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.