A record of the events

On 29 September 2006, four members of the Bhotmange family — a Mahar Dalit household in the small village of Khairlanji, Bhandara district, Maharashtra — were murdered by a mob of approximately 40 to 70 men from the dominant Kunbi OBC community. The victims were Surekha Bhotmange (approximately 40–45 years old), her daughter Priyanka (17), and her sons Roshan (21) and Sudhir (19, who was visually impaired). The sole survivor, Bhaiyalal Bhotmange, escaped by hiding in nearby fields and later testified: "The entire village was involved, sir. Entire village." He named approximately 60–70 perpetrators, including the village sarpanch and deputy sarpanch.

Indra Sawhney & Ors. v. Union of India (AIR 1993 SC 477) is a landmark constitutional judgment delivered by a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India on 16 November 1992, commonly known as the Mandal Commission case. Its origins lie in the 1980 report of the Second Backward Classes Committee, chaired by B.P. Mandal, which recommended 27% reservation in central government employment for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in addition to the existing 22.5% reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. After the report lay dormant for a decade, Prime Minister V.P. Singh announced its implementation on 7 August 1990, triggering nationwide anti-reservation protests — including self-immolations by upper-caste students — and a wave of petitions challenging the policy. The Supreme Court consolidated these petitions on 11 September 1990, and the case was argued before the nine-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice M.H. Kania, with Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy ultimately authoring the lead opinion.

M. Nagaraj v. Union of India, decided on 19 October 2006, is a landmark constitutional judgment of the Supreme Court of India that validated Parliament's power to extend reservations to government-service promotions for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). The case was decided by a five-judge Constitutional Bench comprising Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justices K.G. Balakrishnan, S.H. Kapadia (who authored the judgment), C.K. Thakker, and P.K. Balasubramanyan. The judgment is reported as (2006) 8 SCC 212 / AIR 2007 SC 71.

The Poona Pact was a political agreement signed on 24 September 1932 at Yerwada Central Jail in Pune (then Poona), British India. It was negotiated between B. R. Ambedkar, representing the Depressed Classes — the communities then designated as "Untouchables" — and Madan Mohan Malaviya and other Hindu leaders acting in concert with Mahatma Gandhi, who was himself held at the same jail. Twenty-three representatives signed the document; Gandhi did not append his own signature despite being the chief architect of the caste-Hindu side of the negotiation.

The Mandal Commission — formally the Second Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBC) — was established on January 1, 1979 by the Janata Party government of Prime Minister Morarji Desai and chaired by B.P. Mandal, a Member of Parliament. Mandated to identify "socially and educationally backward classes," the commission surveyed the country using eleven social, economic, and educational indicators and concluded that Other Backward Classes (OBCs) constituted approximately 52% of India's population. On December 31, 1980, the commission submitted its report to President N.S. Reddy, recommending 27% reservation for OBCs in central government jobs and public sector undertakings — supplementing the existing 22.5% reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and bringing the total quota to 49.5%.

The 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019 introduced a 10% reservation for "Economically Weaker Sections" (EWS) in Central Government educational institutions, private educational institutions (excluding minority institutions), and Central Government employment. It amended Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution of India to permit reservations based solely on economic criteria. The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on January 8, 2019, passed by the Lok Sabha on January 9 by a vote of 323 to 3, passed by the Rajya Sabha on January 10 by a vote of 165 to 7, received presidential assent on January 12, and came into force on January 14, 2019. The eligibility threshold was set at an annual household income below ₹8 lakh, with additional exclusions for households owning more than five acres of agricultural land or property above specified urban and non-urban thresholds. Crucially, citizens already covered under the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Other Backward Class reservation frameworks were explicitly excluded from EWS benefits — raising the total national reservation quota from 49.5% to approximately 59.5%.

The 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, held in two phases on April 23 and 29, 2026 (with results announced May 4 and a repoll in one constituency on May 21), achieved a historic voter turnout of 93.71%—the highest ever recorded for any state assembly or general election in India, representing an 11.41 percentage point increase over the previous election. This unprecedented participation occurred despite documented cases of electoral roll deletion that disproportionately affected Dalit voters, particularly from the Matua/Namashudra refugee communities in border districts.

In 1951, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's government made the consequential decision to discontinue caste enumeration in India's first post-independence census, with limited exceptions. This decision reflected the government's belief that counting and documenting caste would perpetuate social divisions and undermine the nation-building project of the newly sovereign Indian state. The government explicitly sought to foster a unified national identity by declining to treat caste as a primary census category.

On the evening of June 5, 1973—the day M.S. Golwalkar, the second leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), died in Nagpur—nearly a hundred members of the Dalit Panthers' Nagpur chapter gathered at Indora Chowk to protest and celebrate. Led by Saroj Meshram (then 17 years old), Prakash Ramteke, Bhimrao Naik, Babban Katane, Suresh Waghmare, and Suresh Ghate, the group organized an impromptu march through the heart of the city toward the RSS headquarters in Mahal locality and the RSS office at Reshimbagh. Armed with sticks and torches, participants chanted slogans—"RSS Murdabad! Golwalkar Murdabad! Brahminism Murdabad!"—and some distributed sweets in commemoration. Despite the proximity to the RSS seat of power, no counter-response was mounted from either location.

The Balakrishnan Commission of Inquiry, formally constituted on October 6, 2022, was established by the Government of India to examine a constitutionally complex and socially sensitive question: whether Scheduled Caste (SC) status should be extended to Dalits who have converted to religions other than Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism—specifically to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims.

On February 21, 2023, the Seattle City Council passed Council Bill 120511 (Ordinance 126767), making Seattle the first city in the United States — and the first jurisdiction anywhere in the world outside South Asia — to explicitly ban discrimination based on caste. Sponsored by District 3 Councilmember Kshama Sawant, Seattle's only elected socialist and the sole Indian American on the council at the time, the bill passed 6-1. Council Member Sara Nelson cast the lone dissenting vote; two council members were absent. Mayor Bruce Harrell signed the ordinance on February 23, 2023, and it took effect on March 25, 2023.

On April 30, 2025, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Amaravati, presided over by Justice Harinath N., delivered a landmark judgment in Criminal Petition No. 7114 of 2022 with far-reaching implications for Dalit Christians and SC/ST legal protections in India. The case arose from a 2021 criminal complaint (Special SC/ST Case No. 36 of 2021) filed by Pastor Chinthada Anand against Akkala Rami Reddy, alleging caste-based assault and death threats during Sunday prayer sessions in a village in Andhra Pradesh.

On May 28, 2025, the Orissa High Court granted bail to Kumeswar Naik, a 26-year-old Dalit anti-mining protester from Kantamal village in Rayagada District, under a condition that became emblematic of judicial overreach: he was ordered to clean the premises of Kashipur Police Station every morning between 6:00 and 9:00 AM. Naik had spent five months imprisoned at the same station for protesting against Vedanta Limited's proposed bauxite mining project in the Tijimali hills. The cleaning condition lasted approximately two months, from June through August 2025, requiring Naik to make a daily 20-kilometer commute to the station where he had been detained. He described the requirement as "insulting," though his commitment to the anti-mining cause remained stronger than the degrading obligation.

The IDSN Dalit Rights Delegation Visit to Brussels in June 2025 brought together six human rights defenders from marginalized caste communities across South Asia for a weeklong advocacy campaign. The delegation comprised Dharsika Sivapragasam (Human Development Organization, Sri Lanka), Swapon Das (DALIT Khulna, Bangladesh), Sushil BK (Dalit NGO Federation and DHR Nepal), Mary James Gill (Centre for Law and Justice, Pakistan), and representatives from the National Dalit Christian Watch (India) and the Esther Foundation/NFDW (India).

On 9 February 2026, during the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee's February estimates round, Greens Senator David Shoebridge questioned Hugh de Kretser — President of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) — about Recommendation 17 of the AHRC's National Anti-Racism Framework (NARF). Released in November 2024, the NARF is the Commission's most comprehensive anti-racism policy document to date; Recommendation 17 calls on the Australian Government to "investigate options for legal protections against caste discrimination," including potential amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) to explicitly recognise caste as a protected attribute.

On 16 March 2026, a Special Atrocity Court in Veraval, Gir Somnath district, Gujarat, delivered its judgment in the decade-long trial arising from the Una flogging of July 2016. Additional Sessions Judge Jignesh Pandya convicted five of the 41 adults tried — Ramesh Jadav, Rakesh Joshi, Nagjibhai Vaniya, Pramodgiri Goswami, and Balwantgiri Goswami — under IPC sections 323, 324, 342, and 504, and under sections 3(1)(D) and 3(1)(E) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The remaining 35 were acquitted. On 17 March 2026, the court sentenced each of the five convicts to five years' imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000; all five had already served more than five years in custody, rendering the sentence effectively time-served. One accused, policeman Nirmalsinh Zala, had his case abated following his death during the trial; three other police officers — Narendradev Pandey, Kanchan Parmar, and Kanjibhai Chudasama — were acquitted outright. A juvenile accused was addressed separately. The court examined approximately 260 witnesses over the course of the proceedings. Heavier charges — including attempt to murder (IPC 307), kidnapping (IPC 365), criminal conspiracy (IPC 120-B), and relevant provisions of the IT Act — were not applied in the final judgment.

Supreme Court judgment delivered on March 24, 2026, in Criminal Appeal No. 1580 of 2026, decided by a bench comprising Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Manmohan. The case involved Chinthada Anand, a resident of Kothapalem Village in Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, who belongs to the Madiga Scheduled Caste community and had been functioning as a Christian pastor for nearly ten years prior to the incident.

Phase 1 of India's 2027 Census—the House Listing and Housing Census—commenced on April 1, 2026, and will run through September 30, 2026, across all 36 states and union territories. This phase collects information about housing conditions, household amenities, and building characteristics through 31 questions covering materials, water sources, sanitation, and asset ownership. Each state and union territory conducts its 30-day enumeration period at its own convenience within this six-month window. Households can optionally submit data online through a self-enumeration portal during a 15-day window before door-to-door enumeration begins in their area.

Census 2027 marks a watershed moment in India's statistical and social history: it is the first decennial census since 1931 to include caste enumeration at the national level. The 2027 Census is India's 16th census and the first fully digital one, representing a significant methodological shift from all previous censuses.

On Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 09:00 in SPINELLI 1E2 in Brussels, the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) convened a public hearing on "Caste discrimination in South Asia." The hearing was chaired by MEP Mounir Satouri (Greens/EFA) and brought together a diverse panel including Ashwini K.P., UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism; Sandra Claassen, Director of ARISA Foundation; Pirbhu Satyani, representing the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) and Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network; and Michal Pesta, Acting Head of Division for South Asia at the European External Action Service (EEAS).

On April 16–17, 2026, the Indian Parliament debated and defeated a legislative package comprising three interconnected bills: the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026; the Delimitation Bill, 2026; and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026. The bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha on April 16 and voted down the following day by a margin of 298 votes in favor to 230 against—falling 54 votes short of the two-thirds majority (352 votes) required to pass a constitutional amendment.

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) is a satirical online youth movement founded by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist with a journalism degree from Pune University and an MS in Public Relations from Boston University, on May 16, 2026. The movement emerged the day after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant made remarks comparing unemployed youth to "cockroaches" and "parasites of society" during a Supreme Court proceeding on May 15, 2026.

On May 4, 2026, the Supreme Court of India, constituted by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, struck down a series of caste-discriminatory bail conditions imposed by lower courts in Odisha. The ruling declared null and void bail orders that required accused persons—all of whom were Dalit or Adivasi individuals—to perform manual labor at police stations as a condition for release.

On May 15, 2026, during a Supreme Court hearing concerning the process of conferring senior advocate designations in the Delhi High Court, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant made inflammatory remarks comparing unemployed young people to "cockroaches and parasites of society." In the course of discussing individuals with fraudulent credentials entering the legal profession, he remarked that there were "youngsters like cockroaches who don't get any employment in the profession," who subsequently turn to social media activism and RTI (Right to Information) activism to attack the system, describing such individuals as parasites undermining professional integrity.

On May 21, 2026, Abhijeet Dipke, the 30-year-old founder of the Cockroach Janta Party and a public relations student at Boston University, publicly disclosed his Dalit identity via a post on X (formerly Twitter). The disclosure came in response to a user named Shut Up Counsel who challenged Dipke to clarify the party's stance on Dalit issues and reservation policies. Dipke replied simply: "I am a Dalit myself. I hope that will answer all your questions."

On May 22, 2026, Instagram restricted a two-minute investigative video by the Environmental Reporting Collective (ERC) that had documented forced land acquisition from Dalit communities in Tarluvada village, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The video, produced by journalists Shamsheer Yousaf and Monica Jha as part of ERC's global "Dirty Data" investigation, was published on May 19, 2026, and went viral within 24 hours, accumulating 2.6 million views before being blocked. Meta/Instagram removed the content following a government notice under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, without providing detailed justification to the creators.

On May 27, 2026, a bench of the Supreme Court of India comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued a significant judgment upholding the Election Commission of India's authority to conduct the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The case, Association for Democratic Reforms and Ors. v. Election Commission of India (cited as 2026 INSC 564), disposed of writ petitions challenging the SIR order issued by the Election Commission on June 24, 2025.

The 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly Election, held in two phases on April 23 and 29, achieved a historic voter turnout of 93.71%, surpassing the previous state record of 82.3% set in 2011. The Bharatiya Janata Party won decisively with 208 seats (45.92% vote share), displacing the incumbent All India Trinamool Congress, which secured 80 seats (40.96% vote share). Among the 294 total constituencies, 68 were reserved for Scheduled Castes, a key battleground where SC voters, particularly the Matua community—comprising over 17% of the state's SC population—held considerable political weight.