Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
This article problematizes the definitional discourse of manual scavenging in Indian legislative interven-tions and its judicial treatment by the Supreme Court of India. It assesses the evolution of the definition of manual scavenging and the judicial treatment of it to cull out the insufficiency of legal doctrines and judicial interpretations in its elimination. It is argued that the career of legal prohibition of manual scavenging, despite deploying new measures to promote the elimination and rehabilitation, is antithetical to the very objectives of the legislations due to a paradoxical definitional discourse. The paradox is discerned by problema-tizing the condition-based permissibility of manual scavenging, where the usage of protective gear is the excluding criterion for identifying manual scavengers and perpetuates the practice. This condition-based permissibility has been a key burden on the discourse of elimination, as no such measures, it is argued, can mitigate discrimination, humiliation and stigma faced by manual scavengers. After identifying the conditional prohibition of manual scavenging, the article makes normative suggestions towards the adoption of a non-condition–based complete prohibition approach rooted in the understanding of human dignity. This must be complemented with the complete rehabilitation of individuals and complete mechanization of sewage work.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
The piece is a critical review of a part of a contemporary anthology. The film is written and directed by a contemporary Dalit filmmaker. The author discusses the portrayal of caste in the film while deconstructing the identity of both the protagonist and the antagonist, discusses their traumas and caste locations. The author further discusses how being Dalit, a woman and bearing an identity other than that of being heterosexual is a lethal combination in both rural and urban India even today. The author brings focus on caste and the power structures prevalent today and how they change the experience of love, intimacy and sexuality, how the bodies of Dalit folks are undesirable and continue to remain untouchable.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Manoranjan Byapari is a famous Bengali Dalit writer whose family migrated from East Pakistan and took shelter in a refugee camp in West Bengal. In his autobiography Interrogating My Chandal Life, Byapari has given an account of Bengali Dalits’ victimization on the basis of caste in the pre-Partition Bengal and post-Partition West Bengal. In colonial Bengal, Dalits were known as Chandal or Untouchables. In 1911, their identity was recognized as Namashudras. After migrating to West Bengal, they were identified as Bangal and Dalit refugee. West Bengal and central governments did not warmly welcome the Namashudra refugees. They were sent to refugee camps which were crowded, unhygienic and did not provide adequate dole. Later they were sent to Andaman, Dandakaranya and other parts of India for their rehabilitation. In this dire situation, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) appeared as the Messiah to the Dalits and protested against the rehabilitation policy of the ruling government. The fake sympathy of the communist party had been revealed when they came in power in 1977 in West Bengal. Most of the communist leaders were upper-caste Hindus. In 1979, communist government secretly massacred the Namashudra refugees who were settled on the Marichjhapi Island. The state sponsored murder of Dalits remained undiscovered for many years. This study will examine the impacts of the Partition of Bengal on Dalits. It will further address how the state government provided different treatment to the Namashudra refugees for their lower caste identity.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Indian society is still dominated by the patriarchal system where women get less importance. A majority of households in India are headed by the male member of the family. According to Census 2011, only 10.78% of households are headed by a female member, and they are marginalized compared to the households headed by the male counterpart. Indian society is stratified into several groups based on language, religion, castes and tribes. Scheduled Tribes (ST) are the most marginalized among these social groups. From this perspective, the study focuses mainly on two marginalized sections, i.e. female-headed households (FHHs) of ST and their counterpart of non-ST families. This comparative study mainly describes the well-being disparity between the ST and non-ST FHHs based on the housing condition, presence of basic amenities and household assets possession. The study also emphasizes the regional disparity of economic well-being in the FHHs between ST and non-ST community in India. It is a secondary database work based on Census of India 2011. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, paired sample t-test and disparity index have been used to obtain empirical outcome. The results indicate that though the proportion share of FHHs is higher in ST community, in all the fields they are lagging behind the non-ST FHHs at the national level. In most of the states, non-ST FHHs are well off in terms of economic well-being compared to the ST FHHs, and it creates well-being disparity between two groups. Further, the study found that the magnitude of well-being also differs within its own community.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
The impact of COVID-19 on poverty estimates is humongous. The economic tumult caused by the pandemic over the past two years has the potential to double the nation’s poverty, erasing the decade-long gains from the fight against poverty and inequality. Our calculations show that around 150–199 million additional people will fall under poverty in 2021–2022; a majority of which are from rural areas, owing to the immiserate nature of the rural economy. Further disaggregation reveals that the SC/ST, casual labour and the self-employed are the most impacted groups. Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha are the most affected states facing poverty ranging from 50% to 80% in the rural area and 40% to 70% in the urban area. Our analysis also identifies the rippling effect of poverty on the inter-group disparities in India.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
The Dalit people in Odisha have been socio-economically deprived and antagonized with a social discrimination. In Odisha, the number of Dalits is 93, and out of it, in numerically Pana, Dewar and Dombo are the most populous and remain in first, second and third respectively. The Dombo people residing in South Odisha, especially in the unified Koraput and Kalahandi district. They have been known as drum beaters, weavers, performers and gramarakhi. Traditionally, the Dombo people live in the village as caretakers (gramarakhi or choukidar). In each village, there were a choukidar or gramarakhi, and their task was to report the instances of downfall, labour, self-destruction, murder and other lawful issues occurring in the village at the closest police headquarters and convey the news about birth, death of upper caste to their family members, discarded corpses of cows and attend the dignitaries and visiting officials. They used to declare any news concerning people in general by the beat of drums and help the Gauntia or village headmen on the issue of income assortment and everyday organization of the village issues. The gramarakhi or choukidar was a notable person at the village level in the primitive organization. The reason for this article is to study and preserve, promote and protect the economy, political and social existence of the Dombo people in South Odisha.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Being a developing country with a large population with high density, India was on high alert for the COVID-19 pandemic. India overcame much difficulty from the first wave, but was soon after smacked by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to its contiguous nature, people were advised to stay in their home, but some people have to continue their work to maintain public health, law and order and provide necessary services. Sanitary workers are one of them; they maintain cleanliness and sanitise public places, communities, towns and cities to control the COVID-19 spread. It is essential to know and understand their situation in such a problematic condition of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will elaborate on their social, occupational, and living conditions and possible relation with COVID-19. The author collected quantitative data through a cross-sectional study in four towns (Ladwa, Indri, Thanesar and Radaur) of Haryana in 2017. Quantitative and qualitative data had collected from sanitary workers through structured interview and observation. During fieldwork, the researcher lived with the community and observed closely. Results show that their working conditions are risky, working timings and duration also risky, alcohol and tobacco use is high, protective gears are not available to them, job status primarily contractual, no or low educational standard, health conditions are down and the standard of living is low & living situation are congested. The results indicate that they are at high risk of COVID-19 infection, to develop severe acute illness from COVID-19 and community spread. While their sanitary workers come into contact with different kinds of waste and surfaces, so their chance of infection is high because COVID-19 can survive on any surface. Their occupational, educational, social, health, living standards and living conditions make them vulnerable to developing a severe acute illness, leading to a high death rate and community spread. Therefore we need to take some essential steps in this regard.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Various educational policies and government initiatives at the national level in India have aimed at improving the literacy rate of the tribal communities. However, even after 73 years of independence, the literacy levels of the tribal people have not risen to the desired levels. On top, there is the issue of high dropout rates (Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Statistics Division, Government of India, 2013, Statistical Profile of Scheduled Tribes in India, https://tribal.nic.in/ST/StatisticalProfileofSTs2013.pdf; 70.9%, according to a recent study) among the Tribals (Rupavath, 2016a, Review Pub Administration Management, 4, p. 183). In such a situation, it is important to find out why tribal communities are still lagging behind in the education sector.This study will deal with the various aspects of access to education for the tribal communities. It will also try to examine the linkage between poverty and education. This is considered important since literacy can mean much more than mere bookish knowledge. A literate person can be expected to have more awareness about matters of importance to him or her. On the employment front, a literate person can have wider livelihood options—and not be confined to pursue occupations which largely entail manual labour. At the same time, a literate person would know more about his or her legitimate entitlements and be in a better position to avail of these. It is one thing for the government to reserve vacancies for candidates belonging to the deprived sections of society. It is equally important for more persons hailing from these sections to know about these and utilize these. Education can be a means for such persons to optimally utilize the opportunities available to them.It is a proven fact that students learn better and retain more when they are active participants in the teaching–learning process. For the purpose of this study, two districts—Anantapur and Vishakhapatnam (in Andhra Pradesh), and Hyderabad district (in Telangana)—have been selected for a detailed examination.The study will include not only the availability of infrastructure but also participation of the tribal students in the classroom discussions. The study will utilize both purposive and random sampling methods.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Volume 15, Issue 1_suppl, Page S33-S44, August 2023.
The recent incident, the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Hathras, a small village in Uttar Pradesh of India, once again sparks a debate on links between sexual violence and castes in India. This article aims to examine the links between sexual violence and castes in India. This study utilizes the national representative National Family Health Survey 4 (NFHS-4, 2015–16) data. A bivariate analysis was carried out to analyse the data. A binary logistic regression model was applied to predict the effect of explanatory variables, viz. type of place of residence, years of schooling complete, economic status in terms of wealth index and finally castes on predicted variable, i.e. sexual violence. The binary regression model indicates that there were links between sexual violence and castes. For secured and dignified life of women, caste-based sexual violence must be annihilated.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Bourdieu (1986) had shown, how a person can develop ‘capital through social interactions’ and later Sen (1992) applied Bourdieu’s concept of ‘capitals’ in ‘capabilities’ (Hart, 2012, pp. 52–62); both emphasized on education, aspiration and social justice. Education and aspiration are instrumental in bringing change particularly for the backwards especially minorities, Dalits and Scheduled Tribes and others. Schooling and raising students’ aspiration are the crux because students are the most significant fraction of developing human capital in a developing country like India. They are the future resources for progress and development of entire nation. Their aspiration counts a lot while reviewing the demographic dividend of the country at present; the youth population of the country is 654 million. Education Commissioner C. S. Kothari (1964) remarked, ‘Future of this country lies in the classroom’ (National Council of Educational Research and Training, 1970, pp. 13–36); educational aspiration of the youth and meeting this aspiration with right kind of opportunity facilitates them sure progress and putting India in a newer height in global competitiveness. So, student’s aspiration is significant subject to study. The term ‘aspiration’ is one which is often used synonymously with goals, ambitions, objectives, purposes, dreams, plans, cravings or aims. It is typical, everybody aspires in everyday and aspirations are driving force behind a person’s behaviour to do more and be more than he or she presently is. ‘We may know what we are, but we cannot know for certain what we can be’ (Quaglia, 1989, pp. 7–9). It is a craving for high achievement in life. It is a crucial aspect of intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation to a person. Ordinarily, development of aspiration is influenced by a number of factors. The significant factors that influence are culture, family environment and socio-economic status, locality of residence, teaching commitment and others.