Thenmozhi Soundararajan - The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition

Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Foreword by Tarana Burke

Afterword by Dr. Cornel West

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is the most profound and prophetic Dalit American voice of her generation. The Trauma of Caste is a trailblazing and pathbreaking work that rips the veil of Brahmin supremacy in the South Asian diaspora within the United States as well as across the world. In the great tradition of the inimitable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, this visionary and courageous work is a magnificent manifesto that calls for the abolition of caste apartheid.... I urge everyone to read this book and pass it forward, for these are the genocidal times that try our souls. Let the fire of resistance free all our oppressed peoples.

Dr. Cornel West, New York Times best-selling author of Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and Black Prophetic Fire

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is one of the most powerful, brave, visionary, and determined social justice leaders I have met in my lifetime.... an irresistible cri de coeur, The Trauma of Caste is at once an embodied meditation and simultaneously a literary hand grenade blowing open the torturous prison and agony of caste.... Thenmozhi makes clear that as genocide and ethnonationalism looms in South Asia, the stakes have never been higher. The responsibility for change cannot be on the shoulders of the oppressed. It is up to each and every one of us to rise for Dalit people now.

V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of The Vagina Monologues and The Apology

Searing, powerful, and haunting, this book is a must-read for all of us who are committed to a world grounded in human rights and caste and gender equity. The book is a clarion call for revolution, and I would urge all to heed its call.

GOVIND ACHARYA, India Country Specialist, Amnesty International US

a tour de force for caste annihilation. Thenmozhi deftly weaves through personal story, ancestral resistance, and political histories to illuminate vital truths, shatter myths, world-build transnational solidarities, and uplift courage and love through this embodied text.... This work is intellectually fierce, profoundly necessary, and a compelling must-read for us all.

Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism, coauthor of Never Home, and former executive director of British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA)

The Trauma of Caste is a worthy successor to Dr. B. R. Ambedkars work in its visionary analysis and epic sweep.... With profound compassion and brilliant insight, Thenmozhi Soundararajan shows us the damning truths of caste in our time and lights a path forward.

Minal Hajratwala, author of Leaving India, editor of Out! Stories from the New Queer India, Stanford/Columbia/Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar, and founder of the Unicorn Authors Club

Thenmozhi has long proved herself as a true movement organizer. In a direct response to Dr. Ambedkars call to Educate, Agitate, and Organizeshe leads us through both practical and visionary strategies to take responsibility and do our part to abolish caste at both interpersonal and systemic levels, helping make a path toward liberatory futures.

Prachi Patankar, anti-caste and feminist activist and writer

The Trauma of Caste, by one of North Americas leading Dalit activists, is a powerful combination of moving personal memoir, political philosophy and history, and thoughtful meditation exercises and reflections. Thenmozhi Soundararajans work is both a call for justice and a toolbox for transformation. This book will be an invaluable resource for teaching and for activist work. It provides historical, textual, and material insight into how caste oppression has manifested in visible and invisible ways, embedded in social systems, and internalized in all South Asian bodies over generations. This should be a required read for students and scholars of Hinduism and all South Asian religions.

The Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective

Caste is one of the urgent moral, multifaith issues of our time, and The Trauma of Caste is a critical intervention, helping us to better understand how caste operates, what it feels like, and most importantly, why we must work to abolish it, once and for all.

Simran Jeet Singh, executive director for the Aspen Institutes Religion & Society Program and author of The Light We Give

a powerful reintroduction to Buddhism as a response to the unjust suffering of caste. Thenmozhi draws on her own lived experience and insights from the study of anti-caste activism over millennia to illuminate the struggle for justice, freedom, and caste abolition against the interlocking systems of oppression faced by those at the bottom of body-based hierarchies: among the South Asian diaspora, the African diaspora, and beyond.... The Trauma of Caste is an instant socially engaged Buddhist classic and is crucial reading for all who are committed to Sanghas rooted in liberation in all beings.

Rhonda V. Magee, author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice

Thenmozhi Soundararajan captures with precision the experience of being a survivor of spiritual violence and how religion, which has been a tool for the oppression of Dalits, can be a foundation for our freedom when we are awarded consent and acknowledgment of our caste soul wound.... Her work creates new possibilities in the darkest moment of our history, and I urge all who care about the future of our world to read it now.

Manjula Pradeep, Dalit feminist leader and cofounder of the National Council of Women Leaders and the Dalit Human Rights Defenders Network

In the face of the overwhelming pain and stress inflicted upon caste-oppressed people, Thenmozhi calls readers to participate in a fully embodied transnational love, making radical and empathetic connections with other oppressed communities.... As a Dalit, I welcome this work that further paves the way for all of our collective healing from caste.

Dr. Sunder John Boopalan, assistant professor at Canadian Mennonite University and author of Memory, Grief, and Agency

The Trauma of Caste places the experiences of Dalit people firmly at the center of a global story about race and caste they have long been excluded from and uses that experience to teach us all about power, about survival, about changemaking.... Every Black activist should read this book, every immigrant rights activist should read this book, every survivor of violence should read this bookbecause it holds within it seeds for our collective future.

Malkia Devich Cyril, founding director of MediaJustice and principal at the Radical Loss Project

The Trauma of Caste deconstructs caste oppression and considers possibilities for healing through a Dalit American feminist lens, in conversation with the writings not only of Dalit thinkers but of those from Black, Indigenous, and other historically exploited communities.... As a Dalit American, I am inspired by Soundararajans important efforts to raise awareness about caste and bring about healing.

Vauhini Vara, journalist and author of Immortal King Rao

In Thenmozhis stories there is much to learn not only about caste in the United States, but the trauma caste engenders for all of us. As a Shudra sufferer of caste in India, I urge everyone to read this book. It is essential reading for all those committed to dignity, human rights, and a caste-free world.