'They' are the 'lower' caste individuals who routinely face abuse and discrimination, most often in rural areas, where such incidents are readily dismissed or forgotten after some initial outrage. The 'we' are those of us who cluck our tongues in dismay each time we hear of a Dalit being abused or discriminated against, who write editorials in national and international dailies with headlines nonchalantly announcing "India still needs to deal with its caste problem", before going back to our lives. After all the stories of blatant injustice and discrimination within universities, within the judiciary, within workplaces were 'their' stories, not 'our stories' or those of the nation.
At least until one bright, young Dalit scholar pursuing a PhD in science technology and society studies talked about stardust and Carl Sagan in his suicide note – one he wrote as an outspoken protest against the the value of a man being "reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust."