Abhijay Srekanth- Week 2



Reflections on Week 2 Readings

The dialogs around caste issues are often transcoded into non-caste centric dialogs. It’s this idea in the Caravan’s piece on the anti-CAA coverage that really caught my eye.  Erasure of a groups unique experience aid in the continuances of said groups unique oppressive structures. The intersectional critique to social reform movements is exactly on these grounds- a grand-unified anti-oppressive movement does not take into account multiple interacting systems of oppression. Prof. Sumit Baudh in fact hits on exactly this in his piece on intersectional approaches to caste and gender in India.

The piece points out how terming the CAA/NRC debacle as communal erases caste experiences. The ruling governments actions aren’t purely pro-hindu- they’re pro-upper caste Hindu. Lower caste groups have often tried escaping the caste system by escaping hindusim and converting. So called communal violence such as the Christian Massacre in Odisha are in fact lower-caste massacres by an unrelenting violent upper-caste.


The impacts of the CAA/NRC impact lower caste groups just as badly as they do not possess the requisite documents nor the means to access to adequate legal representation to protect their interests. By terming the State’s actions a communal (i.e hindu v muslim), it automatically ends any possible discourse about how the oppressed within the hindu fold are just as badly affected.

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