Internet as an alternative media for Dalits in India: Prospects and challenges

Internet has enormous power to bring social equality to the people neglected in the society. Internet has been widely used by the people living on the margin of the society as an alternative to the mainstream media.In India, Dalits comprise of more than 200 millions. But their socio, political and economic issues noticed by the mainstream media are miniscule in numbers. Thus, there is a need for the educated Dalit population to find an alternative media through which they can express and respond with outside world. In this scenario, internet has proved to be an avenue for educated Dalits. This paper analyses in detail about how internet platform such as Dalit websites, social media such as blogs are an alternative media to verbalize the issues of Dalits in India.This paper outlines the new opportunities for Dalits in the cyber space-online networks which accommodates the voice of the subaltern people and also maps the approaches of main stream media towards the issues of Dalits. The conceptual discussion on the issues has clearly exemplified the deplorable state of affairs of the coverage of Dalit issues by the mainstream media.