For the third year running, Bonington Gallery is delighted to be a host venue for CADALFEST (Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival), the first international festival series dedicated to creative practitioners whose work resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India.
Events will take place online on our YouTube channel, or in person at the gallery. See the schedule below for more details.
Abhishek Bhosale: Caste-Class Intersection in Anti-Caste Songs of Western India
April 20th, 3pm (Online) – Watch here.
Songs have always been an important form of expression in the anti‑caste movement in India. They talk about caste oppression and celebrate the life, work, and values of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Siddharth Gautam Buddha. But their role doesn’t end there. These songs also raise serious questions about both caste and capitalist society.
This online event will explore how songs contribute to developing a combined understanding of intersections of caste and class in Dalits’ exploitation, struggle and resistance — a framework Abhishek Bhosale refers to as “CLASTE”. It will consider the political life of musical traditions and their capacity to articulate everyday struggles and solidarities.
Abhishek Bhosale will be in conversation with Judith Misrahi-Barak, Purnachandra Naik and Nicole Thiara, followed by Q&A.
Abhishek Bhosale is a writer, journalist, and doctoral researcher whose work emerges from more than a decade of engagement with caste, land, and everyday political life in Western India. Currently based in London, he is pursuing his PhD at SOAS University of London, examining the outcomes of land rights in Western India. His research, Land for Emancipation: Development with Dignity and Dalit Land Struggle in India, explores how land becomes a site of dignity, imagination, and resistance for Dalit households.
Before entering academia, he worked as a journalist and columnist, travelling extensively across India to report on the agrarian crisis, land conflicts, caste violence, caste boycotts, protest cultures, and the lived experiences of Dalit communities. His writing is shaped by long conversations in drought-prone villages, evenings spent in Dalit vastis, and a commitment to bringing marginalised voices into public discourse.
His recent longform piece in The Wire, “An Ambedkarite Voice Moving Through Latur’s Dalit Vastis,” exemplifies his ability to weave reportage with reflective narrative. In 2025, The Wire also profiled his anti-caste organising in UK universities, highlighting the emergence of a new caste‑critical intellectual culture on British campuses and his role within it. At SOAS he currently serves as President of the SOAS Ambedkar Society, curating events that bring Ambedkarite ideas into dialogue with global student movements.
His academic background spans journalism, international relations, and development studies, but his most formative learning has come from years spent documenting the cultural and political life of Dalit communities — recording oral histories, following land and water rights campaigns, and tracing the travel of Ambedkarite thought across rural, academic, and diasporic spaces.
Judith Misrahi-Barak is Professor Emerita in Postcolonial Studies at the English Department, Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry, France. Her prime areas of specialisation are Anglophone Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean literatures, diaspora and migration. Her monograph in French Entre Atlantique et océan Indien : les voix de la Caraïbe anglophone (2021) was published with Classiques Garnier. She is General Editor of the series PoCoPages published by the University Presses of the Mediterranean (Pulm, Montpellier). She is currently involved in several transdisciplinary collaborative research projects such as Kala Pani Crossings (see the co-edited volumes Kala Pani Crossings, Routledge 2021 & 2023); or ‘Thanatic Ethics: the Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces’ (see the Special Issue for Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 2023). She has also acted as Co-Investigator on AHRC-funded series on Dalit and Adivasi Literatures with Dr NicoleThiara (NTU) as Principal Investigator. In this field, she has co-edited a Special Issue for The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (2019), as well as Dalit Literatures in India (Routledge, 2015), Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined (Routledge, 2019) and The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India (Routledge, 2022).
Dr. Purnachandra Naik is currently teaching at the Centre for Comparative Literature at University of Hyderabad. His PhD research monograph titled “Reading the Rejected: Dirt in Dalit Literature”, which he completed at Nottingham Trent University, is under contract with Routledge. He has published research articles on Dalit literature, caste, animals, and Indian cinema in edited compilations published by Routledge and CUP. His review of the book Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada was published in “Food, Culture and Society” (Taylor & Francis). His reviews and commentaries have also been published in the EPW, Outlook, Indian Express, and The Book Review.
Dr Nicole Thiara is co-lead of Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group and Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series ‘Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature’ and its Follow-on Grant ‘On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’. She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her area of research is Dalit and Adivasi literature and her current research project is on the representation of modernity in Dalit literature. Her publications include Salman Rushdie and Indian Historiography: Writing the Nation into Being (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), ‘The Caste of Nature: Wholesome Bodies and Parasites in Bimal Roy’s Sujata and Gogu Shyamala’s “A Beauteous Light”, The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India (Routledge, 2022), ‘The Colonial Carnivalesque in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable and Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52: 6 (2016), ‘Subaltern Experimental Writing: Dalit Literature in Dialogue with the World’, Ariel 47:1-2 (2016), pp. 253-80. With Judith Misrahi-Barak and K. Satyanarayana, she co-edited the critical volume Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined (Routledge, 2019) and special issue on Dalit Literature in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature 54 (1), March 2019.
In Conversation with Sambhaji Bhagat: the Future of Anti-Caste Cultural Politics in India
May 4th, 3pm (Online) – Watch here.
Sambhaji Bhagat will be in conversation with Abhishek Bhosale and reflect on his artistic journey, perform selected songs, and speak about the role of music in shaping anti-caste cultural politics in India.
Sambhaji Bhagat is one of Maharashtra’s most influential cultural figures — a musician, Lokshahir, and activist whose work spans artistic, intellectual, and social justice spheres. Renowned for his powerful use of folk music, he gives voice to the struggles and aspirations of marginalised communities, particularly Dalits, and his performances across India function not simply as entertainment but as instruments of political education and resistance. His academic engagement and long-standing participation in social movements further reflect his commitment to challenging structural inequalities. His artistic vision is perhaps most widely recognised through the acclaimed film Court, and the theatre play Shivaji Underground in Bhim Nagar Mohalla, where his music played a central narrative and political role, leaving a lasting imprint on contemporary cultural debates.
Abhishek Bhosale is a writer, journalist, and doctoral researcher whose work emerges from more than a decade of engagement with caste, land, and everyday political life in Western India. Currently based in London, he is pursuing his PhD at SOAS University of London, examining the outcomes of land rights in Western India. His research, Land for Emancipation: Development with Dignity and Dalit Land Struggle in India, explores how land becomes a site of dignity, imagination, and resistance for Dalit households. Before entering academia, he worked as a journalist and columnist, travelling extensively across India to report on the agrarian crisis, land conflicts, caste violence, caste boycotts, protest cultures, and the lived experiences of Dalit communities. His writing is shaped by long conversations in drought-prone villages, evenings spent in Dalit vastis, and a commitment to bringing marginalised voices into public discourse. His recent longform piece in The Wire, “An Ambedkarite Voice Moving Through Latur’s Dalit Vastis,” exemplifies his ability to weave reportage with reflective narrative. In 2025, The Wire also profiled his anti-caste organising in UK universities, highlighting the emergence of a new caste critical intellectual culture on British campuses and his role within it. At SOAS he currently serves as President of the SOAS Ambedkar Society, curating events that bring Ambedkarite ideas into dialogue with global student movements. His academic background spans journalism, international relations, and development studies, but his most formative learning has come from years spent documenting the cultural and political life of Dalit communities — recording oral histories, following land and water rights campaigns, and tracing the travel of Ambedkarite thought across rural, academic, and diasporic spaces.
Narrating Namdeo Dhasal’s Life and Poetry (performed by Sayali Sahasrabudhe & Abhishek Bhosale
July 17th, 2026, 3-4.30pm (In person at Bonington Gallery)
This event celebrates Namdeo Dhasal, a poet who turned pain into poetry and poetry into resistance. Moving through his personal history, the rise of the Dalit Panthers, and his bold political presence, we reflect on the force he became in the anti‑caste movement. His verses in English will echo through the session, carrying the same urgency and beauty that defined his life.
Namdeo Dhasal (1949–2014) is one of the most groundbreaking and uncompromising literary voices in modern India. Poet, writer, activist, and co-founder of the Dalit Panthers, Dhasal revolutionised Marathi poetry by bringing into it the raw, unfiltered realities of caste violence, urban marginality, and the inner life of the oppressed. His poetry — fierce, experimental, and unapologetically political — challenged the aesthetic norms of Indian literature and carved out a new radical tradition of Dalit expression. Reading Dhasal on a global platform is especially important today, as his work speaks not only to the Indian context but to broader struggles for dignity, liberation, and social justice worldwide. His vision continues to inspire anti-caste movements, artists, and scholars across generations.
Sayali Sahasrabudhe, a PhD researcher at Trinity College Dublin, has worked in Indian theatre for over fifteen years and is an accomplished performer and artist. She will be joined by Abhishek Bhosale for a reading of selected poems by Namdeo Dhasal.
Alongside our current exhibition, Karuppu, join artist Osheen Siva for this free, in-person workshop rooted in Dalit history, focusing on the legacy of the Dalit Panthers.
This event utilises speculative fiction as a tool to explore a future in which multi-dimensional narratives are built, while being anchored through an anti-caste, anti-racist and intersectional feminist lens.
Things to note:
About the workshop:
During the workshop, we’ll look into the origins, history, legacy of the Dalit Panthers movement. Exploring how the call for action was manifested physically through art and design, through the means of newsletters, posters, typography, colours, and so on. In parallel, we also focus on the history of protest artworks throughout history such as the poster designs from the 70s punk movement, art practices of creatives like Keith Haring, Shiva Nallaperumal, Rajni Perera, Panther’s Paw Publications, and Octavia Butler amongst others.
With the knowledge of Dalit history and the universe of futurisms we’ll combine the two using speculative fiction to create our own empowering narratives. Using the Dalit Panther newsletter as the template, we speculate what the year 3000 would look like for the Dalit community.
This will be envisioned through:
Osheen Siva is a multidisciplinary artist from Thiruvannamalai, currently based in Goa. Through the lens of surrealism, speculative fiction and science fiction and rooted in their Dalit and Tamil heritage, Osheen imagines new worlds of decolonised dreamscapes, futuristic oases with mutants and monsters and narratives of queer and feminine power.
This online roundtable is a pre-conference event on Dalit magazines with editors and subject experts from West Bengal and Maharashtra. It is being organised in association with the Network on Dalit and Adivasi Literature and Bonington Gallery as part of our Formations Series.
Conceptualised to draw the attention of researchers working in this field within and outside India, the roundtable will be moderated by Dr Nicole Thiara and Prof Judith Misrahi-Barak.
Funded by the Research Seed Grant Scheme, GITAM (Deemed to be University), the project on Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines intends to critically engage with the underrepresented area of Dalit Periodicals within the broad research field of Dalit Studies. It aims to trace and collect periodicals published in Bangla and Marathi (1950-2000) and look into their publication process, circulation and readership.
Besides, it aims to build a digital repository of Bangla and Marathi periodicals to facilitate easier access, a historiographic narrative on the evolution of Dalit literary periodicals in Marathi and Bangla and encourage translations of Dalit writings published in these periodicals.
As part of the outreach programme, a three-day conference is being organised in GITAM, Hyderabad, titled “Vernacular Periodicals and Dalit Writing: Production, Circulation and Reception” from 1st March to 3rd March 2023 in association with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. This conference aims to bring together editors, subject experts, early career scholars and graduate students to initiate a conversation across Indian languages and to reflect upon the vernacular Dalit periodicals critically.
The discussion will primarily focus on:
1) the possibility and scope of research in the area of vernacular periodicals and Dalit writing,
2) the challenges in such research and
3) the significance of such research.
A retired central government employee, Dhurjati Naskar, is an essayist, poet, and novelist from South 24 Parganas of West Bengal. He has been involved in editing periodicals since the early 1970s. Some of the periodicals edited by him are: Bangla Maati (Soil of Bengal), Dakkhin Barasat Sahitya Patra (South Barasat Literary Magazine), Baridhati, Dakhina Path, Baruipur Sambad (Barupipur News), Bharatiya Pundra Samachar (Indian Pundra News) and Pundra-Poundra Badhav. These periodicals, predominantly literary, also published essays concerning the history, ethnonational and folk traditions of the Poundra community. He is a member of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sangstha (Kolkata), West Bengal Dalit Sahitya Sabha and a founding member of Dr Bhusan Chandra Naskar Archive. He has been a recipient of the West Bengal Sahitya Akademy Award in the year 2019.
Prof. Sipra Mukherjee teaches English at West Bengal State University. Her areas of interest are religion, caste, folklore and orality. She has been a visiting fellow at the department of English University of Hyderabad, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. She has received many national and international research and travel grants. Some of them are – ICSSR research grant for a research project on ‘Interpreting Folklore: Understanding the relationship between folklore, religion and caste in East India’, 2013-2015; a Research Grant from the University Grant Commission, India, ‘Faiths in the Margins’, 2009; Luce Grant from Comparative Religion Programme, on Religion and Human Security: Negotiating the Power of Religious Non-State Actors, University of Washington, 2008. Besides her research on the intersection between caste and religion, she has been an avid translator. Her translated works include the Autobiography of Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari, Interrogating My Chandal Life, 2018, and Under My Black Skin Flows a Red River: Translations of Dalit Writings for Bengal, 2021, which she co-edited along with Prof. Debi Chatterjee. She is also a member of Ebong Alap, a voluntary non-profit society which works with youth to encourage critical thought.
Dr Asit Biswas is an Associate Professor of English in West Bengal Education Service, currently posted at P.R. Thakur Government College, Thakurnagar, West Bengal. He completed his PhD research on the film adaptation of western texts in Bengali films from the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal. He has published seventeen research papers, six Dalit short stories, two Dalit plays and some poems in Bengali. He is the co-editor of the book Shotoborsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya; Dalit Poems, Dalit Literary Horizon (translation of Manohar Mouli Biswas’s book, Dalit Sahityer Digboloy), Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation and Dalit Protest Unbridled: Two Dozen Plays of Raju Das. He also published the book Pardon Not: Marichjhampi Massacre, a translation of the novel Kshama Nei by Nakul Mallik. Recently his translation of Kalyani Thakur’s novella Andhar Bil O Kichhu Manush (Andhar Bil and Some People) has been published by Zubaan. At present, he is translating a Bangla epic.
Urmila Pawar is a widely known Indian (Marathi) writer. She has been active in the Dalit and feminist movements in India since her early life. She was a part of the Marathi Dalit feminist magazine Aamhi Maitarni which was published during the 90s. She has eleven publications to her credit including the popular Marathi short story collection translated into English as Mother Wit by Prof. Veena Deo (Hamline University, USA), published by Zuban. Her Autobiographical narrative Aydaan translated into English as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs by Prof. Maya Pandit remains most popular even today (it has been translated into other Indian languages as well – Hindi, Kannada and Tamil). Many of her short stories have been prescribed in the syllabus framework of Indian universities as well as universities abroad (Colombia University, USA).
A bilingual poet, translator, editor, critic and columnist, Dr Chandrakant Patil writes in Marathi and Hindi and occasionally in English. He has several publications – collections of Marathi poems such as Nissandarbh, Ittambhoot, Bayaka ani Itar Kvita, and a collection of Hindi poems Apni Bhasha Ke Sameep to mention a few. Besides, he has also published six critical essay collections and twenty-five collections in Marathi and Hindi translations. He is popularly known for his active engagement in the Little Magazine Movement in Maharashtra during the 1960s and 1970s. He acted as one of the editors and publishers of the highly discussed little magazine Wacha. Besides, he was also one of the founder members of Wacha Prakashan that published the first collections of avant-garde poets of Marathi, such as Bhalchandra Nemade, Manohar Oak, Satish Kalasekar, Dilip Chitre etc. He has been a recipient of national and state-level awards for his various contributions – Sahitya Akademi Translation award (1991), Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sahitya Akademi (1994), Bhasha Vruddhi Sammaan, Govt. Of Maharashtra (2022).
Prof. Dilip Chavan is an academic scholar and a professor of English at SRTM University, Nanded, Maharashtra. His doctoral work, Language Politics under Colonialism: Caste, Class and Language Pedagogy in Western India, was published as a book by Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars in 2013. He writes in Marathi and has published nine books on contemporary social issues such as language, caste, class, imperialism, and women’s education. Some of his notable works are – Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar ani Jativyawastha Ant (1998); Shikshan: Jatvargiya Vastav ani Samatavadi Paryay (1999); Stree Shikshanacha Sangharsha (2007); Dr Ambedkar ani Bhartiya Shikshanatil Jatisanghrsha (2003); Samrajyavad: Bhasha ani Sanskriti (2010); Corona ani Stree-Purush Vishamatecha Prashna (2022). He also has a keen interest in translations from English to the Marathi language (he is working on the Marathi translation of Braj Ranjan Mani’s book Debrahminising History). Besides, he has been a part of the widely read fortnightly ‘Pariwartanacha Watsaru’ as its executive editor. He has been associated with academic institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore.
A graduate from the University of Hyderabad, Dr Sayantan Mondal is currently an Asst. Professor in the department of English at GITAM, Hyderabad (Deemed to be University). His areas of interest are Reading-Print readership, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Dalit Studies and Translation. Sayantan has been an Erasmus Mundus Fellow at the University of Oxford during 2015-16. He has received the University of Heidelberg Travel Grant 2015 and the University Grants Commission Travel grant 2016. Presently, he is working on a research project titled “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman. This project aims to trace Bangla and Marathi Periodicals and the exchange of ideas on the caste question. Some of his published works are – Of Caste-Class and Dalit Writing, 2015; An Introduction to the World of Monoranjan Byapari, 2015; Language and its People: A Comparative insight into the Kurdish and Rohingya Genocide, 2019; Prantik theke Dalit: Nandonikatar Rajniti o Dalit Chetona (From Marginalised to Dalit: Politics of Aesthetics and Dalit Consciousness), 2022; Migration and Cultural Identity: An Introduction, 2022.
Having received a doctorate in English (Cultural Studies) from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad, Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman is an assistant professor of English at GITAM (Deemed to be University), Hyderabad campus. His doctoral research, Religious Conversion and Dalit Experience: A Study of the Meanings of Conversion among the Neo-Buddhists, emphasises the phenomenon of Dalit conversion to Buddhism and studies the conversion movement in Nanded district (Marathwada region, Maharashtra) through collecting and analysing historical records – pamphlets, posters, record books etc. He is a recipient of a prestigious Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, doctoral fellowship for his doctoral research. He has been publishing in the area of Dalit Studies/literature on issues such as caste, colonial intervention into the caste question, Dalit identity and culture etc. Currently, he is involved in a research project, “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Sayantan Mondal.
Location: Bonington Atrium and multiple venues across Nottingham
Uniting 250 artists from 25 countries over 7 days, UK Young Artist (UKYA) City Takeover (Now UK New Artists) will span multiple venues across Nottingham, immersing visitors in an array of extraordinary, innovative and contemporary work, from visual arts to performance; music; applied arts; literature; digital arts and moving image.
One of the largest biennials of national and international artists in the world, UKYA City Takeover will be discerning and cutting-edge. Presenting an exemplar survey show of contemporary art, performance and music being made today. Expect to encounter art and performance in cultural spaces as well as unusual places. From caves to cafes; markets to museums; studios to the streets – the City Takeover weaves a rich tapestry of venues across Nottingham.
Bonington Gallery is delighted to host installations, drawings, sculpture and photography from visual artists: Grace Stones, Jodie Wingham, Lucie Blissett, Luisa Turuani, Nika Kupyrova and Won Hee Nam.
Check out the full programme over on the UKYA City Takeover website.
