Yashica Dutt


Yashica Dutt is an Indian writer and journalist, who currently lives in New York City. Yashica has written on a broad range of topics including fashion, gender, identity, culture and caste. She was previously working as a Principal Correspondent with Brunch, Hindustan Times in New Delhi. She also worked with The Asian Age.

Early life and education

Yashica was born in a Valmiki family in Ajmer, Rajasthan on 5 February 1986. Her mother's name is Shashi Dutt. She completed her graduation in B.Sc from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 2007. Yashica completed her Master's degree in Arts and Culture Journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2015.

Career

As a freelance journalist, Yashica has worked with Hindustan Times, LiveMint, Scroll.in, The Wire and HuffPost India. During her stint at the Hindustan Times, she initiated the social media activities for Brunch, the Sunday magazine of Hindustan Times. Yashica writes on Dalit related social issues and is the founder of dalitdiscrimination.tumblr.com, a Tumblr blog portal. Yashica has reported from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Turkey and Hungary.

Book

Coming Out as Dalit is Yashica book published by Aleph Book Company. It is her memoir about growing up in a Dalit family. In the book, she describes how she felt compelled to hide her caste and pretend to be of another caste, all along terrified of her true identity being found out. Her decision to end the pretense of being an upper caste woman was triggered by Dalit student Rohith Vemula's last letter, which was made public following his suicide. The book details her journey of coming to terms with her true identity. The book is a social commentary woven with personal experiences.