Equality Labs is an Ambedkarite South Asian power-building organization that uses community research, political base-building, culture-shifting art, advocacy and digital security to end the oppression of caste apartheid, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and religious intolerance.
Ambedkarite is a political term for anti-caste groups who are aligned with the liberatory vision of radical Dalit leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar for caste abolition. Ambedkarite is an important axis of how to consider South Asian progressive politics that are rooted in both a vision for caste abolition and racial equity.
We center the leadership of South Asian caste oppressed, queer and religious minority communities in the ongoing redefinition of South Asian identity in the United States, across the diaspora, and in our home countries, from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, and Afghanistan. Our membership includes Dalit (formerly known as the “untouchables”), Adivasi (Indigenous people of South Asia), Bahujan (caste-oppressed) South Asians.
We believe that all progressive South Asians must work towards ending white supremacy and anti-Blackness, but crucially, also our internal hegemonies of caste, language, geography, gender, sexuality and religion. We work towards dynamic South Asian feminist futures from religious and cultural minorities, while creating spaces where women, femmes, gender non-conforming, intersex, nonbinary and trans leaders are the architects of the solutions they need. In doing so, we can truly ensure all South Asians create communities of equity.