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Rudraneil Sengupta

Freelance Journalist

Rudraneil Sengupta is a journalist and author based in New Delhi.

April 03, 2023

In India, Dalit rappers use hip hop to fight caste oppressionSocioeconomic Inclusion
The hip hop artist Arivu on stage during a performance in Chennai, India, December 30, 2022. Karthik Raja Karuppusamy/Handout via Thomson Reuters Foundation

The hip-hop artist Arivu was in his final year of engineering college when it hit home that he was a Dalit — one of the "untouchables" in India’s deeply entrenched caste system.

He had led a relatively sheltered childhood, born and raised in a small Dalit-majority town called Arakonam, 70 km from Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

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