Dalit Dastak, founded in June 2012 by journalist Ashok Das (Ashok Kumar), is one of India’s leading media platforms dedicated to the voices of Dalit, Adivasi and other marginalized communities. What began as a monthly magazine has today transformed into a powerful digital presence—featuring a widely read news website and a YouTube channel with nearly 1.5 million subscribers, along with strong engagement across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Dalit Dastak is known for its bold, ground-based journalism. The platform exposes systemic caste discrimination, documents human rights issues, and highlights the lived experiences of marginalized communities that mainstream media often neglects. At the same time, it celebrates the achievements, leadership and cultural contributions of individuals from these communities.
Founder-editor Ashok Das is driven by a clear mission: to bring visibility to stories that remain hidden, ignored or deliberately excluded from national discourse.
In February 2020, Ashok Das was invited to speak at the world-renowned Harvard University, where he delivered a talk on “Caste and the Media” at the Harvard India Conference—an important global acknowledgement of his work.
In 2022, Dalit Dastak was selected for the Google News Initiative (GNI) funding program to strengthen and expand its journalism. That same year, it was chosen for the News Video Accelerator Program conducted by YouTube and Ping Digital Broadcast Pvt. Ltd. YouTube India also recognized Dalit Dastak as a verified news organization known for credible and accurate reporting. Earlier, in 2020, the platform received the Mooknayak Excellence in Journalism Award, presented by the U.S.-based organization ANNA.
In September 2023, founder and editor Ashok Das received a fellowship from the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) to attend the prestigious Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC) held in Gothenburg, Sweden—further solidifying Dalit Dastak’s place in international independent media.
Media Coverage of Dalit Dastak