Join Yashica Dutt in conversation with Merve Emre to discuss the vital political memoir, Coming Out as Dalit.

Yashica Dutt’s debut book Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir of Surviving India’s Caste System blends personal memoir, research, and incriminating analysis of caste’s influence in India over everything from entertainment to judicial systems. She decodes the hidden dynamics of caste oppression through her own personal experience as a Dalit woman. As she writes in her author’s note for this edition:

“Dalits did not get to write books in English. Faced with the task of writing this rare book that, beyond the debut work of a journalist turned author, was an idea that had finally come alive for millions of us across the world, I wrote Coming Out as Dalit for Dalits.”

Dutt is a leading anti-caste expert and journalist recognized for highlighting Dalit rights globally. Her voice has been instrumental in understanding the realities of caste within the increasingly prominent Indian diaspora. In Coming Out as Dalit, Dutt traces how colonial British forces exploited and perpetuated a centuries-old caste system, how Gandhi could have been more forceful in combatting prejudice, and the role played by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, whom Isabel Wilkerson called “the MLK of India’s caste issues” in her book Caste.

Amid growing conversations about caste discrimination prompting US institutions to add caste as a protected category to their policies, Dutt’s work sheds essential light on the significant influence caste-ism has across many aspects of US society.

RSVP here to attend. The event is free and open to public but seating is limited and might fill out quickly.