Bhimayana Part 4

Bhimayana depicts how practices of caste violence pervade the entire Indian society, across religions and communities. The vulnerability and precarity of Dalit subjecthood is narrated through three motifs: water, shelter, and travel, which are basic necessities for existence, but persistently denied to Dalits. Water as a site of Dalit struggle and solidarity is reclaimed during the Mahad Satyagraha, depicted through the characteristic anthropomorphic style of the Gond art. The graphic novel then stages the contrast between Gandhi and Ambedkar with the pedagogical impulse of foregrounding Ambedkar’s life and his radical vision for the transformation of Indian society and polity.