From Suraj Yengde's Caste Matters

Dalits are struggling to fight the social boycott imposed by dominant-caste villagers in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bihar and Kerala; Dalit women are still seeking justice for mass rape; the souls of raped and lynched bodies paraded in the middle of streets yearn to seek justice; the brandishing of Dalit talent before the childish argument of ‘merit’ is haunting the doorsteps of educational institutes; the autonomous political praxis of Dalit students in college campuses is seen as a negative move; the death toll of manual scavengers keeps hitting national newspaper headlines; we keep talking about the greatness of India’s civilization and culture, when the only time a Dalit gets noticed is upon his or her death; when the world is trying to find solutions to problems with little success; when social movements are gearing up to create new bonds with new comrades; when ecological disasters affect the person at the bottom who has no means of employment; when the neo-liberal catastrophe is sacrificing the measures of livelihood to the global capital monster; when pedagogies are proving inadequate to express the blackout of morality; when teachers are unable to explain to their students where lies the unaccountability for the oppression of human beings; when India is ‘shining’ and the mass is fighting the darkness; when banks are ruling and governments are following; when democracy is being prostituted to the profligacies of the ruling elite; when the LGBTIQ movement refuses to actively endorse Dalit queer and trans bodies; when academic departments do not detail a course on the Dalit episteme; when research institutes do not commit to having detailed studies of Dalit lives in past and present; when the mother who cannot stop wiping her eyes at the loss of her three-year-old; when the temple priest continues to rape Dalit women for ‘religious needs’; when the dominant castes continue to loot the country; when the international left movement honestly takes hold of their oppressed comrades in India; when the solidarities of other groups become the priority; when prisons continue to get populated with oppressed-caste people; when the father who has lost his eighteen-year-old son has to beg for someone’s pittance to gather money to bury him; when the world’s governments and international bodies do not recognize the lives of the unheard; when an old woman tries to survive by begging on the streets; when animals are allowed to sit on people’s laps while even the shadow of a Dalit is forbidden in the house; when atheists say that religion is the primary problem and not caste; when Dalit remains Dalit and Brahmin remains Brahmin; when a son loses his father due to the lack of medical care owing to poverty and the privatization of the health industry . . .

So, until the progressives can take a courageous stand by denouncing and renouncing self-privilege; until radicals make caste their primary project; until rationalists do not stop commuting to agraharas to educate; until Dalixploitation becomes a concern of the world; until Dalit scientists are able to organize; until Dalit cinema is successful in the project of creativity; until Dalit rap becomes the lingua franca of revolt and is accepted in the mainstream; until Dalit achievers are unafraid of revealing their identity for fear of losing their future; until #castemustgo is truly embraced and #DalitLivesMatter is in the list of priorities; until my mother can sleep with reassurance without worrying about her son’s returning home safely in the caste police regime; until then, caste matters.

Originally shared by @Akshay in the matrix group.

Source: https://www.news18.com/news/books/book-excerpt-dalit-scholar-suraj-yengde-tells-you-why-caste-matters-in-his-latest-novel-2264189.html