IISER MOHALI

Abstract: In the Social of the Shudra and the ati-Shudra, they are nothing; as their lives are contingent on the Trivarnikas. It is the Trivarnikas who were deciding the lives of the Shudras and ati-Shudras. The Trivarnikas instilled or rather imposed nothingness in the Shudra and ati-Shudra lives. The Social of the Shudra and Ati-Shudra is Nothing. The Shudra and Ati-Shudra are not contributing to the making of the Nothing or Nothingness in their lives. They are contributing to the making of something and everything for the lives of the Trivarnikas. The phenomenon of the Trivarnikas is contingent on the shudra and atishudra. The being[s] who have nothing in their own lives are contributing to something and everything to someone else’s lives i.e. the Trivarnikas here. In Indian social, the self of the atishudra and shudra are negated. The Self doesn’t get to decide the Self and is a dependent self. The dependent Self is antithetical to Virtue of Being. The Self is negated in Nothingness. Can they have an independent and autonomous social life? What is the Self in Nothingness of the Shudra and atishudra. What is (the method of) consciousness in Nothingness? How is self retrieved or constructed from or against Nothingness? How is the Self reconstructed from the negation of Self. Is there a ‘negation of negation’? The aforementioned propositions and questions will be addressed in the paper. Phule and Ambedkar’s act/experience of intervening in the existing nature of political with a proposition to the nature of political and writing Gulamgiri and Annihilation of Caste is a phenomenological act that made an social intervention against the ‘Social Nothingness’ and have made a claim to Self or Being and Social Self/Social Being.

Brief Bio: Dr. Thallapelli Praveen is currently Assistant Professor teaching Indian Philosophy, Political Thought and Political theory at St. Joseph's University Bengaluru. He researches at the intersections of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Modern Indian Thought. He has published chapters on Student: Politics and Pedagogy (2024) and they too are Dalits (2025).

https://www.sju.edu.in/school-of-humanities-and-social-sciences/department-of-political-science/MTgwMA