At first glance the makeshift platform and the concomitant atmosphere in the heart of the workers' living quarters (BIT chawl) in Mazgaon, Mumbai appears just like the venue of an organized rally than a stage that is in waiting to rock the audience. Taken at face value, the first view of things as they were on 10th January 2007 would amount to a political protest leveraged by the scheduled castes of India who proudly and verily call themselves the Dalits. Their history is as old as the history of India and their pernicious conditions need no retelling.

Despite the mire of controversies and complexities that engulfs their status as the rightful citizens of India, there is no doubt that their voice and stance is more often than not taken as political tokenism, a dull headache that is best ignored or temporarily attended to. More grievous is the utter lack of empathy by large sections of the Indian polity towards their situation. Atrocities continue to be inflicted upon them in varying degrees and yet the popular opinion is largely restricted to issues such as the percentage of reservations that these underprivileged people have lobbied for or to their close association with Naxalities.

Victims of the Hindu caste system, which continues to blight the social fabric of the country, the Dalits are not wrong in voicing their misgivings with the dominant culture and politics of the privileged, most of whom belong to the upper castes. The caste system is one of the greatest impediments in the functioning of India's democracy and in many a way it is this ingrained social inequality that has given currency to sectarian and identity politics in the country.