The caste thread travels overseas
Sanjana Choudhary, a Dalit student at Oxford, discusses her experiences with caste-based discrimination both in India and within the Indian diaspora. She co-founded the Oxford South Asia Ambedkar Forum to advocate for marginalized voices and challenge systemic invisibilization.
Why it matters
It highlights the persistence of caste-based social hierarchies within international academic institutions and the 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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