A Dalit protest in Delhi in 1991. The caste system thrives on what BR Ambedkar described as “graded inequality”—a seemingly infinite fragmentation of castes and sub-castes, the position of each dependent on its discrimination and violence against those it claims superiority over. ROBERT NICKELSBERG / GETTY IMAGES ON A WEDNESDAY EVENING in July 1967, two white police oƫcers dragged a black man, John William Smith, into their precinct building in the city of Newark. Smith, a taxi driver, had just been arrested, for the alleged crime of improperly passing the oƫcers’ car, and had been beaten so brutally that he could not walk. Residents of a housing project saw him dragged in, and a rumour set oƨ: the cops had killed another black man. A crowd formed, and resorted to attacking the precinct building. For Ʃve days, violence tore through the city, with a toll of over two dozen lives. Some called it rioting—others a rebellion. That was just one ƪashpoint of what came to be known as “the long, hot summer of 1967.” The United States saw over a hundred and Ʃfty “race riots” that season, with police brutality against black people a common ESSAY / CASTE The Harvest of Casteism Race, caste and what it will take to make Dalit lives matter SURAJ YENGDE 03 July 2020