Ambdekar Digital Bookmobile Mission – International Research Weblog

This week is the 75^th anniversary of the Common Declaration of Human Rights. Fittingly, Columbia College and Barnard Faculty not too long ago hosted (from Nov. 27^th by way of Dec. 8^th, 2023) the Ambedkar Digital Bookmobile challenge designed by Smita Rajmane and Somnath Waghmare. This challenge paperwork and collects materials regarding singers of anti-caste songs from rural areas in Maharashtra state, India. On December 8^th, there was additionally a screening of Chaityabhumi, a documentary movie by Somnath Waghmare that chronicles the annual pilgrimage of Dalits (and others) to the location the place Dr. Ambedkar’s final rites had been carried out on December 6^th, 1956. Together with vivid documentary footage, the movie consists of contextual interviews with totally different teams.

Smita Urmila Rajmane is a public intervention artist and performer with a diploma in portray from Bharata Kala Mahavidyalaya, Pune and an MFA from Shiv Nadar College. Her work emphasizes themes of caste, class, and gender discrimination in relation to public performances and archival installations. Somnath Waghmare is a documentary filmmaker and PhD scholar who has accomplished two earlier documentary movies: I’m not a Witch [2015] and The Battle of Bhima Koregaon: An Endless Journey [2017]. His work is unified by a deal with marginal communities, most particularly the historical past of Dalit actions in India. The Ambedkar Digital Bookmobile has been touring to varied establishments and locales as a conveyable multimedia archive. Consultant singers documented within the challenge embody Rekha Bharti, Kalabai Hirvale, and Usha Jumbade in Aurangabad, Maharashtra; Bhima Koregaon Vijay Stambh in Perne, Maharashtra; Shahir Raosaheb Bhaurao Gaikwad in Dharkhed, Parbhani, Maharashtra; Yalgaar Sanskrutik Kala Manch, a cultural motion collective in Mumbai; the Jail Bhim Gayan Occasion lively in Vadgaon, Tasgaon, and Sangli areas in Maharashtra; and others.

For Columbia College library assets on Dalits in Maharashtra, see topic: Dalits India Maharashtra. For extra on Dr. Ambedkar, see topic: “Ambedkar, B. R. (Bhimrao Ramji), 1891-1956.”