Post Rohith Vemula’s suicide, there has been a slurry of discussions in academic and social world on Caste but this discussion has often been limited to talk about victimhood of Dalits as opposed to the domination of the Indian ruling castes.

There was a huge uproar even in Indian Parliament over Vemula’s suicide and struggle of Dalit students in India’s higher education campuses.

In this chaos, something which could have been unimaginable in the past decade has emerged in academic world.

The academic world dominated by upper castes has now accomodated the dalit being as long he is a prisoner of his identity.

Too much is being written on Caste and Campus and the focus, the gaze as usual is always the dalit identity.

This Gaze is so all pervasive, that at times a dalit can’t even think of anything but being a dalit. He can’t think of being a sociologist, an engineer or a doctor or a journalist or an author or a poet. He is relegated to the prison of his identity as if there is no escape from that identity.

One of the most interesting case being that of Yashica Dutt, who wrote her autobiography titled, coming out as a dalit and Suraj Yengde’s Caste Matters.

The focus of both these works by “Dalit” authors was, you guessed it right, what it means to be a dalit, in Post Vemula era.

These two books are now very often cited in academic spaces as resource materials to study caste.

Dalit has now become a subject of Brahmin fantasy, which exists as an object only as long as it panders to the Brahmin Gaze, an objective subject of perpetual victimhood in the eyes of the Brahmin.

Isn’t it strange that What Ambedkar talked about was annihilation of caste, is now being subverted into a discourse, where Dalits are given space and columns as long as they speak only about “themselves”.

With increasing intereference of American Social Justice policies of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Indian reality, Dalits are becoming a Neoliberal Subject, and their identity is being commodified to pander to the needs of the market.

As long as you will write about your pain, your humiliation you will be given space, but the moment you write about something that can’t evoke a vicarious sense of being an ideal subject of victimhood, you will never find mention anywhere.

Another case can be made of another book called Traumas of Caste published in America by Equality Labs.

Such a pathologisation of Dalit Identity has led to springing up of so many counselling and psychological interventions as if we are a medical subject. Again, the focus of Caste Society’s ignominy is the Dalit Identity.