ByDalits e-commerce portal launch set to promote Dalit fashion brands

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Aug 2, 2019

ByDalits, an e-commerce portal for fashion and lifestyle goods made by Dalit-owned businesses, is set to launch in a month to promote the growing industry.

Dalits rights activist and author Chandra Bhan Prasad will launch ByDalits online to create a community of Dalit-owned businesses across product categories including clothing, personal care, accessories, and later on, food items. Prasad aims to use the site to inspire Dalits entrepreneurship and encourage Dalits to buy products from fellow Dalits to uplift the caste as a whole, according to his website. 

The multi-brand e-commerce site will retail a number of established and up-and-coming Dalit-owned brands such as Devki Nandan Sone of Agra’s line of footwear. The footwear line already retails internationally in Germany and will be available across India through ByDalits. 

Another brand that will retail from the portal is Chamar Studios which makes bags, belts, and wallets from recycled rubber tyres. The brand, founded by Sudheer Rajbhar, works with teams of artisans who lost their jobs after the 2015 beef ban and uses their transferable skills to work with recycled rubber, cotton, and thick canvas. The workers receive half of the proceeds from the bags which are designed at Rajbhar’s home studio in Kandivali, which he intends to turn into a collaborative art space.

Prasad told India Today that he also aims to add coats for women to the site in the near future. "I want Dalit women to be confident and wear jackets and coats,” said Prasad. “Dalit women who did not have the right to wear a blouse will now wear coats."

Prasad’s clothing brand Zero Plus, which he launched in 2017, will also retail from the site. The brand specialises in western wear as a statement of rebellion against certain Hindu nationalist norms that often discriminate against them.