#MeTooUrbanNaxal

Priyadarshini Ohol
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

If you are not a Dalit, it’s easy for you to say #metoourbannaxal. The fact is, the term "Urban Naxal" is a deliberately invented insidious tool to mark increasingly assertive dalits from urban areas. Particularly, educated Ambedkarite dalits with agency who are deemed as a threat to Brahminism.

So we will NEVER own this term ! Because Urban Naxal is a casteist term used as a caste identity marker.

Because the term Urban Naxal IS directed at us and INVENTED BY #URBANCASTEISTS TO DEMONISE US, so that they can justify how they FURTHER DEHUMANIZE AND OPPRESS US.

Like the word Naxal has come to signify "violent anti-national tribal terrorists" and is used to justify violence on any person belonging to the place and communities anywhere in the country. They needed to find a way to do this to Dalits.


Over 20,000 #Ambedkarite youth, sometimes small children are languishing in Maharashtra jails after being branded #UrbanNaxal since being attacked at #BhimaKoregaon . Urban Naxal is the term they use for a person who opposes Brahmin Supremacy. For the people who are obstacles in their Rebrahminisation of the nation. And while we play #metoourbannaxal , petitioners for the defence of the arrested activists seek to distance them from the Ambedkarites & Bhima Koregaon.

So if you use the #MeTooUrbanNaxal , do it with the awareness that there is a casteist pogrom directed at Dalits and you are choosing to stand with us. Do not erase the caste, casteism and the caste-based violence inherrent in the term because it doesn't feel cool, clean or comfortable to you and make it a trivial pop culture reference even as we suffer real world, heavy grotesque consequences of it. To make a mockery of the insidious violent intent behind the term is to be an escapist and collude with oppressors. Stand with us.


Call to Action:

If you do subscribe to #metoourbannaxal with complete awareness of what the perpetrators intend to do then:

Go through this areawise list of people like lawyers and collectives working towards releasing the 20000 Dalits branded Urban Naxal and arrested en masse all across the state published by Round Table India

Think of how you can help, pick any area or person, call and offer help.

Direct Link to List :

http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9267:bhima-koregaon-contact-list-of-lawyers-working-to-release-arrested-youth&catid=129:events-and-activism&Itemid=195


Further Reading:

Battleground 2019. The Hindutva State and Bhima Koregaon

http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9448:battleground-2019-the-hindutva-state-and-bhima-koregaon&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132

Priyadarshini Ohol

Written by

Priyadarshini Ohol is an internationally acclaimed artist and activist.

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