Blogging and Ambedkar’s Idea of Freedom of Speech

Media and technology in every age has influenced the way people think and understand the life around. The invention of printing press had changed the view of literature forever. Similarly, the introduction of television had popularized mass culture. New Media and Communication Technology has ushered in a new era of interactive media in which the restrictions earlier placed on the masses to simply accept and passively consume the text, are challenged. For Dalits, a marginalized community of India, it has brought in an opportunity to discover their voice. The community, hitherto called voiceless is able to find a voice of its own through blogging, micro-blogging and social media networks. A number of researchers are trying to address this recent development in the field of Dalit activism. This paper attempts to relate the interactive, open and free space of blogosphere as a reflection of Ambedkar’s idea of freedom of speech. It seeks to evaluate whether this platform, with McLuhanian promise, can be called a counter-hegemonic public sphere of Dalits.