Resources

What is caste?

Existing for over 3000 years, caste apartheid is a system of religiously codified oppression that is passed on by birth and is unalterable through life. One’s caste position determines access to opportunities for advancement as well as to ownership of resources. Outside the four main caste groups are Dalits and Adivasis who represent the most caste oppressed communities in South Asia.1, 4

“A central feature of caste discrimination is the so-called ‘untouchability practices’. It stems from the notion that different caste groups have varying degrees of purity and pollution, with Dalits and other caste-affected groups being so impure that they can pollute other groups.”2

To this day, Dalits continue to “endure segregation in housing, schools, and access to public services. They are denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused at the hands of the police and upper-caste community members who enjoy the state’s protection.”3  

1. Caste in the United States, Equality Labs

2. Caste Discrimination, International Dalit Solidarity Network

3. Hidden Apartheid of Discrimination Against Dalits, Human Rights Watch

4. What is the caste system, BBC

Bhumika Saraswati’s Publications

• An Unequal Heat: In Photos
• Heat South Asia Digital Archive
• Capturing Unequal Heat

• The Hidden Battle for Survival

Bhumika Saraswati’s Films

• Trafficked into Sex Work, stories of single mothers and their children (Film, Short)
•  “Who can survive on Rs 33 per day?” (on gender, caste, and health)

On Black & Dalit Solidarities

• Building Bridges: Articulating Dalit and African American Women's Solidarity by Shailaja Paik
• Dalit in Black America: Race, Caste, and the Making of Dalit-Black Archives by Suraj Yengde

Recommended Texts (found at NYU Libraries)

• Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar
• Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men by B.R. Ambedkar
• The Buddha and His Dhamma by B.R. Ambedkar
• Coming out as Dalit by Yashica Dutt
• Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde
• Concealing Caste: Passing and Personhood in Dalit Literature by K. Satyanarayana & Joel Lee
• Mapping Dalit Feminism: Towards an Intersectional Standpoint by Anandita Pan
• Dalits: Past, Present, and Future by Anand Teltumbde
• Ants Amongst Elephants by Sujatha Gidla
• Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde
• Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste by Gail Omvedt
• Understanding Caste by Gail Omvedt
• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
• The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music by Craiig I. Wilkins
• A Black Gaze by Tina M. Campt
• As long as grass grows by Dina Gilio-whitaker
• Recovering the sacred by Winona LaDuke
• Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience by Enrique Salmón