Gau rakshaks in Gujarat tie Dalits to a car and flog them with iron rods and sticks. The crime? Skinning a dead cow. Caught on a phone camera, the video leads to spontaneous protests, threatening to coalesce into an uprising. Anand Patwardhan, India’s foremost documentary filmmaker, joins one such march to Una, the site of violence. His diaries bear witness to more instances of violence, resistance, state apathy and unattended carcasses.

Read the story here: elsevr.tv/caste-is-not-a-rumour/

Illustrations by Soumik Lahiri