On Caste and The Digital (Feat Riya Singh and Murali Shanmugavelan)

How does caste get articulated on the internet? Or where does caste creep in to our studies of media and technology? Can you dismantle Hindutva without dismantling caste? Black women organizers like Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie have emphasized police abolition in their work with survivors of sexual atrocities in the US, what are the overlaps and distinctions in how Dalit women activists are engaging with these political projects in the Indian context. This inaugural episode of season 4 for the We Be Imagining podcast interweaves commentary from Riya Singh, the founder of Dalit Women Fight, Murali Shanmugavelan, resarcher at Data and Society alongside some provocations from Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs and the concluding plenary of the Dismantling Hindutva conference. 

Please write us at WeBeImagining@gmail.com with feedback on this episode or to share your perspective on caste and the digital :)

**Please note, there are some descriptions of sexual violence and killings within the episode due to the realities of caste violence and brahminism. 

Riya Singh is a doctoral researcher in Women & Gender Studies at Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Delhi - Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi. She is a part of Core Leadership Group in India’s single and largest Dalit women-led collective, Dalit Women Fight. She works on ground with the survivors of caste based atrocities of Dalit community  in six states of Northern India.

Murali Shanmugavelan isa Faculty Fellow, Race and Technology at Data and Society. He researches caste in media and communication studies and digital cultures. Murali is currently working on the re-manifestation of caste and social hierarchies in digital cultures such as hate speech and platform economies. At Data & Society, Murali’s work will scrutinise communication and technology studies from (anti)caste perspectives. His work will analyse everyday casteism on the Internet and develop actionable policy recommendations and build pedagogic content about caste in communications and technology studies.

Lightly Edited Transcript Available here and you can find out more about We Be Imagining on our website or @WeBeImagining on Twitter and IG. 

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Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman
Music: Drew Lewis

Links for Episode:
Dalit Women Fight
EQUALITY LABS
Caste-hate speech Report by Murali Shanmugavelan
Dismantling Global Hindutva
DGH: Multidisciplinary Perspectives Closing Statement
How to write anti-caste solidarity texts
Cast(e)ing Indian Media: Unsettling Secular Mythologies
Practice of Caste in USA - Series#1- Q&A with Dr. Balmurli Natrajan & Dr. Murali Shanmugavelan
Advocacy Group Fights India Caste System Discrimination in Silicon Valley
Trapped in Silicon Valley's Hidden Caste System | WIRED
Opinion | California's lawsuit against Cisco shines a light on caste discrimination in the US and around the world - The Washington Post
Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989