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Begumpura, envisioned by the 15th-century saint-poet Ravidas, is a city without sorrow. A world without caste, fear, or exclusion. It is a political imagination of dignity, equality, and collective freedom.
We are honoured to invite you to Building Begumpura: A Conference on Anti-Caste Mental Health Practices, India’s first national conference to centre mental health through an explicit anti-caste, Ambedkarite, and social justice lens. Jointly organised by The Blue Dawn and the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW), the conference will be held on 14–15 April 2026 at Sabha, Bengaluru, marking Phule-Ambedkar Jayanti.
The conference brings together two pioneering organisations in their respective fields, The Blue Dawn in the anti-caste mental health practice and the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) in Dalit feminist organising and movement-building. Together, we create a shared space to connect mental health practice with anti-caste feminist struggles and reimagine care as a question of social justice.
The Building Begumpura Conference is envisioned as a space of collective strength, joy, and political imagination. It brings together practitioners, activists, artists, and scholars to reframe mental health through the lived realities of caste, gender, labour, and exclusion. Through art,
film, performance, and dialogue, the conference honours histories of resistance and builds new pathways of care.
The Building Begumpura Conference begins with a clear position. Mental health care cannot be apolitical or be ignorant towards structural inequities like the caste system and Brahmanical patriarchy.
For women, girls, transgender persons, and gender diverse people from caste-oppressed communities, mental health is shaped by everyday negotiations with violence, hunger, labour, displacement, and systemic denial of dignity. Practitioners are often trained to see themselves as neutral. But neutrality does not erase bias. It conceals it.
Can a practitioner hold space for a Muslim woman navigating trauma from communal violence while being Islamophobic in their private life? Can one work with an Adivasi mother facing child malnutrition without understanding how land dispossession and state neglect shape that reality? Can one sit with a Dalit woman carrying the trauma of caste-based violence without recognising how humiliation and exclusion are structurally produced?
These are not abstract questions, they are central to the ethics of care.
The Building Begumpura Conference situates mental health within caste, patriarchy, and economic injustice, while also moving beyond mainstream or deficit frameworks. It centres the knowledge and healing practices of marginalised communities as foundational to building just and transformative approaches.
The conference recognises that mental health interventions alone are not enough. As long as caste continues to organise access to dignity, safety, and opportunity, its psychological impact will persist. Addressing mental health requires a sustained commitment to dismantling caste itself. This is why mental health must be central to progressive and social justice movements.
The Dalit feminist movement has long led the way in articulating how caste, gender, and structural violence shape emotional lives, offering critical frameworks and practices that reimagine care as collective, political and rooted in social justice.
A central moment of the Building Begumpura Conference will be the felicitation of 30 pioneering women leaders and institutions, marking 30 years of the National federation of Dalit women (NFDW). These leaders represent decades of courage, organising, and transformative impact across the anti-caste movement. While it is never easy to draw such a list, these are women and institutions who have journeyed with NFDW and have shaped our struggles through collective strength and vision.
The conference aims to bridge mental health practice and feminist movements. It centres the gendered impact of caste on emotional and psychological well-being.
● Politics of Experience and Mental Health How caste, class and gender shape emotional lives. And why dominant frameworks fail.
● Caste, Power, and the Practice of Care How caste and bias shape care spaces and institutions. Whose pain is recognised, and whose is overlooked.
● Towards Anti-Caste Feminist Mental Health Practices Building practices rooted in anti-caste and feminist ethics. Grounded in community and collective healing.
The Building Begumpura Conference is a step towards reimagining mental health as a site of resistance, dignity, and collective liberation. As Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities continue to build pathways toward Begumpura, this is one more step in that direction.
10:00 AM – Art exhibition opens
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM | Inauguration
● Opening performance: Parai Attam, Marabu, Tamil Nadu
● Welcome and introduction: Divya Kandukuri, Founder, The Blue Dawn
● From a Daughter to a Mother: Honouring the Life’s Work of Ms. Assanbi
● Inaugural address: Dr. Ruth Manorama, Founder, National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW)
● The Blue Dawn website launch
12:30 – 1:30 PM — Lunch
1:30 – 4:30 PM | Felicitation session
Emcee: Charulatha Dasappa, Writer and Art Curator
● Performance: Shalom Sannutha and the band, Nelada Haadu, Mysore and HD Kote
● Keynote address: Banu Mushtaq, International Booker Prize Winner, 2025
● Honouring 30 pioneering anti-caste women leaders and institutions on the occasion of 30 years of the National Federation of Dalit Women
4:30 – 5:00 PM — Tea break
5:00 – 6:30 PM — Panel discussion: What Do Anti-caste Mental Health Practices Look Like at the Grassroots?
Panelists:
● Bezwada Wilson – National Convenor, Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), New Delhi
● Jyothi Raj – President of Booshakthi Kendra (International Dalit Cultural Centre), Tumkur
● Mrudula V – Advocate, Campaign for Rohith Act, Bengaluru
● Dr. Raviraj Shetty – Co-Founder, Narrative Practices India Collective, Mumbai
● Shireen Azam – Dphil, University of Oxford and Postdoctoral scholar, NLSIU Bengaluru
Moderator: Aakanksha Aditi – Research Scholar, University of Hyderabad
6:30 – 7:00 PM — Exhibition walkthrough,
Poetry Reading, Anita Bharti – Poet and Writer, New Delhi
6:30 – 8:00 PM — Film screenings
The Quiet Solace of Sunset, Tenzin Choedon – Filmmaker and Researcher, Tibetan from Dharamshala
Tara, Ashutosh S. Shankar – Filmmaker, Pune
*A live Community Art Project will be led by Aravani Art Project, a trans and cis women-led collective that works at the intersection of art, community, and activism.
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM — 12 Years of NALSA: Rights Taken Back, Lives at Risk — A Call for Solidarity
Grace Banu, Trans Right Now Collective, Tamil Nadu and Don Hasar, Boundless: Voices Culture People, Himachal Pradesh
10:15 AM – 1:00 PM — Parallel workshops
1) Madhubani Art as Resistance: Visual Storytelling in Social Justice Movements Malvika Raj – Artist, Bihar
2) Mapping Begumpura through Children’s Picture Books
Dr. Raviraj Shetty, Maharashtra and Sneha Shetty, Puducherry
1:00 – 2:00 PM — Lunch
2:00 – 3:00 PM — Panel discussion: Redefining Mental Health through the Lens of Human Rights Defenders
Panelists:
● Dr. Celine Hema Malini – Member, National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW), Viluppuram
● Grace Banu – Founder, Trans Rights Now Collective, Chennai
● Manjula Pradeep – National Convenor, National Council of Women Leaders (NCWL), Ahmedabad
● Mary Beth – Human Rights Activist, Manipur
Moderator: Beena Pallical – General Secretary, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), New Delhi
3:00 – 4:30 PM — Workshop
Rice On Rice: Food That Knows No Borders
● Indira Tayeng – Research Scholar, Arunachal Pradesh
● Deborah L Serto – Lawyer, Manipur
3:15 –3:45 PM — Film Screening
Sen Ge Susun, Kaji Ge Duraang
Sneha Mundari – Filmmaker, Visual Anthropologist and Design Educator, Odisha
4:30 – 5:00 PM — Tea Break
5:00 – 6:30 PM — Panel discussion: Inter-generational Feminist Solidarities as Mental Health Practices
Panelists:
● Aradhana M — Girl Champion, Women’s Voice, Bengaluru
● Jameela Nishat — Founder, Shaheen Women’s Resource and Welfare Association, Hyderabad
● Priyanka Samy — Member, National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW), Bengaluru
● Shweta Tara — Kranti, Dharamshala
● Urmila Pawar — Writer and Activist, Mumbai
Moderator: Avani Purty, Mental Health Professional and Research Scholar at Christ University, Bengaluru
6:30 - 6:45 PM: Vote of thanks
7:00 PM onwards — Closing performance: Mahi G, Hip-hop Artist, Poet and Singer
*A live Community Art Project led by Aravani Art Project, a trans and cis women-led collective that works at the intersection of art, community, and activism.
The art exhibition at Building Begumpura explores various histories and perspectives on the anti-caste movement, and the many solidarities that we rely on to live and thrive. Including work by some of the country's leading artists as well as upcoming artists, the exhibition presents paintings, prints, quilts and more.
Featured artists:
Aravani Art Project, Karnataka
Dido Khiangte, Mizoram
Dr Aiswarya Rao, Tamil Nadu
Krithika Sriram, Karnataka
Malvika Raj, Bihar
Nabi Haider Ali, California
Osheen Siva, Goa
Percy Kaki, Telangana
Priyanka Patil, Maharashtra
Priyanka Paul, Maharashtra
Saviya Lopes, Maharashtra
Shrujana Niranjani Shridhar, New York
The Blue Dawn, a mental health collective grounded in anti-caste and feminist values, facilitates accessible care to historically marginalized caste and ethnic communities. It was founded as a response to the gap in mental health care in India that does not acknowledge the impact of structural inequities such as the caste system on the mental health of the caste-oppressed communities.
The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) is India’s first national Dalit feminist network, committed to advancing the leadership, rights, and political voice of Dalit women through grassroots organising, movement-building, and global advocacy.