Question 4:
What is the difference between Neo dalits and Pseudo Dalits?
ANSWER by Shekhar Bodhakar:
Once you understand what the word “dalit” means, you will realize that the term “Neo-Dalit” makes no sense at all and mustn’t be used.
Dalit means ‘ground down’, or ‘broken to pieces’.
[Academic Ref]: Anupama Rao, Representing Dalit selfhood
the word ‘DALIT” is an adjective, derived from the verb, ‘dalan’ meaning ‘oppression’ (but is often incorrectly used as a noun) and is, in proper context, used to describe:
ANY continually suppressed and downtrodden *PERSON*, mentally crushed and broken, who most likely would be a woman, minor, widow, divorcee, orphan, disabled person, labourer, a person from SC, ST , OBC or any other oppressed minority group.
A dalit, a continually suppressed victim of atrocities, could be a Brahmin who has been and still is unfairly treated in an inhumane way
(What is the exact meaning of hindi word Dalit?)
The term “PSEUDO DALIT is used to donate a person who, as per the dictionary definition of “dalit”, is not really a dalit but, for whatever reason, prefers to call him/herself a dalit.
Well to do academics, politician and entrepreneurs who call themselves dalits are really Pseudo-Dalits.
~Shekhar Bodhakar
