When Sanjana Choudhary, 23, landed at Oxford to pursue a master’s degree in South Asian History on a prestigious scholarship, it felt like a fresh start. She believed she could finally just be a student, unburdened by the heavy markers of caste, class, and geography.

Growing up on the periphery of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Sanjana recognised early on that for most Dalit students, schools are vulnerable spaces where opportunities are disproportionately divided along caste lines. Her family had struggled for generations to secure formal names and a surname; her grandmother, who recently died, was known simply as Chotibai.

Caste discrimination follows Dalit students beyond India's borders

Dalit students studying abroad hope to escape oppressive caste hierarchies, only to find that the dominant-caste diaspora has exported its prejudice into classrooms and social settings across borders, reports Radheshyam Jadhav  | Video Credit: The Hindu