Beyond recent protests, have the lives of young Dalits in India changed?

Leaders like Jignesh Mevani and Chandrashekhar are stitching together a Dalit brotherhood, urging them to fight a common enemy

In the classroom of an elite college in New Delhi, a professor begins a conversation with: “If you don’t know the answer to ‘what is your caste’, you’re most likely a privileged, upper-caste Hindu.” About 200 km away, in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, Chandrashekhar would know from experience what the professor is talking about. While his father was a schoolteacher, Chandrashekhar and his brothers would often be heckled by upper-caste Yadavs and Thakurs if the lower-caste Dalits, the community to which they belonged, refused to do their bidding.

It was this persistent harassment that led Chandrashekhar and his brother to