ABSTRACT
Globalisation is the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice-versa. In a recent work, Manisha Desai defined transnationalism as both organising across national borders as well as framing local, national, regional, and global activism in transnational discourses. In relation to the raising of Dalit issues transnationally, the 2001 UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in Durban was significant as the new dalit movement achieved a real breakthrough at home, while also consolidating its position internationally. The virtual invisibility of Dalit women led Vimal Thorat to assert in 2001 that both the Dalit movement and women's movement have consciously ignored the Dalit women's issue. From being organised and legitimated by nation-state belonging, citizenship is shifting toward a post-national concept that is legitimated by deterritorialised universal principles of human rights and personhood, enforced by international organisations.
