Roots with South Asian Today - Roots with Ashok: Institutionalised Casteism - Overseas scholarships are a bureaucratic nightmare for Indian Tribal students

Roots with Ashok: Institutionalised Casteism - Overseas scholarships are a bureaucratic nightmare for Indian Tribal students

11/22/21 • 44 min

1 Listener

India has the largest Tribal and Indigenous population globally, yet there are only 20 National Open Scholarships for about 110 million Tribal people. Why?
Our third episode is a special interview with social justice scholar Ashok Danavath about the lack of tribal representation in Indian embassies in the west and the institutionalised casteism many Indigenous, Dalit and Tribal students face. Those who screen students, take care of administration, or are responsible for allocating funds are overwhelmingly upper caste. As we know, wherever South Asians go, they pack caste along.
Ashok Danavath is a Tribal graduate scholar currently at the international institute of social studies in the Netherlands. His ongoing research pertains to the marginalisation of Tribal communities in India, and the host for this special episode is Mudit Vyas, a graduate researcher at Monash University. He specialises in the anthropology of creative industries.
They talk about the role of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs of India, how the lack of further support affects students who do get the scholarships, and what happens to the many students who don't.
Ashok's Twitter.
Mudit's Instagram.
Tune in.

Support the Show.

Previous Episode

Roots with Sharon: Finding escape in acting & duty in speaking up

The second guest for Roots is Sharon Johal. Sharon is an actor, writer, presenter, and one of Australia's most well-known South Asian creatives.

But apart from acting, it is speaking up where I connect with Sharon the most.

Earlier this year, Sharon released a public statement about facing racism on the set of Neighbours, easily one of Australia's biggest and longest-running tv shows.

Before her, two Indigenous actors, Shareena Clanton and Meyne Wyatt had come out with similar experiences.

It's not surprising that people were dragged for talking about race, which is often the case in white-dominated Australia; topics including racism are not taken seriously and are often dismissed or painted as a cry for attention.

It isn't easy to speak up but Sharon believes she must, and even if it is difficult sometimes, she doesn't want to choose to stay silent. And she is aware that not everybody is going to like her. As she says "no one likes a strong woman".

But how did she get here?

What is it like to be an outspoken brown woman and a public figure in Australia, to grow up in rural areas to a Sikh-Punjabi family and to go against all odds to pursue acting?

Sharon has hands-down the most unique stories to tell. For half the recording my mouth was just wide open.
Tune in!

Support the Show.

Next Episode

Roots with Mariam: Media diversity in Australia is long overdue

2 Recommendations

Australian media is overwhelmingly Anglo-Celtic and European. Why does a country that claims to be multicultural find itself to be white-dominated time and time again?
In the podcast's fourth episode, we speak with Afghan-Australian lawyer and the brand new CEO of Media Diversity Australia, Mariam Veiszadeh.
Mariam was born in Afghanistan and she came to Australia in 1990 with her family as a refugee. She talks about what her vision to diversity Australia's journalism sector is, when does she feel seen, and whatever shall happen to the many international students who come to Australia to study media but are not qualified to apply for any internships or cadetships - much like our host, Dilpreet.
Tune in!

Support the Show.