The Dalit Buddhist movement is a religious as well as a socio-political movement among Dalits in India which was started by B. R. Ambedkar. It re-interpreted Buddhism and created a new school of Buddhism called Navayana. The movement has sought to be a socially and politically engaged form of Buddhism.
The Indian People's Front (IPF) was a mass front organisation founded in Delhi between 24–26 April 1982. It was conceptualised by Vinod Mishra and it was operated as the open mass front of the CPIML Liberation between 1982–1994. The front primarily worked for the social and economic upliftment of Adivasis, Dalits and impoverished sections of society and mobilised them through the means of unions, rallies and conventions.
Dalit is a term first coined by the Indian social reformer Jyotirao Phule for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold varna of the caste hierarchy and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Several scholars have drawn parallels between Dalits and the Burakumin of Japan, the Baekjeong of Korea and the peasant class of the medieval European feudal system.
Mahar is one of the dominant Indian caste found largely in the state of Maharashtra and neighbouring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century. As of 2017 the Mahar caste was designated as a Scheduled Caste in 16 Indian states.
Chuhra, also known as Bhanghi and Balmiki, is a Dalit caste in India and Pakistan. Populated regions include the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, as well as Uttar Pradesh in India, among other parts of the Indian subcontinent such as southern India. Their traditional occupation is sweeping, a "polluting" occupation that caused them to be considered untouchables in the caste system.
Anti-Brahminism is a term used in opposition to caste based hierarchal social order which places Brahmins at its highest position. Initial expressions of Anti-Brahminism emerged from instances of pre-colonial opposition to the caste system in India, ideological influences during the colonial period, and from a colonialist Protestant Christian understanding of religion in the 19th century, which viewed "Brahminism" as a corrupted religion imposed on the Indian population.
Chokhamela was a Hindu saint in Maharashtra, India in the 14th century. He belonged to the Mahar caste,, which was considered that time one of the low castes in India. He was born at Mehuna Raja, a village in Deulgaon Raja Taluka of Buldhana district. He lived at Mangalvedha in Maharashtra. He wrote many Abhangas. One of his known Abhangas is 'Abir Gulal Udhlit Rang". Social activist Arvind Prabhakar Kayande Started Celebrating "Chokhamela Festival" in Deulgaon Raja. He was one of the first low-cast poets in India.
Gail Omvedt was an American-born Indian sociologist and human rights activist. She was a prolific writer and published numerous books on the anti-caste movement, Dalit politics, and women's struggles in India. Omvedt was involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements, especially with rural women.
Navayāna, otherwise known as Navayāna Buddhism, refers to the modern re-interpretation of Buddhism founded and developed by the Indian jurist, social reformer, and scholar B. R. Ambedkar; it is otherwise called Neo-Buddhism and Ambedkarite Buddhism.
Bhatkal & Sen is a publishing partnership between Mandira Sen and Popular Prakashan. The company is based in Kolkata and publishes the imprints Stree and Samya. It is noted for publishing authors such as Kancha Ilaiah, Om Prakash Valmiki, Uma Chakravarti, Gail Omvedt, Manikuntala Sen, Ashok Mitra, V. Geetha, and Bani Basu, and has prominent scholars such as Susie Tharu and Maithreyi Krishnaraj as editors. It publishes academic works in the social sciences, memoirs and classic fiction in translation in English and Bengali.
Diwan Bahadur Rettamalai Srinivasan, commonly known as R. Srinivasan, was a scheduled caste activist and politician from then Madras Presidency of British India. He is a Paraiyar icon and was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and was also an associate of B. R. Ambedkar. He is remembered today as one of the pioneers of the Scheduled caste movement in India. He founded the Adi dravida mahajana sabha in 1893.
Mylai Chinna Thambi Pillai Rajah was an Indian politician, educationist, social and political activist from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The Dalit Panthers is a social organisation that seeks to combat caste discrimination. It was led by a group of Mahar writers and poets, including Raja Dhale, Namdeo Dhasal, and J. V. Pawar in some time between the second and the third semester of 1972. It was founded as a response to the growing discontent among the Dalit youth during the 25th Independence Day celebrations. Inspired by the Black Panther movement in the United States, poet-writers J V Pawar and Namdeo Dhasal founded the Dalit Panthers, urging a boycott of the Independence Day revelry, terming it a 'Black Independence Day'. The movement's heyday lasted from the 1970s through the 1980s, and it was later joined by many Dalit-Buddhist activists.
Dalit literature is a genre of Indian writing that focuses on the lives, experiences, and struggles of the Dalit community, who have faced caste-based oppression and discrimination for centuries. This literature encompasses various Indian languages such as Marathi, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Sindhi, Odia and Tamil and includes diverse narratives like poems, short stories, and autobiographies. The movement originated in response to the caste-based social injustices in mid-twentieth-century independent India and has since spread across various Indian languages, critiquing caste practices and experimenting with different literary forms.
Eleanor Zelliot was an American writer, professor of Carleton College and specialist on the India, Southeast Asia, Vietnam, women of Asia, Untouchables, and social movements.
Mahad Satyagraha or Chavdar Tale Satyagraha was a satyagraha led by B. R. Ambedkar on 20 March 1927 to allow untouchables to use water in a public tank in Mahad, Maharashtra, India. The day is observed as Social Empowerment day in India.
Susie Tharu is an Indian writer, publisher, professor, editor and women's activist. Throughout her career and the founding of several women's activist organizations, Tharu has helped to highlight those issues in India.
Dalit Muslim is used to refer to Muslims in the Dalit group. Untouchables, also called Dalits, who have converted to Islam. In theory, converting to Islam takes converts out of the bounds of earlier caste system, but in practice they are often still treated as Dalits.
Gangadhar Nilkanth Sahasrabuddhe was an Indian social activist from Maharashtra. He was born in a Marathi Chitpawan Brahmin family and belonged to the Social Service League. Along with other activists - Surendranath Tipnis, chairman of the Mahad Municipality and A.V. Chitre, he was instrumental in helping Babasaheb Ambedkar during the Mahad Satyagraha. During the satyagraha he burnt the book Manusmriti. Later, he went on to become the editor of Ambedkar's weekly 'Janata'.
Ambedkarism is called as the teaching, ideology or philosophy of B.R. Ambedkar, an Indian economist, barrister, social reformer, and the first of Minister of Law and Justice in the first cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru. Ambedkarism includes special focus on subjects such as fraternity, democracy, communal electorates, conversion out of Hinduism, political power, rule of law, Navayana, among others. An Ambedkarite is one who follows the philosophy of Ambedkar. Icons of Ambedkarite ideology also include Periyar, Jyotirao Phule and others.
