Dehradun, April 21 -- Eighteen 'Dalit' icons covering at least five thousand years of our history - from the epochal narrators - Ved Vyasa of the Mahabharata and Valmiki of the Ramayana, the medieval saints Namdev, Ravi Das and Kabir, the freedom fighter Rani Jhalkaribai, the educational reformer Savitribai Phule, the revolutionary Udham Singh, and the law ministers of India and Pakistan Dr Ambedkar and Jogendranath Mondal, respectively, and many more have been brought together by Sudarshan Ramabadran and Guru Prakash Paswan in this powerful discourse on how Indian history from the times of the epics to the present has been shaped by Dalits.

Before we delve into each of these personalities, it's important to understand that the authors a...