The Invitation

With the continued rise of the multi-racial right, and specifically Hindutva politics and rhetoric in diasporan communities, we felt called to launch The Anti-Caste Collective, with the intention to build a community in Canada that is committed to interrogating, disrupting and dismantling systems of supremacy. A community where each person’s dignity, safety, and belonging needs matter.

Leena Sharma Seth (she/they) and Adeeta Aulakh( she/her), of Mending the Chasm, invite you to join this virtual five-session facilitated book club experience.

These sessions offer a space, specifically for caste-privileged members of the South Asian Community and Allies from other communities to learn about, interrogate, and to work together to identify, interrupt and end caste oppression in our communities, schools, institutions, and most importantly, our culture. All so that we can work to embody active Allyship with caste-oppressed communities.

To ensure that we are creating an intimate and accountable container for this work, we are limiting this to a maximum of 12 participants.

This experience is for you if you:

• Identify as someone who is caste-privileged or from the caste system and are ready to learn more about the history and impact of caste, for the purpose of building your anti-caste practice.
• Are passionate about practicing social justice that is inclusive and intersectional
• Identify as someone from outside of the caste systemand are working to be an Ally to those who are harmed by caste (white bodies, Black bodies, Indigenous bodies, Brown bodies etc.)

We are passionate about holding healing-centred space that empowers us to build deeper equity, inclusion, and belonging- abundant communities and cultures. We:

• Recognize that we are humble students on this journey and trying to do better work today than we did yesterday.
• Are working to have better conversations today than we did yesterday.
• Strive to cultivate deeper compassion for self and others

Community-building, community-healing and community transformation work can only happen in community and so this is where you come in.

About The Anti-Caste Collective

We are a community space dedicated to dismantling caste-based oppression through shared learning, dialogue, and action. Activities we organize include book clubs, guest speakers, community organizing, and facilitated dialogues.

The intention of this collective is to create opportunities for deep reflection and meaningful discussion, whether you’re personally impacted by caste oppression or working to become an Ally.

Our humble aim is to serve as a platform to build solidarity, inspire collective action, and drive transformative change. Grounded in a posture of accountability, the collective welcomes diverse voices and perspectives, emphasizing education, empathy, and justice.

The Book

We welcome emergence on this journey and our initial offering will focus on the book The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Mediation of Survivorship, Healing and Abolition by Thenmozhi (pronounced Then-mauri) Soundararajan, published in 2022.

Dalit American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder of Equality Labs, puts forth a call to awaken and act, not just for readers in South Asia, but all around the world. She ties Dalit oppression to fights for liberation among Black, Indigenous, Latinx, femme, and Queer communities, examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective—and laying bare the grief, trauma, rage, and stolen futures enacted by Brahminical patriarchy and social structures on the caste-oppressed.

Meet Your Hosts and Facilitators

L eena Sharma Seth (She/Her), Principal & Founder, Mending the Chasm

Leena is a settler who is cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, and a child of hindu, pnjabi (India), and brahmin immigrants. Leena brings a set of lived and intersectional experiences to her work as a facilitator, strategist, and process designer in the equity, justice, inclusion and belonging space. Leena’s practice is grounded in the belief that equity work is sacred and that healing, wholeness, and embodiment are critical to creating a just and inclusive present and future.

With over twenty years of experience in various leadership roles, both in Canada and in Asia, Leena has worked to advance equity in non-profit, consulting, education, philanthropy, and supplier diversity spaces.

Leena has a Masters in Conflict Analysis & Management from Royal Roads, achieved her Canadian Certified Inclusion Professional (CCIP) designation with the Canadian Centre for Diversity & Inclusion, has received her Pride at Work certification, completed the 4 Seasons of Reconciliation program via First Nations University, and completed an Embodied Social Justice Certificate with Transformative Programs (led by Rev. Angel Kyodo).

As a part of her personal commitment to this work, Leena has been working with fellow South Asians to examine tensions between the ways Brown bodies, caste-privileged bodies, and northern Indians are both privileged and impacted by systems of oppression, and also perpetuating anti-Black racism, and to work intentionally to disrupt anti-Black racism and to collectively heal from the harmful impacts of colonization, patriarchy and white supremacy.

Her work in community-building has been recognized by MP Karina Gould with the Sesquicentennial Citizenship award, the Women’s Centre of Halton – 150 Years of Exemplary Women award, and the 2021 Mayor’s Community Service Award, Burlington Chamber of Commerce.

Leena is raising two social justice warriors with her partner Sanjay and is proud to call Burlington, Ontario home.

Adeeta Aulakh (she/her), Associate, Mending the Chasm

Adeeta is a settler with West Indian and South Asian heritage, who is cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied. Adeeta is an Occupational Therapist, and worked clinically in the mental health field before moving to a career in local health systems planning. Her experiences as a Mental Health Therapist have developed her understanding and appreciation of the holistic nature of health and the impact of social determinants of health on individuals’ health and wellness. She brings an equity lens to her work and is dedicated to her own life long learning around equity, trauma and healing.

Adeeta has a Masters of Health Science in Health Administration from the University of Toronto and a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from the University of Toronto. She has completed numerous trainings to expand her clinical therapy skills and anti-oppression related training on anti-black racism, becoming gender affirming and Indigenous cultural safety training.

Adeeta is grateful to share space with others on their learning journey around caste, caste oppression, and Allyship as a facilitator of The Anti-Caste Collective series.

Session Flow

Each session will be two hours (2 hours) and the agenda will flow like this:

• Welcome & Land Acknowledgement
• Community Assumptions & Agreements
• Embodiment/Somatic Practice
• Opening Reflection
• Session Theme Discussion
• Closing Reflection

Below is a thematic overview of each of six the sessions.

Session 1, Wednesday, March 19th, 7pm – 9pm: Setting the Container for our Work Together

In this first session, we will spend time connecting, co-creating guidelines for engagement (we will share Mending the Chasm’s Community Assumptions and Agreements before-hand), sharing our respective why’s for this journey, and what we are working to be active commitments to in this work.

Session 2, Wednesday, April 9th, 7pm – 9pm: Meditation 1: The Existence of Caste

Together we’ll review the first section of the book and explore responses to set questions from the worksheet that Thenmozhi has so generously provided to help us better understand some of the ways we’ve each been socialized (consciously and subconsciously) around caste and the foundational stories we tell ourselves about caste and our place in the system.

Session 3, Wednesday, April 30, 7pm – 9pm: Meditation II: The Source of Caste

In this session we’ll explore the sources of caste in various faiths, including caste pyramids from different South Asian countries, and we’ll also explore Dalit Liberation Theology. We’ll use a set of guided questions to discuss insights that came up for each of us as we moved through this section.

Session 4, Wednesday, May 21st,7pm – 9pm: Meditation III: From Wounds to Liberation

In this session we’ll explore the impact of identities that intersect with caste, the disproportionate impact and harm caused by caste, and the ways caste oppression intersects with climate justice and many other movements for justice and equity. We’ll use a set of guided questions to hold space to hear from each other about the insights that came up for each of us as we read this section.

Session 5, Wednesday, June 11th, 7pm9pm: Meditation IV: The End of Caste and Closing the Container

In this session we’llmove through a set of questions to guide our discussion and consider what it means to fight for a world where choice and consent are every human’s birth right. What does it mean to end caste oppression? We’ll share reflections on the journey, consider the ways our thinking and practice around caste have shifted, discuss active commitments we’re making going forward, and close our container for this shared experience.

Registration and Cost

If you register before February 28th, the early bird rate for this seriesis $249 CDN.

March 1st, 2025 and on, the cost for this series is $299.00 CDN.

20% of every registration will go to SADAN – South Asian Dalit Adivasi Network of Canada.

We are committed to supporting barrier-free access to this experience, if you would like to access a sliding scale fee, please contact Anna at anna@mendingthechasm.ca.