Indian society continues to be characterized by the barbaric caste system even in 21st century. In times of fascism, caste question has emerged on the national agenda with a renewed emphasis as evident in the wake of some recent incidents such as the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, Una episode and Bhima Koregaon violence. However, the nature of caste system in modern capitalist era is not the same as the one that prevailed in feudal medieval India or in pre-feudal ancient India. As against the widespread belief, caste system has not remained static throughout history. There have been both temporal and spatial variations. The caste structure in south India is not exactly same as that in north India. The relation between caste and class has also evolved over a period of time. These complexities need to be grasped in order to move towards annihilation of caste. Without having a concrete understanding of the origin, evolution and spatio-temporal variations of caste, no project of annihilation of caste can be devised. Also, it is important to have a critical look at the efforts made in the past towards the annihilation of caste including the anti-caste movements of Ayyankali, Phule, Periyar, Ambedkar and the communist movement. It is because of this reason that Lamakaan is conducting an extensive 3-day long talk series on “Caste: origin, evolution and proposed program for its annihilation”. The talk will be delivered by Abhinav Sinha who is a Marxist theorist and activist. Abhinav has carried out extensive research and study on caste system. The sessions would be organized as follows:

Day 1. Origin and evolution of caste

Day 2. Critical appraisal of the anti-caste movements of Ayyankali, Phule, Periyar, Ambedkar

Day 3. Marxism and caste question

On each day, the talk will be followed by an interactive session.