What is caste? According to author Thenmozhi Soundararajan, “caste is suffering. That one’s worth and fate are determined at the moment of birth. Forced to exist in a caste apartheid of segregated ghettos." On this week's episode, we talk to Thenmozhi Soundararajan the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition. Examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective , Thenmozhi lays bare the grief, trauma, rage, and stolen futures enacted by Brahminical social structures on the caste-oppressed. This is an encore presentation of a show that first aired June 12, 2024.

Featuring: Thenmozhi Soundararajan the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolitio

Making Contact Team

Host: Anita Johnson

Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang

Executive Director: Jina Chung

Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong

Engineer: Jeff Emtman 

Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain

Music:

Blue Dot Sessions - "3rd Chair"

Blue Dot Sessions - "Paving Stones"

Learn More: 

• The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition
• Thenmozhi Soundararajan / Dalit Diva
• Google’s plan to talk about caste bias led to ‘division and rancor’
• Hindu Sect Accused of Using Forced Labor
• Dismantling the Caste System

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.