The Talk
Caste is a menace to India and is all pervasive. As Ambedkar observed, “turn in any direction you like, Caste is the monster that crosses your path.”
Caste are always spoken with their lineage of a couple of millenniums. Are castes cast in stone as some people imagine? If they are not, what is their nature? Are the contemporary castes the same as classical caste? What are their similarities and differences? How does one imagine the anti-caste movement today? The Talk will deal with these and other related questions. They pervade entire life and almost condition the nature of our republic. The fascist spectre of India becoming a Hindu rashtra that we are faced with is also not unconnected.
Dr Anand Teltumbde, Public Intellectual, Author, Activist
Anand Teltumbde is a leading public intellectual and is known for his critical insights on many a contemporary issue. A civil rights activist of long standing, he is currently General Secretary of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), Maharashtra. He is also associated with the All India Forum for Rights to Education (AIFRTE), which is spearheading the movement for common school system, as a member of its Presidium and many other Peoples’ movements/organizations. A regular contributor to Economic and Political Weekly, wherein he writes a monthly column Margin Speak, he also regularly contributes to all other progressive journals in English and Marathi.
Some of his recent books are Republic of Caste (Navayana, 2018), Radical in Ambedkar (Penguine, 2018), Dalits: Past, Present and Future (Routledge, London, 2016), Mahad: Making of the First Dalit Revolt (Aakar, Delhi, 2016), Persistence of Caste (Zed Books, London, 2010); Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop (Navayana, Delhi. 2008); Anti-Imperialism and Annihilation of Castes (Ramai, Mumbai. 2005); and Hindutva and Dalits: Perspectives for Understanding Communal Praxis, (Ed) (Samya, Kolkata. 2005).
He is BE (Mech), MBA (IIM, Ahmedabad), Ph D (Cybernetics), Fellow, Institution of Engineers, and D Litt (Hon Causa) with brilliant academic record. He had an illustrious corporate career that ended as Managing Director and CEO of a holding company, Petronet India Limited. After his corporate career, he was invited by IIT, Kharagpur as Professor of Management. After working for nearly six years, he came over to Goa Institute of Management as Senior Professor and Chair, Big Data Analytics. He has started India’s first full time management post graduate programme in Big Data Analytics.
