Artists Mirror on Dalit Historical past Month

Throughout the month of April, tens of millions of Ambedkarites and caste-abolition allies have a good time Dalit Historical past Month. Launched in 2015 by a collective of Dalit feminists, together with Thenmozhi Soundararajan and Christina Dhanaraj, Dalit Historical past Month is a participatory group historical past mission impressed by Black Historical past Month. It started as a grassroots-led effort, originating in US-based political and group organizations, and has now spawned a worldwide motion that encompasses story-telling, discussions, and paintings — largely powered by social media.

Caste is an historic system of oppressive social hierarchy that divides society into 4 varnas or classes. Dalit and Adivasi individuals are excluded from the rating fully. It impacts over one billion individuals right now. Ambedkarite is another time period to Dalit, that means one who follows the philosophy of beloved Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), an anti-caste emancipatory chief, revolutionary, theorist, thinker, human-rights advocate, and architect of the Indian Structure. 

Dalit Historical past Month is widely known in April as a result of it’s the delivery month of main Dalit icons comparable to Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, affectionately dubbed Babasaheb by many, and Jyotirao Phule, a Nineteenth-century anti-caste reformer, social activist, and literary chief. Whereas celebrations of those auspicious days predated the official creation of Dalit Historical past Month, Dhanaraj informed Hyperallergic, “What this mission did was mainstream the month, make it extra public, and extra celebratory. We’re not simply speaking about victimhood, we’re additionally taking time to have a good time the group’s resilience and resistance.”  

The appearance of social media has lent itself to a rising international Ambedkarite group and, one hopes, elevated consciousness of anti-caste actions.

“If it wasn’t for social media, I might not be the place I’m right now,” shared Shrujantha Shridhar, artist, illustrator, and co-founder of the multimedia digital mission Dalit Panther Archive. “I don’t have any of the assets, connections, and contacts that come from caste-privileged networks. It’s a medium to impress, create tradition for the Ambedkarite motion, and set up illustration.”

Off the again of social media, the month has taken on a lifetime of its personal, particularly within the arms of artists like Shridhar, Huge Fats Bao, Siddhesh Gautam, Osheen Siva, and Rahee Punyashloka. Whereas Dalit Historical past Month has come a great distance, with Washington changing into the primary state to formally have a good time it and California’s Senate currently pending SB 403, a invoice to ban caste-based discrimination, the US has a protracted strategy to go by way of allying with caste abolition actions. This turns into much more urgent given the rise of fanatic pan-nationalism and sweeping ethnoreligious edicts throughout the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) state governments which have culminated in countless atrocities.

The up to date socially engaged artist carries the burden of historic consciousness. Is it their accountability to coach the plenty? 

Huge Fats Bao, a caste-abolitionist, illustrator, and researcher primarily based in Mumbai, India, and I mentioned her April 13 Instagram post, a kaleidoscopic digital mosaic celebrating Bhim Jayanti, Babasaheb’s birthday. It garnered one of many strongest social media responses she has skilled. We puzzled how many individuals could also be studying the identify Babasaheb and encountering his imagery for the primary time. 

Nonetheless, elevated visibility for Dalit-Ambedkarite activists and artists on social media comes at a value. As Bao’s community and attain grows, so does her publicity to internet-based harassment, discrimination, and oppression which she handles with grace.

In 2018, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, one of many first overtly Dalit ladies on Twitter and originator of the viral hashtag #DalitWomenFight, and 6 ladies journalists met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in India to debate the vitriol they had been dealing with on the platform. On the finish of the assembly, they gifted Dorsey a digitally illustrated poster designed by Soundararajan, snapped a gaggle photograph, and posted it to social media. The poster depicted a girl towards a blue background holding up an indication that learn “Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy.” 

The submit went viral and Twitter unraveled with (principally) caste-privileged individuals, also called savarnas, accusing Twitter of endorsing anti-Hindu sentiment. 

“One thing so simple as a poster received the complete web to take a seat nonetheless. As a result of for someday, Twitter received the sensation of what it was prefer to be a Dalit girl,” stated Soundararajan.

The poster was designed by a collaborative workforce at Equality Labs, “a Dalit civil rights group devoted to ending caste apartheid, gender-based violence, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and non secular intolerance.” Equality Labs recurrently collaborates with and amplifies Dalit-Bahujan artists.

It has been 5 years since the Twitter incident, however the hate-mongering continues, particularly for activists on the political frontlines who endure focused and arranged cyber-attacks. In an April 11 assertion released by PEN America, the group condemned the relentless on-line abuse marketing campaign waged towards Soundararajan, her colleagues, and allies. 

The Dalit Panther Social gathering Archive

Based by poets and writers Namdeo Dhasal, Raja Dhale, J. V. Pawar, and Arun Kamble, the Dalit Panther Social gathering (DPP) (1972–1977) was impressed by the Black Panther Social gathering. The Dalit Panthers Manifesto labeled “American imperialism” in the identical class as “Hindu feudalism.” The Social gathering rallied at atrocity websites, organized marches, boycotted elections, and propositioned direct militant motion towards their dominant-caste aggressors — direct cues from the Black Panther Social gathering. 

Although the group fractured and ultimately disbanded resulting from dissenting ideologies, their legacy lives on partially because of the work of the Dalit Panther Archive.

Established in 2018 by Shridhar, the Dalit Panther Archive is a multi-media digital area that “examines and evaluates the aesthetic qualities and design selections of assorted Little Magazines related to the Dalit Panthers motion,” as Tanya George reported in Fontstand News. The Instagram archive permits artists to check and rearticulate the male-led motion, ushering it into an more and more feminist area.

In 2017, Shridhar started the tedious and meticulous work of visiting the non-public collections of Satish Kalsekar, Ramesh Shinde, and J. V. Pawar. She listened to their tales and punctiliously photographed, scanned, and translated the fragile supplies, which included e book covers, magazines, posters, and pictures.

“It modified me as an artist,” Shridhar informed Hyperallergic. “It taught me how I need to view myself as an anti-cate Ambedkarite Dalit feminist artist right now. The place do I see myself? How do I find myself within the historical past of the world? What’s my function? It’s not nearly current politics and reacting to these politics. If it might probably do this for me, what can it do for others?”

Rahee Punyashloka, an Ambedkarite multi-disciplinary artist, agrees: “Had it not been for Shrujana’s digitizations, I might not have recognized about this complete inventive register. These are artists who’ve created iconography that we are able to construct on.”

Punyashloka’s latest physique of labor, Ambedkarite Blues, is a sequence of summary digital illustrations and text-based graphics that reimagines historic literary texts and celebrates up to date and historic figures with an emphasis on feminist leaders. He revives historical past by giving it a brand new breath by a definite blue-and-white visible conceptual strand. 

The blue is an homage to Babasaheb who liked the colour, associating it with the vastness and freedom of clear skies. It turned the colour of the flag flown by the Ambedkar Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942, in addition to subsequent Ambedkarite-led organizations.

The Dalit Panther Archive additionally permits researchers and artists to research the design selections of the booklets and texts. The DPP’s method to design was largely self-taught, evident of their disregard for formal design guidelines. The Social gathering struggled to entry printing assets, adapting their designs to suit the scale of recycled paper, touring as much as six hours to Alibag to make copies by way of cyclostyling, and utilizing minimal coloration to reduce prices.

In her latest article for The Futuress, Huge Fats Bao breaks down how the Indian design business is traditionally caste-based, exclusionary, and Eurocentric, traced to the long-standing vocational hierarchy codified within the four-tiered caste system that locations Brahmins (monks and lecturers) on the prime, Shudras (laborers, craftspersons, and artisans) on the backside, and Dalit individuals outdoors of the rating fully. 

Dalits had been lengthy pressured to work in “impure” and labor-intensive occupations, together with guide scavenging, dying material, and weaving. The latter are thought of people crafts and out of doors of fantastic arts. A historic denial of entry to schooling exacerbates the hole between expertise entry and social mobility. The entire artists I spoke with for this text shared their endurance and legitimate frustration in navigating hegemonic tutorial areas, accessing inventive assets, and apprehension in proudly owning the identification of “artist” versus “designer.” 

“Celebration comes from deep-seated apprehension in regards to the world past us. If we don’t have a good time with one another, maybe nobody else will,” shared Punyashloka.

Regardless of these challenges, it’s the resilience charged by millennia of resistance that impresses me and the generosity of spirit that humbles me. 

These individuals are just some out of hundreds of artists, activists, thinkers, and leaders who’re standing on the shoulders of anti-caste revolutionary leaders. Now could be the time for caste-privileged of us inside and out of doors of the South Asian diaspora to look at their very own caste places as they amplify and have a good time anti-caste actions and leaders. 

Jai Bhim!