How Do We Change the Mentalityof the Dominant Caste Community?
－Interview with Judith Anne Lal
The second person we feature is Judith Anne Lal whose mother is from the Anglo-Indian
community and whose father is from the Dalit community. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) in African Studies, Gender and Diaspora Studies and currently works as an AssistantProfessor in India. One day in March, we had a conversation online.

[Photo: Judith was answering our questions. The below is Judith, the upper left is Megumi (IMADR)
and the upper right is Moe (IMADR). ]Legally, Dalit is known as Scheduled Castes (SC) while the Anglo-Indian community refers
to people whose father is of British lineage with a long colonisation history in India.
Estimatedly, the Dalit population goes up to 166.6 million1, and the Anglo-Indian population
goes up to around 125,0002 in India.
- How did you experience your childhood?
“I come from a family with a mixed cultural background. My father belongs to the Hindu
religion that values villages as a primary unit of social organisation and my mother isChristian. Therefore, I experienced mixed cultural norms being followed by my family. I
remembered that my father shared the stories of how he used to be discriminated against
and how the caste system was deep-rooted in the village where he was born, the village
name is Bulandshahr in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Somehow I also did experience a kind ofgender discrimination from my father’s side, such as my grandmother. She opposed megoing for further higher education because of a gender norm that girls should be raised to do1
2

https://minorityrights.org/communities/dalits/
https://minorityrights.org/communities/anglo-indians/the household chores. But, fortunately, my parents were progressive in a way that they,especially my mother, supported me in going to higher education. Another thing is that we
had specific people assigned to come and take the garbage. I remember that one of ourlandladies said ‘Jamadar3’ had come, and I asked my mother why people do not call them by
their name. Then my mom led me to ask my father, and he taught me the Varna System.
These things opposed to the idea of equality made me question my family, friends, andcommunity.”
In India, the last name denotes which community or caste people are from.
“My name is a mixture of Christian and Hindu names. So, whenever I meet new friends or go
to new places, I am always asked which community I am from. I would say I come from acasteless community because my parents are from different backgrounds. Then, I gradually
started to think about my identity. I am neither Christian nor Hindu but I have to focus on how
better human beings are.”

The Indian government implements affirmative action programmes, ‘reservations’, to reduce
caste-based discrimination. In its Constitution, the population belonging to Scheduled Castes(SCs), that belonging to Scheduled Tribes (STs) and that belonging to ‘Other Backward
Classes’ (OBCs) are covered under this reservation system in terms of government
employment opportunities and seats in higher education. These reservations are available
only to Hindus and others except Muslims and Christians in most cases4.

- Did you find any difficulties in educational institutions?
“When I applied for university, I could not apply for it, using the quota system for students
from specific caste communities as I did not have a certificate to certify that I come from aDalit community since my mother was from a Christian community. Yet, as a female, I wasable to avail myself of another quota system reserved to promote higher education forwomen. After I got into the university, I noticed that professors responded to students
differently according to which community they were from. During my PhD, I remember many
instances where SC and ST category students were told “You are here for the scholarship”,
and “You are not here for studies”. Also, not everyone was given the chance, for example, toattend a conference. I was not informed about the conferences my colleagues attended.
Only when I started to ask questions about the conferences enormous times, did I get
accepted in some of them. So, information-sharing was very limited. I think there was a
blocking of information to a certain group of students due to their community or caste. Interms of occupation, I think it just worked out how my mother from a Christian community
background helped me. I think it would have been much more difficult for me if my motherwas not Christian. But, because of that identity, it has helped me much more. It has given me
that space that I was able to work things out for myself. When I decided to become aprofessor and started to apply for the position, the first positive response that came to me
was from a Minority Institution, not any other university.”

3
4‘Jamar’ is a sweeper caste.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/09/21/population-growth-and-religious-composition/

Judith has been working on the issues of caste and gender as a civil society actor andresearcher for decades.
- Have you noticed any changes in Indian society?
“I think there is a change in the sense that more people are asserting their identity andclaiming their rights. People are more aware of their rights thanks mainly to the NGOs andcivil society that have sprung up in India. But, we also see a backlash against people fromother communities. Now, I would like to specifically mention the role of the media. What ishappening in India right now is that people from the community tell their stories in thecinema. Now, there are movies about the experience of past violence or caste
discrimination, which are narrated by people from discriminated communities. On the otherhand, caste elements persist, and therefore there is a higher increase in caste-based
violence and discrimination, especially against women. Can you just imagine the level of
intolerance and the level of caste pride? We hear cases where people of higher castecommunities commit brutal atrocities in case a Dalit groom rides a horse to go to the bride’shouse before their wedding ceremony. There are also cases of Dalit communities' lands
being encroached upon by the dominant community, or the community members not being
paid just wages for the work they have done. When they question there have been instancesof backlash and violence. ”-How do you think people can work with each other in a true sense to eliminate
caste-based discrimination?
“I think this is something that we all are trying to figure out because there is no end to thisfalse caste pride. I think one possible solution is education. Although more people canaccess education, there still exists caste pride. Yet, to claim one’s own position and developone’s own life, education is crucial. Also, raising awareness among the community isimportant. So, more engagement between civil societies and the government is required toraise more awareness. How do we change the mentality of the dominant caste community?
We need to ponder upon it. This can be done by engaging with all communities and raisingawareness of the Indian Constitutional ethics such as justice, equality, liberty and fraternity;
these are crucial. Women are still struggling for safe spaces to claim their rights. It becomes
essential to raise consensus and awareness on the same.

- Are there any conflicts between Dalit women and men?
“Yes, patriarchy exists within the community. Dalit community holds patriarchal ideas
especially even within the Dalit civil society groups the leadership for a long time remainedwith men. Dalit women's leadership have sprung up due to their own struggle to carve out
spaces for our own voices to be heard. So, when I held public meetings in the village, it was
men who were speaking from the community and women were sitting in or busy with foodpreparation. Leadership is something key. Even though we have had training on genderequality, law, and legal rights it is men who have more information than women, especially at
the district and village levels. This must be changed. Therefore it is a priority for Dalit women
to focus on building leadership and agency.”