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Dalit Voice was a political magazine published inBangalore,India. The current full title is "Dalit Voice: the voice of the persecuted nationalities denied human rights" and it appears fortnightly in both internet and print formats. It was founded in 1981 byV.T. Rajshekar,[1] a former journalist for theIndian Express, who was also its editor. It was the largest circulated Dalit journal in India.[2]
The magazine and its website closed in 2011.
The magazine is described by theColumbia University library as
"characterized by strong anti-Brahminist, anti-caste and anti-racist stance, advocacy of liberation from Brahminism, and polemical tone. Self-proclaimed as "the sole spokesman for the entire deprived, dehumanised lot of India...", – Dalits, Backward Castes, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, women – "all victims of the Aryan Brahminical racism."[3]
The magazine published articles that attackedHinduism,Zionism,Judaism,Communism andAmericanneoconservatism.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Itsanti-Brahmin rhetoric frequently follows to furtherantisemitism with claims ofBrahmins in India being related toJews and deriving their "fanaticism" and "arrogance" from "Jewish Zionist Racism", the magazine calls Brahmins "the Jews of India" and says that Jews and Brahmins are both races and Brahmins are blood brothers of Jews though on many occasions it contradicts itself, calling Brahmins as Aryans and saying that they elevatedKrishna to godhood and built the sex-filled story of Mahabharat round him, toco-opt the rebelliousYadavas.[11][12][13][14]V.T. Rajshekar was arrested under the Sedition Act under the Indian Penal Code for creating disaffection between communities. He was released only after a written apology.
Dalit Voice also made various Brahmin-Zionist conspiracy claims and touted 'Zionist conspiracy theories'. The magazine claimed thatLenin and all communist leaders were Jews and communism was a Jewish conspiracy to destroyChristianity and establish ZionistIsrael.[15][16][17] The editor V.T. Rajsekhar has treated the hoax textThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion as legitimate[18] and has accused Brahmins and Zionists of a conspiracy to "join hands (with Hindus who he says are only upper castes) to crush Muslims, Blacks and India's Dalits."[19]
Dalit Voice, in addition to publishing articles about "Zionist conspiracies" regardingHitler and theThird Reich,[20][21] have also supported theIranian government andMahmoud Ahmadinejad'sdenial of theholocaust.[22]
It also claimed that theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks in USA werecovertly executed by Zionists controlling America and used to attack and destroy Muslim nations.[23]
He has also published articles inDalit Voice that call for shifting the Jewish state of Israel to the United States.[24][25]
Dalit Voice expressed praise forBarack Obama and praisedsuicide bombing, calling it the art of dying and the supreme sacrifice and claims to be the first in the world to predict defeat of U.S in theWar on Terror.[26]
A scholar,Vijay Prashad, has written of the links between a group of authors including V.T. Rajshekar,Ivan van Sertima andRunoko Rashidi and writers in theAfrocentric movement. He called this a "submerged network of Afro-Dalit literature". He mentioned Rajshekar's editorship ofDalit Voice, saying that its pages had "welcomed African American scholars for at least a decade". He criticized the views of this group of writers as "epidermal determinism" (seeking solidarity on the basis of skin colour alone rather than on the experience of oppression).[27]
The writerKoenraad Elst has criticised the publication for havinganti-Hindu views.[28]
Leon Poliakov writes that theantisemitism exhibited byDalit Voice is a fairly recent and unrepresentative phenomenon among India'sDalits.[29]
Dalit Voice has also been criticized for "buying into anti-Jewish conspiracy theories" by thefar-left 'Maoist International Movement' though they praised theDalit Voice for having "some good information on caste and other problems in India".[30]
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