In fact, this single story is so powerful and all-pervasive that a lot of urban millennial professionals feel caste is something that no longer exists. It does take a special talent to invisibilize the deaths of sewage workers who die inside drains everyday.

It does take a special talent to tediously raise the “I know this one rich SC guy who got a college seat basis quota” argument at every opportunity, even as campus suicides by dalit students has been widely written about and been the subject of documentary productions.

There are no dalits among the upper management of most corporations, the most powerful editors and journalists, higher judiciary, chiefs of armed services, and even the organisational elites of most political parties.

If every major social institution of nation-building is not representative of the oppressed castes, then is it representative at all? And if “belonging” in a democracy is determined by representation, then do dalits “belong” in India at all?

And then there’s us: the well-read, well-meaning, and “woke”.

If we refuse to engage with and question our most insidious privileges, and our complicity in perpetuating non-inclusive social structures, then are we really the liberals that our memes and hashtags paint us as?