Mumbai: Soundala village in Maharashtra’s Ahilyanagar district has declared itself “caste-free,” embracing the Constitution’s Preamble values of liberty, equality and fraternity as its guiding principle.
At a special Gram Sabha on February 5, sarpanch Sharadrao Argade kicked off proceedings with a voluntary blood donation camp. Addressing the gathered villagers afterwards, he said, “Our blood is not green or blue. It is simply red. And once it mixes, no one can ever separate it again.”
Confident from three terms engaging the community, Argade proposed the caste-free resolution, written in Marathi. “From now onwards, in Soundala village, no one will follow caste or indulge in any form of caste practices. Instead, humanity is the only religion that the villagers will follow,” it stated, with penalties for violations of constitutional norms.
Ahilyanagar, once Ahmednagar, carries a grim history of caste atrocities, honour killings—like a 17-year-old Dalit’s 2014 murder—and lingers on the “atrocity-prone” list. Argade acknowledged past cases under the Atrocities Act but noted their decline with rising social awareness. “Today, you will see people visiting each other’s houses, attending functions and standing by each other at the time of difficulty,” he said.
The move, partly spurred by protests over new UGC regulations diluting caste atrocity responses in universities, aims to counter divisive politics. “The ruling parties want to keep the nation divided along binaries – as Hindus and Muslims, as upper and lower castes. We are trying to address simply that at a very small, village level,” Argade explained, hoping to foster inter-caste and interfaith marriages.