''Dalit Voice'' was a political magazine published in

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The current full title is "''Dalit Voice: the voice of the persecuted nationalities denied human rights''" and it appears fortnightly in both internet and print formats. It was founded in 1981 by V.T. Rajshekar, a former journalist for the ''

Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...

'', who was also its editor. It was the largest circulated Dalit journal in India.Human Rights Watch Article
/ref> The magazine and its website closed in 2011.

Positions

The magazine is described by the

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

library as

"characterized by strong anti-Brahminist, anti-caste and anti-racist stance, advocacy of liberation from Brahminism, and polemical tone. Self-proclaimed as "the sole spokesman for the entire deprived, dehumanised lot of India...", – Dalits, Backward Castes, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, women – "all victims of the Aryan Brahminical racism."

The magazine published articles that attacked

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

and American

neoconservatism Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and ...

. Its anti-Brahmin rhetoric frequently follows to further

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

with claims of

Brahmins Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

in India being related to

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and deriving their "fanaticism" and "arrogance" from "Jewish Zionist Racism", the magazine calls Brahmins "the Jews of India" and says that Jews and Brahmins are both races and Brahmins are blood brothers of Jews though on many occasions it contradicts itself, calling Brahmins as Aryans and saying that they elevated

Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...

to godhood and built the sex-filled story of Mahabharat round him, to

co-opt Co-option (also co-optation, sometimes spelt coöption or coöptation) has two common meanings. It may refer to the process of adding members to an elite group at the discretion of members of the body, usually to manage opposition and so maintai ...

the rebellious

Yadavas The Yadava (literally, descended from Yadu) were an ancient Indian people who believed to be descended from Yadu, a legendary king of Chandravamsha lineage. The community was formed of various clans, being the Abhira, Andhaka, Vrishni, and S ...

. V.T. Rajshekar was arrested under the Sedition Act under the Indian Penal Code for creating disaffection between communities. He was released only after a written apology. ''Dalit Voice'' also made various Brahmin-Zionist conspiracy claims and touted 'Zionist conspiracy theories'. The magazine claimed that

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

and all communist leaders were Jews and communism was a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity and establish Zionist Israel. The editor V.T. Rajsekhar has treated the hoax text ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' as legitimate and has accused Brahmins and Zionists of a conspiracy to "join hands (with Hindus who he says are only upper castes) to crush Muslims, Blacks and India's Dalits." ''Dalit Voice'', in addition to publishing articles about "Zionist conspiracies" regarding Hitler and the Third Reich, have also supported the Iranian government and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, denial of the holocaust. It also claimed that the September 11, 2001 attacks in USA were 9/11 conspiracy theories, covertly executed by Zionists controlling America and used to attack and destroy Muslim nations. He has also published articles in ''Dalit Voice'' that call for shifting the Jewish state of Israel to the United States. ''Dalit Voice'' expressed praise for Barack Obama and praised suicide bombing, calling it the art of dying and the supreme sacrifice and claims to be the first in the world to predict defeat of U.S in the War on Terror.

Reception

A scholar, Vijay Prashad, has written of the links between a group of authors including V.T. Rajshekar, Ivan van Sertima and Runoko Rashidi and writers in the Afrocentrism, Afrocentric movement. He called this a "submerged network of Afro-Dalit literature". He mentioned Rajshekar's editorship of ''Dalit Voice'', saying that its pages had "welcomed African American scholars for at least a decade". He criticized the views of this group of writers as "epidermal determinism" (seeking solidarity on the basis of skin colour alone rather than on the experience of oppression). The writer Koenraad Elst has criticised the publication for having anti-Hindu views. Leon Poliakov writes that the

exhibited by ''Dalit Voice'' is a fairly recent and unrepresentative phenomenon among India's DalitsLeon Poliakov, Poliakov, Leon (1994). Histoire de l’antisémitisme 1945-93 (p. 395). Paris. ''Dalit Voice'' has also been criticized for "buying into anti-Jewish conspiracy theories" by the far-left 'Maoist International Movement' though they praised the ''Dalit Voice'' for having "some good information on caste and other problems in India".Dalit Voice
Google Cache of the Maoist International Movement article

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Anti-Brahminism Antisemitic publications Dalit culture Dalit politics English-language magazines published in India Biweekly magazines published in India Holocaust denial Political magazines published in India Magazines established in 1981 Magazines disestablished in 2011 Defunct magazines published in India Defunct political magazines Antisemitism in India Anti-Zionism in India