Section
Power
Politics and institutions — the laws, judgments, and policies that shape Dalit life.
Reporting & essays
When the Government Erases Dalit Dispossession, It Starts by Silencing the Video
India's use of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act to restrict videos of land-grab protests reveals how tech infrastructure and platform censorship have become tools for simultaneous economic and epistemic erasure of Dalit communities.
By Editor7 min read
The Silence After Enumeration: Why India's Caste Census Without Delimitation Is Counting Without Consequence
The government's failed push for delimitation before the caste census reveals a deeper truth—frozen constituencies encode caste power, and counting caste without redistributing seats is merely making visible what remains frozen.
By Editor9 min read
Democracy's Administrative Erasure: How India's Supreme Court Sanctioned Caste-Coded Voter Purges
India's highest court just validated mass voter deletion as constitutional. But the ruling reveals something older—how "neutral" state procedures have always functioned as tools of caste hierarchy.
By Editor7 min read
The Caste Census and the Silence That Followed
India's first caste enumeration since 1931 will produce demographic data the government refuses to use. The defeat of delimitation bills reveals a calculated choice to preserve frozen constituency boundaries that have encoded upper-caste political geography for fifty years.
By Editor7 min read
Democracy's Dalit Paradox: How Bengal's Record Turnout Masks Structural Disenfranchisement
West Bengal's 94% election turnout in 2026 represents the highest in Indian history. Yet every mainstream party deliberately erased caste from its platform despite Dalits comprising 23.5% of the state's population. This is Ambedkar's diagnosis vindicated: franchise without substantive power.
By Editor8 min read
The Conversion Trap: How India's Law Punishes Religious Freedom
A Supreme Court ruling denies caste-atrocities protections to a Christian pastor. But the real question is whether conversion erases caste—or merely erases the legal acknowledgment of it.
By Editor6 min read
When a Movement Becomes the System: The Dipke Disclosure and the Limits of Viral Politics
The Cockroach Janta Party's Dalit founder revealed his caste identity and faced coordinated abuse from the movement's own base—a contradiction that exposes what Ambedkar warned about 75 years ago.
By Editor8 min read
The EU Has Leverage on Caste. It Must Use It.
The European Parliament heard demands for EU action on caste discrimination. Now Brussels must decide whether to act on trade, development, and human rights tools already at hand.
By Editor7 min read
When Judges Order Dalits to Clean: How Caste Hides Inside Judicial Procedure
A Supreme Court ruling in May 2026 struck down bail conditions that forced Dalit and Adivasi accused to clean police stations—exposing how untouchability has migrated into the administration of justice itself.
By Editor7 min read
Ambedkar's Warning: How India's Largest Democracy Harvests Dalit Votes and Suppresses Dalit Power
West Bengal's 2026 election exposed a gap Ambedkar identified in 1949: franchise without real political power to demand accountability—a pattern that shapes democracy across India.
By Editor7 min read
Inside India's New Caste Economy
The language of newness hides an old mechanism. Read through Ambedkar's analysis of caste as graded social closure, the contemporary economy looks less like a break from the past than its most efficient continuation.
By Editor3 min read
Key moments
- 2026
Una Atrocity Case Acquittal (March 2026)
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.
- 2026
Australian Senate Estimates: Caste Discrimination / Recommendation 17 (February 9, 2026)
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.
- 2023
Seattle Anti-Caste Discrimination Ordinance (February 21, 2023)
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.
- 2019Policy
103rd Constitutional Amendment (EWS Reservation, 2019)
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%.
- 2006Legal case
M. Nagaraj v. Union of India (2006)
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.
- 2006Atrocity
The Khairlanji Massacre (29 September 2006)
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.
- 1990–1992Legal case
Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992)
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.
- 1979–1992Policy
Mandal Commission
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%.
- 1932Policy
Poona Pact
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.
Key figures
Abhijeet Dipke
Activist, digital political organizer, founder of Cockroach Janata Party
Anand Teltumbde
Scholar, author, civil-rights activist, and management professor
Asang Wankhede
Legal scholar, anti-caste author, and poet; DPhil (Law) candidate at the University of Oxford
B.R. Ambedkar
Jurist, Economist, Statesman, Social Reformer, Constitutional Architect
Dharsika Sivapragasam
Human Rights and Legal Associate
Mary James Gill
Executive Director of Centre for Law and Justice; human rights lawyer, activist, former legislator, policy researcher
Pyla Kondamma
farmer, village council head, Dalit land rights activist
Rekha (Petlad, Gujarat), Dalit ASHA worker
ASHA worker (Accredited Social Health Activist), health activist
Rohith Vemula (2015 suicide and institutional humiliation case)
PhD scholar in life sciences; student activist
Saroj Meshram
Youth activist, Dalit Panthers member
Suman (Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh), Dalit ASHA worker
ASHA worker (Accredited Social Health Activist)
Suman Kamble (Kolhapur, Maharashtra), Dalit ASHA worker
ASHA worker (Accredited Social Health Activist)