Tata Institute of Social Sciences THE INDIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK Volume 78, Issue 1 January 2017 IJSW, 78 (1), 1–10, January 2017 EDITORIAL Collectivity and Empowerment in Addressing Marginality Roma and the Subaltern Communities of India JEKATYERINA DUNAJEVA, GOPALAKRISHNAN KARUNANITHI, ANDREW RYDER AND NIDHI TREHAN INTRODUCTION This special edition of the Indian Journal of Social Work (IJSW) explores parallels between the experiences of Romani communities in Europe, who number approximately 12 million people and constitute one of the most marginalised groups within European society today, and subaltern groups in India. In particular, the contributors discuss comparisons as well as strategies to assist both European Roma and the Dalits of India who continue to suffer acute marginalisation. Present day marginality for Dalits continues despite the outlawing of caste-based discrimination, which is one of the most pernicious causal factors of contemporary exclusion in India. As with the Roma, for the Dalits, age-old prejudice and forms of institutional racism interact with poverty to create profound forms of marginality. A key aim of this collection is to explore how policy models pioneered in India or conceptions of and remedies for marginalisation conceived by Indian social justice campaigners and scholars have relevance for Roma communities in their struggles to achieve equality in Europe, and vice versa. We thus hope that practitioners, critical thinkers and marginalised communities in Europe and India might ultimately