Week 10 - Samyuktha Rao

I'm sharing something interesting that I've come across during my search for dalit music. In the state of telangana, India's largest tribal festival is conducted on an annual basis in the month of February. The festival witnesses largest gathering of dalit communities as the goddess who is worshipped during the festival belongs to the Koya tribe. However, Hinduization of this festival has begun to take place in the last few decades. I'm attaching articles from the wire and feminism in india which talks in detail about how upper castes are controlling the image of the goddess as theirs and their other  other practices of Hinduization that are taking place during the festival. There are multiple songs on the internet (by upper castes) but most of them as talked above, fail to emphasize on the history and story and are centered around celebration of the festival. 



Unfortunately, I have failed to find any dalit folk songs on the festival. However, apart from Gaddar, I have found this youtube channel and website called www.dalitsong.com which has many songs about bahujan movement,ambedkar and many other aspects of dalit movement. I'm attaching one of the songs on that page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBETZ40Q8Go 

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