Enter the land of Maveli

Artwork for the website created by co-founder Shrujana N Shridhar

Mumbai-based architect Ajinkya Dekhane, grew up listening to stories of Maveli, or Mahabali, the king symbolic to Kerala's Onam festival. "Even as a Maharashtrian, throughout my childhood I heard stories about king Mahabali who was slaughtered by Vamana, a Brahmin avatar of Vishnu. While in conversation with one of my co-founders who is a Malayali, I realised that our versions of these stories were similar and this piqued our interest in many ways," shares Dekhane. This forms the foundation of Mavelinadu, a newly launched anti-caste, inclusive and egalitarian virtual publishing platform, formed by Dekhane and his co-founders, Shrujana N Shridhar, Hritik Lalan and Sanjana Ajith. Launched on October 14 to mark the occasion of Dhammachakra Pravartan Din, the day Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar converted to Buddhism, the website run by and for Bahujan, Dalit and other margialised groups, hopes to work towards the eradication of oppressive systemic social constructs like caste, gender and class by providing opportunities to those from these communities. The aim, Dekhane says, is to facilitate independent work by writers, authors, poets, artists and artistes from marginalised communities. "It emerged from the idea to create an equal and egalitarian space, talked about by figures like Sant Ravidas, when he spoke of the idea of Begumpura, or when Mahatma Jyotiba Phule spoke of Balirajya - a casteless land for all," adds Dekhane.

Ajinkya Dekhane

To kick things off, the website will offer fellowships and grants in six different categories - visual art, poetry, research, fiction (short stories), illustrated fiction/non-fiction and non-fiction/essays. Applications are urged from those belonging to marginalised caste communities of any religion, including queer, trans and non-binary individuals. "As funding flows in in the future, we hope to dive into fields like theatre, or helping musicians who are de-Brahminsing music and poetry. This is the first round of the open call for applications that we've put out, we hope to do more rounds in the coming months," concludes Dekhane.