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Paper short abstract

Drawing on Gramsci, Quijano, and Ambedkar, this paper frames Dalit struggles as counter-hegemonic and decolonial praxis, showing how movements like the Dalit Panthers and Bhim Army contest caste hegemony, reshape epistemologies, and redefine development, democracy, and social justice from below.

Paper long abstract

Building on Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) theorization of hegemony and counter-hegemony, this paper conceptualizes decoloniality as a political and epistemic struggle against historically entrenched relations of domination. Gramsci’s insight that power is sustained not only through coercion but also through consent produced via institutions, culture, and knowledge offers a lens to examine how colonial and postcolonial orders reproduce inequality in the Global South. Read alongside Aníbal Quijano’s (2000; 2014) formulation of the coloniality of power and B. R. Ambedkar’s (1936) radical critique of caste as a system of graded inequality, this framework illuminates how caste hierarchies are normalized through hegemonic projects.

In the Indian context, overlapping regimes of domination - rooted both in colonial modernity and pre-existing social hierarchies - have systematically denied Dalits recognition as historical, political, and epistemic subjects. Colonial and postcolonial state formations, nationalist imaginaries, and dominant knowledge systems have marginalized Dalit theory and experiences, rendering caste oppression either invisible or culturally residual. This hegemonic configuration has not only justified material dispossession and social exclusion but has also constrained the very terms through which development, emancipation, and social justice are articulated.

Against this backdrop, the paper foregrounds Dalit democratic struggles as counter-hegemonic and decolonial practices, highlighting movements such as the Dalit Panthers as well as contemporary initiatives like the Bhim Army. These movements contest Brahminical hegemony, reclaim dignity and political agency, and generate alternative epistemologies - notably through Dalit Studies and activism - as interventions that actively reshape development, democracy, and social justice from below.