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 in class 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 variety, and admire writers who by no means noticed us.
The textbooks weren’t written for me. They have been written in opposition to me.
The authors weren’t my folks. They didn’t communicate my language, share my ache, or replicate 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 complicated, by no means dignified, by no means in command of our personal narratives.
I used to be orphaned by historical past after which compelled to worship the individuals who burned my home down. I used to be informed 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 digital camera.
We started writing ourselves into existence in songs, in sculptures, in artworks, in oral traditions, and on the streets. To not beg for house, however to grab it. Even make it. To not adorn 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, just isn’t a token. It’s a tactical intervention. A crack within the Brahminical cloth 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 might probably change into 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 fun for spectacle. We don’t mourn for pity. We arrange as a result of our liberation just isn’t negotiable.
Dalit Historical past Month is a artistic battle cry for dignity, for illustration, for justice. It isn’t restricted to Dr. B. R. “Babasaheb” Ambedkar, although he stays a guiding star and radical architect of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It is usually a time to honor those that have been not often named in state archives however at all times remembered in our properties.
We bear in mind Savitribai Phule, who was stoned for educating ladies however by no means stopped strolling to high school. We bear in mind Ramabai Ambedkar, who lived by way of poverty and grief so her companion might write the Structure of an impartial India. We bear in mind Jyotiba Phule, who opened faculties for Dalit college students within the mid-1800s when the state refused to coach us. And Shahuji Maharaj, the king who waged a conflict of coverage in opposition to 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 bear in mind Fatima Sheikh, who taught aspect by aspect with Savitribai, even when her personal group disowned her. Babytai Kamble, the author who broke the silence of Dalit womanhood along with her uncooked, unflinching phrases. We bear 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 throughout the 1857 rebel, her physique finally riddled with bullets and her title 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 Insurrection in opposition to British colonialism in addition to Hindu feudal and caste-based landlordism
We bear in mind Birsa Munda, the younger Adivasi chief who led the Ulgulan, the good rebel, not simply in opposition to the British however in opposition to dominant-caste landlords who exploited his folks. His bones nonetheless echo within the forests of Jharkhand. We bear in mind the poets Kabir and Ravidas, whose verses shattered the silence of caste and whispered equality into generations of dreamers.
And we additionally bear in mind the current. Grace Banu, who hacked her approach by way of each transphobia and caste discrimination to change into a voice in tech and coverage. Rohith Vemula, who took his personal life in 2016, an institutional homicide in a college house 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 informed their arms 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 would like revolution. And we aren’t 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 vary, for establishments to replicate, 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 remove the scourge of guide scavenging throughout the nation and demand due recognition and compensation for deaths in sewers and septic tanks
And all we obtained 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 communicate. 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 won’t 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 inventive thought in India for a really very long time. It’s time for the actual 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 reputable. And until 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 just isn’t a competition. It’s a hearth. 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 desires 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 won’t 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)
