We encountered Christina Dhanuja as an awe-inducing person on the internet, roughly a decade ago. The internet was a very different place back then. Anti-caste discourse and articulations were few and far between. Our personal angst around questions of caste, around our identity, our prospective assertions, and a more general existential aspect of belonging within spaces would produce hushed up, inchoate thoughts instead of a feeling of community and belonging alongside those like us. 

Contrary to this, Christina- and the Dalit feminists who go on to found Dalit History Month- professed lucidity and strength. They spoke of a shared history, a long and illustrious one, one which was consistent with each of our private existentialisms as oppressed caste subjects. In their voice, in their vision, we found the prototype of something resembling genuine solidarity and care.  

Christina speaks with artist Shrujana Niranjani Shridhar below, and expands upon her own journey towards an anti-caste consciousness, her encounters with Babasaheb, about the thoughts and processes behind the creation of Dalit History Month in April a decade ago, and of recalibrating the internet as an anti-caste space through her work.  

Shrujana  

I want to start by asking you about when you were growing up in India, did you celebrate Jayanti with your family or with your community? And if you did, what did that look like?

Christina 

Growing up, I did not celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti because I had no initiation into Ambedkar politics. In fact, I didn't even have any initiation into anti caste politics. I didn't know that I could call myself Dalit. I remember coming to know about my caste location  when I was probably six or seven years old.  I had asked Amma which caste we belong to, and I was very upset when I heard what Amma said. At first of course I didn't understand it, and when I asked, what is it that we do, she told me that our caste folks disposed of the dead, as well as dead animals. 

And then my sister, who was five years older than me, joined the Student Christian Movement in college, when she was doing her undergraduation at the Women's Christian College. That exposed her to anti caste politics. Eventually, I too joined the same college, and became part of the student Christian movement, and later became the president of our college unit.

My fellow Christian friends did not take to the Student Christian movement as much as I did. For me, SCM appealed because they spoke about Dr B. R. Ambedkar, the Dalit identity, anti caste and feminist politics, etc., but all within the context of being a Christian, and a politicized Christian. So that was the first time I was coming to sort of understand the Dalit identity. And I took it on, and finally found my anti-caste, feminist, political home so to speak. 

That's when I even came to know that Ambedkar Jayanti was such a huge deal for other Dalit populations. So by the time I started celebrating Ambedkar Jayanti or even recognizing it to be an  important and a consequential day for us, I was a fully grown adult in my late 20s. When I started writing and talking and being with fellow anti caste folks, that's when it became  more real. 

What was it like for you?

Shrujana 

For me, since I grew up with an Ambedkarite background in Bombay, it was a cultural thing, and we start celebrating a month early. It's like the build up to Christmas, the build up to Jayanti. All the music starts playing, and everywhere there’s Bhim Geet playing, there are qawwalis playing. So the mood would start setting in. The rest of the year, you feel like a weirdo who doesn't fit into any of the mainstream festivals or mainstream culture, but then all of a sudden comes one day where you get to also celebrate like other children celebrate. People have interesting competitions for children, drawing competitions and things like that around Jayanti. I think as we grew up, the whole DJ culture came in, it became more and more like a huge explosion. And now more than ever, because now, the cultural assertion has also increased. 

Since you started celebrating Jayanti in your 20s, what has that celebration been like for you? Were you still in university at this point?

Christina 

So in college, I was only  getting initiated, but I started participating in the truest sense of celebration only in  my late 20s. For  example, about 10 years ago in April 2015, we launched  Dalit history month, and I was with a group of Dalit women for whom Ambedkar Jayanti held the kind of significance it holds for you. So the way they were celebrating it; there was an actual picture of Babasaheb Ambedkar. Next to it was a picture of Buddha. And there were songs being sung. It was a  very spiritual sort of a practice that I couldn’t make sense of then. Because I think till then, it was more of a politically significant day, but not a culturally or a spiritually significant day. Since then of course, I have been amidst  practising Ambedkarite and Dalit women activists to participate in the cultural practices of Jayanti. 

Indeed, there’s a strong religious and linguistic contour to the celebration, right? Often, Jayanti appears to be situated within Maharashtrian or Buddhist communities. And even if these Buddhist communities are from, say, Tamil Nadu, for them, it holds deep cultural significance. But because I grew up Christian and continue to be amongst family and friends who are Dalit Christians, Jayanti has never felt like a major cultural event for me—unless I’m with people for whom it holds significance. 

Rahee

Could you speak a little more about Ambedkar’s significance in the movements that you were a part of, for instance SCM, like the cultural aspects of Jayanti in the movement from a Dalit Christian perspective. Especially since it's not something that gets spoken about as often.

Christina

If I were to recall an experience—in 2022, my in-laws took us to their ancestral villages in Andhra Pradesh. These areas are still very rural, with no proper roads or electricity. And in these villages, you’ll find many small churches, some of them now being rebuilt into larger ones that Dalit Christians attend. And almost every village we visited had Dr. Ambedkar’s statue across from the church building. You’ll also see places named Bhim Nagar, Ambedkar Colony, Baba Saheb Nagar. Even in Chennai, where I live, there's an Ambedkar Colony right next to my house, where many Dalit Christians reside—and there’s a church there, with a statue of Babasaheb right beside it. 

So, this synonymizing we have done of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar to Mahar Dalits is an error on our part. It's a mistake to limit his legacy to them alone. Rural Dalit Christian communities have long engaged with Babasaheb in ways that go beyond cultural celebrations, or putting up long passages about him on the internet. Their relationship with him is ongoing; it's historical and even foundational to a kind of Dalit Christian politicization—just not the type we are used to, thanks to how social media projects it.  For me, it was a powerful revelation. I was struck by the audacity of these communities; the way they were asserting Babasaheb so visibly, and that too right next to settlements of dominant OBCs and landowning castes. This is a form of engagement that public discourse often overlooks, and something we should actively seek out, highlight, and bring to the forefront.

Shrujana  

I agree with you, and also think the point about folks having the audacity and courage to celebrate Babasaheb and Jayanti is so important. This also brings me to the next question - with all of these experiences, what brought you all together to build Dalit History Month? It was also primarily Dalit women, and I feel like that in itself is a significant thing. What prompted you all to create this platform and cultural phenomenon, what was the thought process and imagination behind it? 

Christina

As far as I know, there were articulations of April being Dalit History Month even before 2015. A Mahar Dalit scholar once told me that April had always been significant in the community because the month had both Ambedkar Jayanti and Phule Jayanti—so there was already a consciousness around it as a special month for Dalits. But the effort to bring people together around it? That credit I believe belongs to Thenmozhi Soundararajan, who called me in December 2014 and said, 'Christina, there's this thing I’m thinking about called Dalit History Month. Would you like to be a part of it?' And I was like, yeah, definitely. I truly considered it—and still consider it—an honor. There were just the three of us in the beginning: Thenmozhi, Maari, and me. And I still remember this so clearly—I finished work, came home, opened PowerPoint and went full consultant mode: problem statement, resources, stakeholders, and so on.

We wanted to build a timeline covering Dalit leaders, major milestones, Dalit atrocities—everything. I made a spreadsheet and a PowerPoint and every weekend, Maari and I would sit at our computers, digging through resources. And one of the things we found was that a lot of the literature was essentially written by savarna authors. We now have many Dalit scholars to rely on, but back then, it felt so bleak. So we went deep; academic papers, anecdotal evidence, images, hard copies, just about anything we could find. We built a massive resource sheet. Then, Akka (Thenmozhi) started laying them out on a timeline. Slowly, the team grew—Manisha, Asha, Sangapali, and others joined in. That’s how it all came together.

Finally, we launched it in  April 2015, both virtually and through events that we held across the US. I flew to New York and spent the entire month there while I was also trying to juggle my full-time job. We knew even then, when we finished creating the timeline, that this was going to be an evergreen project that would keep getting updated. And Thenmozhi had a huge network of allies and community folks, who helped us with the in-person events. We did it in Boston, on the West Coast and New York. From there on, the project just took off. Initially of course, we held it, but eventually, it truly became a participatory project and communities everywhere began to own it. 

Ten years later, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I never expected it to grow this big, but this is exactly what we had hoped for. It’s been incredible—not just as an individual experience, but in seeing the community come together. Dalit History Month isn’t just about celebrating our glorious past or envisioning a bright future; it also gives us the space to talk about a very difficult present. Our communities are still struggling, surviving, and facing violence. This month allows us to hold all of that together—the resilience, the challenges, and the hope. So, overall, yes, it has been a fantastic experience, something of deep cultural significance, as you rightly pointed out. But politically, it has also been a power move

Shrujana  

I remember my first introduction to Dalit History Month being the timeline that Maari had created., I must have been 19-20, just out of art school and feeling quite alienated away from family and community. That was the first time I saw anything that was sort of anti-caste in nature online. The timeline was so beautifully made, I remember the website, the slider, and it was brilliant. And I never imagined Dalit History Month to be called that, because in my mind, April is when you start celebrating, but at the same time it's like, what a History Month? What does that mean in this context?

Christina

Yeah, I think it aligns very well; that’s why I call it a power move. It aligns with the global language of historical remembrance. We have May as AAPI Heritage Month, February as Black History Month, March as Women’s History Month, and April as Dalit History Month. It just fits. 

Shrujana 

The fact that it was distinctly Dalit feminist also makes a lot of difference politically. Was it also a political decision to call it Dalit History Month? Because it also builds parallels with black and indigenous movements. 

Christina 

Yeah, like I mentioned, there were earlier articulations—Round Table India, for instance, had references to it. But for our collective, my understanding is that it was politically inspired by Black History Month. We were deeply influenced by what the Black community had been able to achieve in the U.S. At the same time, it was also in line with the kind of work Dalit feminists were doing in the U.S.. Even before Dalit History Month launched, there were Dalit feminists actively collaborating with Black feminists. And just a few months after its launch, we had the North American Dalit Women’s Tour—a month-long initiative when Dalit feminists from India traveled across the U.S., holding events in partnership with Black feminists across the Midwest, East Coast, and West Coast. So, indeed, Dalit History Month didn’t emerge in isolation. 

Shrujana

And speaking of Round Table India, RTI is also part of the generation that created a presence for Ambedkarite and anti-caste discourse on digital platforms. You're all among the first generations to create a space for it digitally. I remember seeing it and realising that until then I didn’t even know this was a space we could occupy in this way. And I know we touched on this already, but looking back, how do you feel about having been part of taking those first steps in the digital world, especially since the discourse then transcended into the global arena?

Christina

Even as you're saying this, I can see how it all happened. But at the time, I didn’t fully grasp the historical significance of what we were building. It’s only in hindsight that I think, ‘Wow, that was a wild time.’ Back then, Twitter and Facebook were just taking off as platforms for public discourse, and Dalit women leaders at All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch created the hashtag #DalitWomenFight, which was such a powerful moment. But the second thing is, do people recognize these platforms as opportunities and claim them? Like you said, we didn’t even know this was a space we could occupy—but once we saw it, we did. And so did you. You’re a frontrunner. Your parents, your community—our people—this is what is so amazing about us; we have always been first movers and risk-takers.

But the difference is, we don’t always enter these spaces the way upper-castes do. They think about how to exploit them, and often do it at the expense of others. For us, that’s never been an option, because we are the most exploited of the exploited. So when we get access, we explore, we create, we claim. And that’s what happened in the digital space too.