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Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy

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Connor Towne O'Neill

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“மேற்கத்திய நாடுகள் இதில் சிறப்பான முறையில் செயல்படுகிறார்கள். அதிலும் ஜெர்மன், ஆஸ்ட்ரியா, ஸ்பெயின், ஸ்விட்சர்லாந்து போன்ற நாடுகள் சிறப்பாக இருக்கிறார்கள்.”

Indian CultureCaste System
Book:மாறாது என்று எதுவுமில்லை [Maarathu Entru Ethuvumillai]
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“Definition of Dalits? Many people mistakenly perceive the term Dalit as merely another caste label. In truth, it is a profoundly political and ideological identity—an umbrella term that encompasses historically marginalized and oppressed communities. To truly understand Dalit, we must recognize that language operates on two intertwined levels: the textual and the contextual. Textually, every word carries both denotation—the literal, dictionary meaning—and connotation—the emotional, cultural, or symbolic resonance. For example, lily denotes a particular white flower, yet it connotes purity and fragrance. Similarly, rose refers to a specific botanical entity, while also symbolizing love and beauty. However, certain terms—like Purohita (Hindu priest)—cannot be fully grasped through textual analysis alone. Their meanings are shaped by the historical, religious, and cultural frameworks in which they function. A Purohita is not just a religious figure; he embodies the ritual authority, social hierarchy, and Brahminical dominance inherent in Hindu society. Likewise, Dalit is not just a lexical item—it is a historically charged identity rooted in centuries of caste-based exclusion, violence, and resistance. It embodies the collective struggle against structural oppression and signals a radical assertion of dignity and justice. To engage with the term Dalit is to confront the lived realities of caste discrimination and to recognize its role as a political and cultural counter-narrative. Hence, Dalit must be understood not just linguistically, but through a deep sociopolitical lens that attends to the histories, struggles, and aspirations it signifies.”

CasteCaste System
Author:Dr.Thanigaivelan Santhakumar
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“Why do we need reservation in Private sectors? Private sector reservation is not just a matter of employment—it is a matter of democratic justice and representation in a society where caste continues to determine who gets hired, promoted, funded, and heard. Without reservation, Dalits remain invisible in boardrooms, media, law firms, tech companies, and startups. As Suraj Yengde points out in Caste Matters (2019), “In India's new economy, Dalits are the untouchables of the digital age. There is no Ambedkar in Silicon Valley.” Additionally, global capitalism in India benefits from caste-based cheap labor, while resisting caste-based equity, thus reproducing old hierarchies in new forms.”

CasteCaste System
Author:Dr.Thanigaivelan Santhakumar
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“What is the Third-Class Degree and the Colonial Education Dilemma The introduction of Macaulay’s Minute on Education in 1835, followed by Wood’s Despatch in 1854, laid the foundation for a British-style education system in colonial India. Designed to produce a class of Indians who were “Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect,” this system emphasized English-language education, liberal arts, and European epistemology, effectively displacing indigenous systems of learning rooted in Sanskrit, Persian, and Tamil traditions. Initially, Indian universities (established in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras in 1857) adopted a rigid system of academic classification, with students qualifying for a first class at 60%, and second class at 45%. This system quickly exposed disparities in performance, particularly among students from varied caste backgrounds. While upper-caste Brahmin communities had long-standing access to education—especially in Sanskritic traditions—they struggled with the new colonial syllabus and pedagogy, which emphasized logic, Western literature, and sciences. By the late 19th century, British educators were alarmed by the high failure rates among Indian students, especially in South India, where Tamil Brahmins—despite their traditional academic roles—were not performing well under the British evaluative framework. In an effort to boost the number of graduates and maintain a steady supply of clerks and civil servants, British officials proposed the creation of a “third class” degree with a pass mark of 33%. This move was formalized in the Indian Universities Commission Report of 1902. What is notable—but often underemphasized—is how upper-caste Hindus, especially the Dwija castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas), rallied behind the idea of introducing this lower threshold. Many of these groups, who had historically benefited from hereditary access to religious and scriptural education, were now struggling to adapt to modern, secular, and English-language education. The third-class degree became a lifeline—ironically endorsed by the very castes that later would oppose caste-based affirmative action, arguing for "merit" as the only valid criterion. The creation of a third-class degree, thus, serves as an early historical example of structural adjustment to accommodate dominant castes—a form of affirmative accommodation before the term “reservation” even entered Indian political discourse. While it was framed as a meritocratic concession to help Indian students succeed, it was in fact a policy born of practical necessity and caste-based pressure, aiming to preserve the hegemony of upper castes in the emerging modern bureaucracy. This irony becomes even more stark when viewed against the later history of Dalit and Bahujan struggles for access to education, especially in the 20th century. Leaders like Jyotirao Phule, Periyar, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar would go on to expose how education remained deeply caste-coded. For centuries, the Dalits (Scheduled Castes) and Shudras had been denied access to learning altogether. When reservations were introduced to level the field post-Independence, these very upper-caste communities began to resist them, invoking the rhetoric of "merit"—a notion that was conveniently malleable when they needed the third class to survive colonial assessments. Thus, the colonial education system did not eliminate caste—it subtly reinforced it by repackaging privilege under new labels. The introduction of the third-class degree exemplifies how colonial policy was not caste-neutral but often aligned with the interests of dominant castes. It laid the groundwork for ongoing debates around meritocracy, reservation, and educational justice in India—a legacy that continues to shape the nation's politics and social dynamics well into the 21st century.”

CasteCaste System
Author:Dr.Thanigaivelan Santhakumar
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“The abolition of caste in India is impossible without dismantling the entrenched economic and land-based power structures that uphold it. As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar forcefully argued, caste is not merely a division of labor, but "a division of labourers" (Annihilation of Caste 17), where the hierarchical allocation of work is inherited and enforced through socio-economic mechanisms. Historically, caste has operated as a system of economic exploitation, wherein dominant castes consolidated power through control over land, knowledge, and religious institutions, relegating Dalits and other oppressed groups to landless labor and degrading occupations. Ambedkar contended that “caste is not just a social institution, it is also an economic one” and warned that “you cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You have to blow it up” (Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India 23).”

CasteCaste System
Author:Dr.Thanigaivelan Santhakumar
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“How next generation can become casteless? Educating the next generation for a caste-free society requires more than tokenistic inclusion; it demands a pedagogical revolution rooted in equality, empathy, critical thinking, and epistemic justice. The present educational system, as Ambedkar noted in Annihilation of Caste, is complicit in “manufacturing obedient caste minds” that naturalize hierarchy rather than challenge it. Therefore, education must first deconstruct the hidden curriculum of caste—the ways in which textbooks, classroom practices, language, and institutional norms reinforce dominant caste narratives while marginalizing Dalit-Bahujan voices. Schools must be restructured as spaces of liberation, not discipline, by incorporating the writings, histories, and philosophies of Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule, Ayyankali, Periyar, and other anti-caste thinkers into core curricula, not just as electives or afterthoughts. Pedagogy must shift from rote memorization to dialogic, experiential learning that cultivates empathy and reflexivity in students. Teachers themselves must be sensitized through anti-caste training, and diversity in teaching staff—especially Dalit and Adivasi educators—must be actively pursued through affirmative hiring. Importantly, education should challenge caste not only intellectually but institutionally, through caste-free hostels, fair admissions, and safe grievance mechanisms. As Paulo Freire argued in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “education is either a practice of freedom or a practice of domination”—and in caste society, it has largely been the latter. The next generation must be trained not just to understand caste, but to actively dismantle it, through critical consciousness, solidarity practices, and ethical citizenship. Only when children are taught that caste is not cultural heritage but a violation of human dignity—and are given the tools to resist it—can education become the foundation of a truly egalitarian India.”

CasteCaste System
Author:Dr.Thanigaivelan Santhakumar
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