Breaking down the question
The question has two parts. The first — what is the Dalit movement? — asks for a definition and characterisation of a social movement. The second — examine the issues highlighted by it — asks the candidate to analyse the concerns the movement has placed on the public agenda. Both parts must be answered fully; a common error is to narrate history and neglect the issues.
The examiner is testing knowledge of social movements in modern India and the ability to read the Dalit movement not merely as protest but as a struggle over the caste order itself — over dignity, equality and citizenship. Ambedkar's vision of the annihilation of caste is the organising idea.
The note on backward classes and Dalit movements supplies the historical and conceptual detail.
How to approach it
Define the Dalit movement as a collective struggle by ex-untouchable communities against caste-based oppression for equality, dignity and rights, and situate it as a new social movement centred on identity as much as on material interest. Sketch its trajectory briefly — from reform-era beginnings through Ambedkar and the Dalit Panthers to contemporary assertion.
Then devote the bulk of the answer to the issues: the abolition of untouchability, dignity and identity, representation and reservation, economic redistribution, protection from atrocities, and cultural assertion. Conclude by assessing the movement's achievements and unfinished agenda.
Model answer
The Dalit movement is the collective struggle of communities historically stigmatised as untouchable against caste-based subordination, waged in pursuit of equality, dignity, self-respect and full citizenship. Sociologically it is a social movement with an ideology, leadership, organisation and a sustained challenge to the existing order — and, in Ghanshyam Shah's terms, one that combines the pursuit of material interests with the assertion of identity.
Trajectory. Its roots lie in nineteenth-century reform — Jotiba Phule's critique of Brahminical dominance — but it acquired its decisive shape under B. R. Ambedkar, who reframed untouchability as a question of human rights and constitutional equality and, ultimately, led the conversion to Buddhism as an exit from caste. Later phases include the militant Dalit Panthers of the 1970s and the contemporary politics of Dalit assertion and cultural production.
The issues it highlights.
Abolition of untouchability and social equality. The founding issue is the eradication of untouchability and the caste order that sustains it. Ambedkar's call for the annihilation of caste insisted that reform of practices was insufficient; the graded inequality of the caste system itself had to be dismantled.
Dignity and identity. The movement reframes the ex-untouchable as Dalit — a term of political self-assertion meaning the broken who refuse to remain broken. Gail Omvedt read this as a cultural revolt reclaiming self-respect against the humiliation built into caste.
Representation and reservation. Political and educational representation — reservations in legislatures, services and institutions — is a central demand, understood as compensation for historic exclusion and a means of entering structures of power.
Economic redistribution. Landlessness and dependence on stigmatised, poorly paid labour tie caste to class. The movement therefore raises demands for land, employment and an end to bonded and manual scavenging labour.
Protection from atrocities. Persistent violence against Dalits keeps physical security on the agenda, expressed in demands for the effective enforcement of protective legislation and accountability for caste atrocities.
Cultural assertion. Dalit literature, autobiography and public commemoration constitute a struggle over meaning — challenging the sanctified narratives of the caste order and asserting an autonomous Dalit voice.
Assessment. The movement has secured constitutional guarantees, reservations and a powerful language of rights and dignity, and it has made caste a visible axis of political contestation. Yet untouchability in disguised forms, economic marginalisation and atrocities persist, and internal differentiation among Dalit communities complicates unity. The agenda of the annihilation of caste remains unfinished.
Examiner's perspective
Weak answers narrate a chronology of leaders and neglect the second half of the question, or reduce the movement to reservation alone. The examiner rewards a clear definition, a sense of the movement as a new social movement fusing interest and identity, and above all a structured examination of the issues.
High marks go to answers that range across dignity, representation, redistribution, security and cultural assertion, anchored in Ambedkar's annihilation of caste and supported by Omvedt or Shah. A concluding assessment that balances achievements against the unfinished agenda demonstrates the evaluative depth expected of a twenty-mark answer.