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Casteism is a disease afflicting savarna communities, but its mental health burden is borne by Dalits and other caste-oppressed people, speakers argued at a two-day Bengaluru conference on April 14, Tuesday. The panel was part of ‘Building Begumpura: A Conference on Anti-Caste Mental Health Practices’, organised by The Blue Dawn and the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW).
Speaking during the panel, Bezwada Wilson, founder and National Convener of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), pointed to the historical erasure of the struggles of marginalised communities, particularly those forced into manual scavenging. While India celebrates the Independence movement, he said, it often overlooks the everyday resistance of caste-oppressed communities. Highlighting the continued practice of manual scavenging across the country, he added, “This is the psyche of India. You nullify, disgrace, and make them vulnerable.”
Bezwada also underscored how those practising casteism remain unaffected, while those at the receiving end of its brutality bear its consequences. “For how long can we take medicine for your disease? You feel nothing when you say, ‘Come and clean my shit’. Take the shit (casteism) out of your head,” he said, drawing loud applause.
Advocate Mrudula V, a member of the Campaign for the Rohith Act, a proposed law that seeks to address caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutions, spoke about institutional violence in educational and professional spaces. She described how education is often weaponised, making marginalised individuals feel inadequate or out of place. “When knowledge is wielded as power and not as a liberatory tool, it needs to be regulated… The Rohith Act is a defence against someone else’s disease, it is a mechanism against savarna sickness,” Mrudula said.
Shireen Azam, a scholar who completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford, examined the intersections of caste and religion, particularly within Muslim communities. “Caste is the mafia that operates the country, not the courts,” she said, adding that public discourse in India often invisibilises caste while making religious identity, especially that of Muslims, hyper-visible. “Muslims face the violence of visibility,” she said.
She noted that Muslims are often compelled to respond from the location of their religious identity, while caste remains unacknowledged. Tracing this erasure back to pre-Independence discourse, she referred to the Poona Pact: “When Nehru and Jinnah are busy (obsessing over religion) and Gandhi sits on a fast (against separate electorate), you can deny votes to Dalits.”
Moderator Aakanksha Aditi then asked Jyothi Raj, president of Booshakthi Kendra (International Dalit Cultural Centre), Tumkur, about the experience of being a Dalit woman and how caste trauma manifests. Jyothi said that for Dalit women, everyday life is a challenge met only with “resilience” against a history that spans “5,000 years.” She highlighted the systematic trauma faced by children, particularly in communities where the devdasi system persists, with many growing up without a “father’s name.”
The devadasi system involves the dedication of young girls to temples, a practice that has historically led to their sexual and social exploitation.
Introducing a distinction between external and internal identities for Dalit individuals, she said, “The broken identity comes from outside. The unbroken identity is what we are inside.” She described this unbroken identity as an “eco-centric” philosophy, where “we come from earth and we go back to earth.” She noted that such identities existed before they were colonised by the caste system. She also added that her community engagement initiative has led to the reclamation of “12,600 acres of land” in Tumakuru.
Aakanksha then asked Dr Raviraj Shetty, co-founder of the Narrative Practices India Collective, Mumbai, how anti-caste practices differ from mainstream mental health approaches. “Therapy rooms are like mirrored rooms where only what the therapist says or believes is the truth,” he said.
In contrast, his grassroots approach on mental health is modelled on his mother’s house, which he describes as a “bench,” a space where people can talk freely about everything from violence to food. He likened these conversations to ginger roots, growing unpredictably in all directions, requiring engagement with whatever emerges.
Drawing on eight years of experience as a medical practitioner, he emphasised the need to unlearn institutional practices that turn practitioners into “a tool of social control,” and instead reimagine medical spaces as sites of social liberation.
The Blue Dawn is a collective working to make mental health accessible to caste-oppressed communities across religions. The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW), founded in 1995 by Ruth Manorama, advocates against the triple oppression of caste, class, and gender.
Divya Kandukuri, founder of The Blue Dawn, said this is India’s first national conference to explicitly centre caste in conversations on mental health, positioning it within the broader social justice movement.
“In India, a country where the social fabric is woven by the caste system, there is no way we can separate caste from mental health,” she told TNM. She added that at a time when brahminical patriarchy, transphobia, and islamaphobia are on the rise, mental health cannot be viewed in isolation or as merely an individual issue.
This article was written by a student intern working with TNM.