherwise known as Dalits and Adivasis. A truly unique book, both in terms of how the data has been gathered and presented, the essays are variously wide and deep and ask a host of questions to inspire future research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Three Essay Collective, 2013) is a wonderful new book by Barbara Harriss-White and small team of collaborators – Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit, Pinaki Joddar, Aseem Prakash and Kaushal Vidyarthee – published by the Three Essays Collective. The book explores the ways in which economic liberalisation interacts with caste, specifically in reference to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, otherwise known as Dalits and Adivasis. A truly unique book, both in terms of how the data has been gathered and presented, the essays are variously wide and deep and ask a host of questions to inspire future research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tune in for an environmental justice special show. We bring you the voice of Medha Patkar, leading environmental activist from India, who heads the Narmada Bachao Andolan — a major people's and environmental justice movement that has been fighting for the rights of the displaced indigenous people or Adivasis in west India. Also, two local bay area residents Anirvan Chatterji and Barnali Ghosh discuss their experience of a year of no flying – of traveling around the world to over a dozen countries across land and water and why the aviation industry is bad for climate change! Plus community calendar and more! The post APEX Express – November 18, 2010 appeared first on KPFA.