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Thenmozhi Soundararajan wins Tamil Nadu’s Vaikom Award for social justice
The Dalit-American activist and Equality Labs director is being recognized for decades of anti-caste and feminist advocacy.
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Pranavi Sharma - Wed, 22, Oct 2025
- 22:20 EDT
- 38
Thenmozhi Soundararajan. / Dalitdiva.com
The Government of Tamil Nadu has announced that Indian-American Dalit activist and Equality Labs Executive Director Thenmozhi Soundararajan will receive this year’s Vaikom Award for Social Justice.
As Executive Director of Equality Labs, she leads one of the largest Dalit civil rights organizations in the United States. The group campaigns against caste discrimination, gender-based violence, and religious intolerance, with a focus on building solidarity across South Asian and global justice movements.
The award, instituted in 2023 in memory of Tamil social reformer Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, honors individuals or organizations working toward equality and anti-caste reform. It is named after the Vaikom Satyagraha, a historic civil rights protest in Kerala that fought for temple entry for oppressed castes.
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Soundararajan, co-founder of Equality Labs, has been a prominent voice in the Dalit feminist and anti-caste movements for more than two decades. In a statement following the announcement, she said she was “deeply honored to receive this award from the Government of Tamil Nadu, in the name and spirit of Periyar.”
“His legacy calls us to a simple, urgent truth: it is our duty to end discrimination—whether based on caste, gender, sexual orientation, or religion—wherever we encounter it,” she said.
She dedicated the award to the “courage, power, and vision of the Dravidian movement,” adding that the fight for equality would continue “until self-respect is not merely an ideal, but a lived reality for every person".
Soundararajan expressed gratitude to her family for instilling in her a sense of dignity and resistance. “They taught me that no one could take away our dignity. They raised me in the teachings of Periyar, Ambedkar, Jyotibai and Savitribai Phule,” she said.
She also accepted the award on behalf of Dalit women survivors and her team at Equality Labs. “We look forward to the day when each of us is free—because none of us is free until all of us are free from the violence of caste,” she said.
Soundararajan, a transmedia artist and theorist, has consistently linked her activism to cultural and digital storytelling. Her book 'The Trauma of Caste' applies a trauma-informed framework to Dalit feminism and collective healing, bridging Ambedkarite ideals with contemporary social justice practice.
The Tamil Nadu government is expected to confer the Vaikom Award at a ceremony later this year.
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