Dalit protest over SC/ST Act: The fight against an invisible enemy

The community is simmering over the biases the professional, employed Dalit faces behind closed doors

Ashok Bharti was born in Basti Rajaram, a slum for untouchables near Jama Masjid in old Delhi, one of seven children. His grandfather cut grass for fodder. His father, a tailor and a class four dropout, was apprenticed to a Muslim master tailor. However, being an untouchable, he could not enter the unit and had to sit outside the shop. It took him eight years to learn his trade. In later years, Bharti’s father was responsible for introducing many Dalits to the profession of tailoring.

Growing up as a poor Dalit, Bharti got firsthand experience of the vulnerabilities of underprivileged communities.