Transnational Advocacy and the Dalit Rights Movement: Secular versus Religious Social Justice Narratives of Assertion on the Frontlines of Global Community

While there has been open debate among dalit social reformers on the Indian subcontinent over the use of religious conversion as a form of rights expression, many dalit leaders in North America remain uneasy with frames of social justice aligned with religion in any way. This paper aims to explore the dialectic between secular and religious frames apparent among dalit activists in India and North America. By interviewing and observing both dalit Diaspora leaders, who are organizing and mobilizing to actualize social justice for dalits back home, and Indian dalits that are actively agitating against the state, this research explores the contentious narrative structures deployed by these dalit activists and the role religious ideology plays in their contention.

Given the July 24, 2007 passage by the 110th U.S. Congress of Concurrent Resolution 139, which urges U.S. citizens working in India to “avoid discrimination towards the dalits in all business interactions” (H. Con. Res. 139, 7), there is a need to more deeply analyze the dalit Diaspora’s mobilization against, and framing of, dalit discrimination. What are the secular and religious narratives that dalit leaders are employing as they mobilize to create and/or support social justice on the sub-continent? How do these narratives compare to those of dalit activists on the sub-continent and what are each of these narrative structures based upon - - Eurocentric conceptions of Human Rights; Eastern rather than Western conceptions of what it means to be religious; a common identity based on like-experiences of injustice; or something else entirely? Addressing these questions, this research aims at a deeper understanding of the meaning and significance of dalit transnational advocacy. The fact is that, the frames utilized in the transnational mobilization of dalits take on a contextual character that is quite different from the character of mobilization within the sub-continent. Asking what role the secular and religious frames of social justice play in positioning dalit activists for social contention, this paper will provide insight into the importance of critically analyzing these frames in attempting to both better understand dalit contention and actualize its potential upon the backdrop of an increasingly globally-focused world society.