Thread by @rajamanirajesh

In August 2012, Outlook magazine came up with an issue that supposedly did some survey and found that Dr. Ambedkar is the greatest Indian after Gandhi. If I remember it right, that particular issue was put together by S Anand.

The cover story was written by Vinod Mehta and some of the other stories were written by Uttam Sengupta, Sudheendra Kulkarni and S Anand himself. There were also pieces by Gail Omvedt and Anand Teltumde.

The issue was a super hit among Dalits and other Bahujans.

Though there was some discomfort in leaving Gandhi out of the race, everyone still went berserk praising the issue and probably bought the magazine in large numbers too.

We are exactly 9 years from then, and Outlook's current issue has been trying to find the best 50 Dalits who have been remaking India. Suraj Yengde has written the cover story and magazine has been using his face to aggressively push the sales.

But I don't think most Dalits or other Bahujans are taking the magazine or this particular issue seriously.

For whatever its worth, the mic has been technically passed as far as these specific issues are concerned.

Because Outlook doesn't need S Anand to put together these 'special issues' anymore. They can now take the help of Suraj Yengde and that should ideally get them more acceptable. But amusingly, that isn't the case. Most Bahujans seem to be mocking the theatrics of this issue.

The credibility they had 10 years back is almost lost today.

So it is naturally tempting to wonder what changed things so much in this decade.

The primary reason is the growth of Round Table India (RTI) in the last 10 years and how it has revolutionized Bahujan writing in English.

Any Bahujan who has even had a brief exposure to RTI would quickly realize what writing really matters to them and what is just superficial commodification of their identities.

If Bahujans want to read something about themselves in English, they don't have to wait for the special issues of Outlook or any other magazine. They can just go to RTI and read from its vast resources.

Today, any English media space that intends to write something credible on the Indian caste society can do so by only mimicking or borrowing the extensive articulation that the writers of RTI have created.

This they continue to do without crediting or acknowledging RTI or its writers. But in those rare occasions when they forget to borrow from RTI, they end up sounding embarrassingly empty like these listicles.