Ground Down by Growth

A one day public conference and book launch featuring some of India’s leading public intellectuals and civil rights activists commenting on the inequalities faced by Dalits and Adivasis and their resistance. Dalits and Adivasis – previously called ‘untouchable’ and ‘tribal’ – make up one in twenty-five people in the world. They remain at the bottom of India’s social and economic hierarchies, exploited as the most precarious of labour in the new economies, increasingly alienated by ‘development’ from what land they may once have had. Issues covered include economic growth, capitalism, labour and caste; tribal autonomy and land rights; the left and social oppression; media and the production of knowledge; and the forms of struggle and resistance. Speakers include Sukhdeo Thorat, Anand Teltumbde, Virginius Xaxa, Gopal Guru, Joseph Bara, Kalpana Kannabiran, K Satyanarayana, Bhangya Bhukya, Javed Iqbal, Ruby Hembrom and Gautam Mody.