Savarnas often ask ‘would you go for treatment from a doctor who got medical seat using reservation?’ The whole narrative rests on testimonial injustice where the expertise of a DBA individual is discarded, despite having the degree and experience. Interestingly this argument will never be used for doctors who used EWS reservation or even paid management seats. The use of ‘Merit’ against reservation to undermine the intellect and capabilities of DBA community is the most popular example of epistemic injustice done on the community.

When knowledge becomes an exclusive product under savarna domination, it creates an unjust system of power hierarchy where knowledge produced and communicated by DBA communities are either discarded or delegitimized without a second thought. The injustice done to a person in their capacity as a knower (producer and communicator of knowledge) is called Epistemic Injustice. This is a concept in social epistemology that refers to the unfair distribution of knowledge, credibility, or intellectual resources when someone is denied access to knowledge or is not believed, despite having relevant knowledge or expertise, because of their social identity, such as their race, caste, gender, class, or disability. The term was coined by a British philosopher, Miranda Fricker.

Hermeneutical injustice operates in caste through the lack of available language or conceptual frameworks to describe and articulate the experiences of people from DBA communities. Dominant cultural narratives and discourses do not have adequate means to capture their experiences and this makes it difficult for them to express themselves or be understood by others. Also, most of the scholarship on caste oppression is mostly written by the oppressor castes with a savarna gaze that portrays the oppression in a completely different light. The knowledge and cultural practices of oppressors are always considered classical, and the cultural and artistic products of DBA are relegated to the bottom. The discomfort and suffocation that a DBA individual feels when they enter savarna dominated spaces like academia or media is mainly due to the erasure of identity and cultural shock they experience by not being able to connect or articulate in the language or assimilate into the culture of savarnas. The way to battle hermeneutical injustice is by questioning the language, culture and scholarship created by savarnas, and expanding the vocabulary to be able articulate the experiences of DBA by more inclusion of marginalized groups into academia, media, journalism, law etc.

The fight by LGBTQ+ communities has led to understanding the current limitations of language in understanding and describing gender. Language has been used to suppress the spectrum of gender and sexuality, and has been instrumental in imposition of strict heteronormative gender binary. The lack of equivalent words of ‘pativrata’ for men in Indian languages shows the patriarchal nature of language where only women are supposed to be devoted to men.

Addressing epistemic injustice involves recognizing the ways in which different forms of social identity can impact the distribution of knowledge and resources, and taking steps to ensure that everyone has equal access to knowledge and is treated with equal respect and consideration. It requires challenging the structural inequalities and biases that contribute to these forms of injustice, and working to create more inclusive and equitable systems of education, knowledge production, and cultural representation.

The moment when a DBA candidate steps into an educational space, the additional scrutiny they go through and the doubts casted on their ‘merit’ by savarnas is a case of testimonial injustice. The recent surveys from IIT Bombay SC/ST cell shows that DBA students are excluded from participating in group discussions, and their views are discarded by savarna peers. The blatant disrespect to one’s ideas and opinions by others can affect the self-respect of an individual and harm their mental peace. DBA students are subjected to this epistemic violence by savarna students and faculties to destroy their confidence. Testimonial injustice happens in interviews, where savarna faculties does not believe that DBA candidates can produce quality research.