Vajrasuchi: A workshop on Social Justice through the lens of assertion
2nd to 7th June, 2026
Introduction:
Vajrasuchi is a space for collective engagement with questions of caste, social justice, and emancipation. The workshop brings together activists, academics, and individuals committed to challenging structures of oppression and imagining pathways towards a more just society.
Background
Caste is one of the oldest and most fundamental systems of social hierarchy in the Indian subcontinent. Its roots can be traced to the varna system described in ancient texts such as the Rigveda and later codified in works like the Manusmriti, where society was divided into graded categories with unequal rights and status. Over time, this system evolved into thousands of jatis (birth-based communities) that regulated occupation, social interaction, marriage, and access to resources.
Caste as a discourse has taken multiple intersecting forms in contemporary India and in the global context. The markers through which caste is identified in different geographies have evolved with time and cannot be understood in a single manner. A linear understanding of caste makes it static and fails to recognize how it is constantly reproduced through everyday practices such as food, language, clothing, music, and even love.
Today, the country’s constitutional and social realities stand in stark contrast. While the Constitution provides safeguards and rights to historically marginalized communities, everyday social life often disregards these guarantees. Legal provisions cannot fully address the intimate and routine ways in which caste operates. To understand caste meaningfully, we must examine it from both lenses: that of the oppressed and that of the oppressor.
About the Workshop
This workshop is not merely an attempt to fill the gaps in the larger project of emancipation from all forms of oppression. It is a space for activists, academicians, and all those committed to social justice to come together, analyze these fractures, understand their roots, and collectively imagine a way forward. It seeks to turn the gaze both outward (to the structure) and inward (to the self).
This would involve facilitation by various resource persons, discussion amongst the participants, and hands-on activities.
Sambhaavnaa workshops are grounded in participatory pedagogy, where participants are not viewed as passive recipients of knowledge but as active co-creators of it. Both facilitators and participants contribute to the learning process, collectively shaping the experience of the workshop.
Objectives
We aim to examine how caste structures have oppressed communities across intersections of caste, gender, religion, and other social locations. At the same time, we will reflect on how caste resides within us and how it shapes our perceptions, choices, and silences. This internal reflection is not only about revealing privilege but also about creating possibilities for solidarity across and within caste locations.
The workshop would broadly cover the relationship of caste with religion, food, art, love, culture, law, policy, and mental health. The following is the breakdown of these themes:
Themes that we will explore in this workshop:
- Lived Realities and Caste (Across Regions and Religions): The theme will explore how caste manifests differently—or similarly—across regions and religions. When we think about caste and the dominant discourse surrounding it, we often understand it as an issue belonging to one particular religion. But is that really true?
- Bodies and Caste: Caste and bodies are strongly interlinked. Certain bodies are marked pure and certain impure. Certain bodies are seen as disposable, while the state protects others as important. How can we start seeing bodies through the lens of caste, gender, and various other intersections?
- Food and Caste: Different kitchens, different ingredients, and different ideas of taste and hygiene are all shaped by a person’s social location. How does food—something that is meant to unite humanity—end up becoming a fundamental source of division?
- Mental Health and Caste: When communities are systematically excluded, subjected to humiliation, and stripped of dignity, the impact this has on their mental health has historically received little to almost no attention. We tend to create a space that also centers the collective experiences of these communities and navigate them together.
- Law and Caste: Law is often seen as a powerful tool for social justice, with legal frameworks designed to challenge caste-based discrimination. Yet, in practice, the law can also reproduce existing hierarchies and sometimes end up protecting the interests of the powerful. This session will explore how caste operates within legal systems and how justice is shaped by social realities.
- Caste, Reservation, and the Myth of Merit: For decades, marginalized communities have had to defend reservation policies against the claim that they undermine “merit.” This session will examine how the idea of merit is socially constructed, who gets to define it, and how caste privilege shapes access to education and opportunity.
Who is this workshop for?
Anyone working in anti-caste, feminist, queer, or other movements that center emancipation from all forms of oppression is welcome to apply. You may be an activist, an academic, or simply someone eager to engage with the themes mentioned above. We are looking for people who will carry these discussions beyond the workshop and into their own communities and spaces.
We encourage individuals from marginalized and gender-diverse backgrounds to apply!
Workshop Fees:
We expect participants to contribute ₹5000 towards the workshop expenses, which will cover all on-site workshop costs. Need-based partial fee waivers are available; participants who wish to request a concession in the contribution amount may mention it separately in their application.
We have a very limited number of partial waivers, so please apply for one only if you genuinely need it. Kindly keep in mind that there may be others who might require this support more than you.