There are various definitions of historical past. However for me, as an artist, dreamer, and an unapologetic Ambedkarite, historical past has typically been a criminal offense scene — a spot of distortion, manipulation, and theft. What they taught us at school was not our previous. It was the propaganda of the highly effective. It was mythology stitched collectively to maintain us docile, grateful, and forgetful. I used to be made to memorize the names of those that enslaved us, sing anthems of unity that demeaned our range, and admire writers who by no means noticed us.
The textbooks weren’t written for me. They have been written towards me.
The authors weren’t my folks. They didn’t converse my language, share my ache, or mirror my actuality. And once they did write about us, in regards to the Dalits, the Adivasis, the Bahujans, they did it with a gaze. We have been both invisible or exoticized. Both deviant or dehumanized. By no means advanced, by no means dignified, by no means answerable for our personal narratives.
I used to be orphaned by historical past after which pressured to worship the individuals who burned my home down. I used to be instructed our ancestors have been “illiterate, savage, filthy.” However who constructed India’s temples and skyscrapers? Who cleaned its streets? Who carried the useless and bore the burden of the residing? Who taught resistance with out ever being taught? Who created Indigenous data? Who carved the primary stones and painted the primary partitions? Our histories of battle, of survival, of brilliance weren’t misplaced. They have been looted.
Siddhesh Gautam, “Orphaned from history: Self Portrait” (2025)
So we reclaimed the pen, the comb, the chisel, and the digicam.
We started writing ourselves into existence in songs, in sculptures, in artworks, in oral traditions, and on the streets. To not beg for area, however to grab it. Even make it. To not enhance the margins, however to burn them. And on this hearth, we discovered one another.
Dalit Historical past Month, based a decade in the past by anti-caste activists together with Thenmozhi Soundararajan and Christina Dhanuja and celebrated every April, is just not a token. It’s a tactical intervention. A crack within the Brahminical material of Indian reminiscence. It’s not a request for inclusion; it’s a declaration of rupture. One month can not compensate for hundreds of years of epistemicide, the deliberate erasure of our data, our voices, our ancestors. However it could grow to be a spark. A starting. A ritual of remembrance and resistance.
Siddhesh Gautam, “Race, Caste and What it will take to make Dalit Lives Matter” (2021), that includes illustrations of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Jyotiba Phule
We don’t have a good time for spectacle. We don’t mourn for pity. We arrange as a result of our liberation is just not negotiable.
Dalit Historical past Month is a artistic battle cry for dignity, for illustration, for justice. It’s not restricted to Dr. B. R. “Babasaheb” Ambedkar, although he stays a guiding star and radical architect of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Additionally it is a time to honor those that have been not often named in state archives however at all times remembered in our properties.
We keep in mind Savitribai Phule, who was stoned for educating ladies however by no means stopped strolling to high school. We keep in mind Ramabai Ambedkar, who lived via poverty and grief so her companion may write the Structure of an impartial India. We keep in mind Jyotiba Phule, who opened colleges for Dalit college students within the mid-1800s when the state refused to coach us. And Shahuji Maharaj, the king who waged a warfare of coverage towards caste within the early 1900s by reserving jobs and schooling for the oppressed at a time when even speaking about caste was harmful.
Siddhesh Gautam, illustration of Savitribai and Fatima, strolling hand in hand on the streets of Pune (2025)
We keep in mind Fatima Sheikh, who taught aspect by aspect with Savitribai, even when her personal neighborhood disowned her. Babytai Kamble, the author who broke the silence of Dalit womanhood together with her uncooked, unflinching phrases. We keep in mind Jhalkari Bai, the courageous Dalit girl soldier who entered battle disguised as Rani Laxmibai in 1858 and fought the British military. Uda Devi, who climbed a tree and shot down British officers in the course of the 1857 rise up, her physique ultimately riddled with bullets and her identify omitted from textbooks.
Siddhesh Gautam, “Dharti Aaba: Birsa Munda” (2022), that includes Birsa Munda main Ulgulan, a socio-cultural-intellectual and political motion that was later adopted by the Mass Armed Revolt towards British colonialism in addition to Hindu feudal and caste-based landlordism
We keep in mind Birsa Munda, the younger Adivasi chief who led the Ulgulan, the good rise up, not simply towards the British however towards dominant-caste landlords who exploited his folks. His bones nonetheless echo within the forests of Jharkhand. We keep in mind the poets Kabir and Ravidas, whose verses shattered the silence of caste and whispered equality into generations of dreamers.
And we additionally keep in mind the current. Grace Banu, who hacked her manner via each transphobia and caste discrimination to grow to be a voice in tech and coverage. Rohith Vemula, who took his personal life in 2016, an institutional homicide in a college area that reminded us that Brahminism doesn’t disappear with English schooling or a college seat, it mutates.
Siddhesh Gautam, “Dreaming of revolution: Self portrait” (2024)
This month can be for the unnamed, the numerous victims of guide scavenging, caste lynchings, sexual violence, and systemic neglect. It’s for each damaged again and burning pyre. For the sweepers who have been instructed their fingers have been soiled however whose contact was at all times divine. It’s a collective mourning and a collective sharpening of our expressive instruments.
We don’t solely need historical past. We wish revolution. And we’re not ready for permission. As a result of we’ve seen what occurs after we wait — for justice that by no means got here, for illustration that at all times excluded, for savarnas to alter, for establishments to mirror, for governments to care.
Siddhesh Gautam, “Bezwada Wilson: STOP KILLING US” (2022), that includes the Cease Killing Us marketing campaign launched in Delhi by the Safai Karamchari Andolan on Could 09, 2022, a nationwide consciousness drive to underscore the necessity to eradicate the scourge of guide scavenging inside the nation and demand due recognition and compensation for deaths in sewers and septic tanks
And all we bought was silence, violence, and textbooks that known as our ache “problems of the past.” So now, we not wait. We write. We sing. We draw. We converse. We design. We organise. We revolt.
Babasaheb didn’t train us to beg. He taught us to assume. Rethink. To agitate. To dismantle. To recreate. We live within the age of redesigning Indian aesthetics. This is not going to be potential with out the marginalized communities, or else we’ll be caught with the identical mediocre imagery in popular culture that has stereotyped and stopped the progress of creative thought in India for a really very long time. It’s time for the true proletariat of the nation to take cost of the tales that may actually construct this nation and put it again on the trail of progress and justice. Babasaheb reminded us that caste is not only a social evil, it’s a weapon. Systemic, brutal, and nonetheless socially legit. And except we destroy its roots, we’ll at all times be handled as weeds.
Siddhesh Gautam, illustration of individuals celebrating Dalit Historical past Month by studying books of Babasaheb (2020)
Dalit Historical past Month is just not a pageant. It’s a fireplace. Lit in reminiscence, fueled by rage, carried ahead in love.
It reminds us that our very act of remembering is resistance. Our names are monuments. Our tales are revolutions.
And thru this hearth, we’ll forge a future. Not of tolerance however of transformation. Not of inclusion of castes however of annihilation of caste. Not of borrowed narratives however of reclaimed energy. Our aesthetics are political. Our reminiscences are maps. Our goals are blueprints for a greater world.
This isn’t a month on a calendar. It’s a motion in our bones. It’s historical past. Not because it was written, however as we’re writing it now. And this time, it is not going to be erased.
Siddhesh Gautam, “Our history could’ve been bloody and oppressed but we will make sure that our future generations have a progressive future” (2023)
