The caste thread travels overseas
Sanjana Choudhary, a Dalit student at Oxford, discusses the persistence of caste-based discrimination within the Indian diaspora. Despite her academic success, she highlights how systemic biases continue to affect social dynamics and belonging among Indian students abroad.
Why it matters
It sheds light on the often-overlooked issue of caste discrimination within international academic institutions and the global Indian diaspora.
When Sanjana Choudhary, 23, landed at Oxford to pursue a master’s degree in South Asian History on a prestigious scholarship, it felt like a fresh start. She believed she could finally just be a student, unburdened by the heavy markers of caste, class, and geography.
Growing up on the periphery of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Sanjana recognised early on that for most Dalit students, schools are vulnerable spaces where opportunities are disproportionately divided along caste lines. Her family had struggled for generations to secure formal names and a surname; her grandmother, who recently died, was known simply as Chotibai.
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