September 20, 1932
Rabindranath Tagore, recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature, began a campaign of resistance to practice of “untouchability” in then-British India. He penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits. (Dalit, meaning “oppressed” in Marathi, is the self-chosen political name of the castes who were formerly considered “untouchable” according to the Hindu varna system.)
