“Caste is a state of mind, it is a disease of the mind. The teachings of the Hindu religion are the root cause of this disease ”. – BR Ambedkar

Ambedkar’s iteration made in 1935 still continues till date as a state of mind, determinant of public policy and a pre-requisite for social interactions. Caste consciousness in India is so embedded that a Dalit groom in 2019 had to undergo six months of the legal trial to be able to ride a horse on his marriage without the fear of hostility from the upper – castes of the village. Progress and modernity stand as a mirage when it comes to caste in India.

Through the course of the article, the history of Dalit Movements will be traced since the colonial period and it’s interaction with the politics of caste after Independence and in the neoliberal era.

MEANING OF A DALIT IDENTITY :

Scheduled castes, Harijans and a host of words were used interchangeably for “untouchables” in the colonial period. Gopal Guru explores the “changing language of Dalit – Bahujan political discourse ” and shows how the term Dalit came into popular use by 1970’s as a critique of the term “Harijan”. This was a direct reflection of the growing autonomy of the Dalit identity and their conscious distancing from the patronising politics of the upper -castes. The term “Dalit” referred to those who have broken, ground down by those above them ”, in a deliberate way there is in the word itself a denial of pollution, karma and justified hierarchy.

HISTORY OF DYNAMICS OF DALIT MOVEMENT :

The ideologies of Dalit movements varied from time to time and leader to leader. Some resorted to Adi – Hindu movements considering Dalits as the original non – Hindu inhabitants. While others converted to Christianity, Sikhism and Buddhism. As a protest against Hinduism, some Dalit leaders found their own sects like Guru Ghasi Das. But the most profound aspect of the movement was the political strife of leaders like Phule, Periyar and Ambedkar.

JyotiRao Phule laid down the genesis of the term “Dalit” and was the first to raise the caste question from below. He considered Shudras as the original inhabitants of India. He founded the Sarvajanak Satya Dharma and said that India can become a nation only when caste is overcome. After this, EV Ramaswami founded the “ Self Respect Movement ” which strongly attacked the caste system. He campaigned for temple entry and atheism.

BR Ambedkar significantly championed the cause of Dalits, demanded political and social democracy both. He launched a series of protests from burning of Manusmriti to drinking water from prohibited tanks to conversion to Buddhism as a repudiation of Hindu religion. In the “Annihilation of Caste”, Ambedkar provided a searing critique of the “enlightened high caste social reformers ”who did not have the courage to agitate against caste system. He went on to achieve separate electorates for Dalits but was opposed by Gandhi and hence he had to settle with the Poona Pact which provided for reservation of seats for depressed classes out of general electorates set. Ambedkar also abolished the Khoti and Maharaki system ( a wage free hereditary service to caste Hindus in the local administration).

DALIT MOVEMENT IN POST – INDEPENDENCE PERIOD :

Caste became an important determinant in Indian politics but until the 1980s the Dalit question remained subsumed within the nationalist agenda of development. According to Sudipto Kaviraj, the mainstream elite political leadership took a clear position against giving the issue of caste any legitimate importance. But seeing this scenario, BR Ambedkar clearly opined in response to Nehru’s ambivalent attitude towards caste in the following words –

“ You cannot build anything on the foundation of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything you build upon the foundation of caste will crack and never be a whole”.

Ambedkar laid down the values of equality, liberty, fraternity in the Indian Constitution and also abolished untouchability. In his last years, he converted to Buddhism and resigned from the ministerial position when the Hindu Code Bill was rejected.

Later in 1957, the Republic Party of India was formed which described themselves as “Ambedkarites”. RPI was limited to Uttar Pradesh. This period was also marked by horrendous atrocities against Dalits. Violence against Dalits was infrasound in Khairlanji, Kawelwada, Dulina, Bhagana through burning, murdering and raping Dalit women without any fear of punishment. In the background of such brutal violence, the Dalit Panthers emerged in 1972 in Maharashtra. They borrowed the name from Black Panthers of the African-Americans. They fought over two battles – at the symbolic level against caste Hindu peasants who committed atrocities against Ati – Shudras. This movement was led by intellectuals, poets and writers like Namdeo Dhasal, Raja Dhale, JV Pawar and Arun Kamble whose “anti-establishment poetry ” published in magazines like “Vidrohi” gave powerful descriptions of the oppression of Dalits and their revolutionary struggle for change.

Another important juncture was marked by the emergence of caste associations. Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph looked at caste associations as agents of modernity in a traditional society like India. Rajni Kothari, in “Caste in Indian Politics” argued that the consequences of caste – politics interactions are just the reverse of what is stated. It is not politics that gets caste-ridden but it’s caste that gets politicised.

Further, the 1980s marked the emergence of the strongest post-independence Dalit organization under the tutelage of Kanshi Ram who founded BAMCEF. After this Kanshi Ram took a qualitative leap forward and founded the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) in 1981. He campaigned with highly impressive ten wings and catchy slogans. Within a span of three years, the DS4 was transformed into a full-fledged political party which now was known as the Bahujan Samaj Party launched on Ambedkar’s birthday in 1984. BSP tried to construct the Dalit – Shudra unity through his emphasis on the term “Bahujan”. According to Anand Teltumbde in “Republic of Caste”, Kanshi Ram’s comparison with Ambedkar can be misleading but it may surely be said that Kanshi Ram emerged as the strongest and most creative leader in the post – Ambedkarite Dalit Movement ”. Ambedkar statues were erected and Periyar Melas were organised. Along with this Periyar’s “Ramayana: A true reading “ was promoted which was banned since 1969 in Uttar Pradesh.

The Dalit movement was strengthened by the literary movement of Dalit writings by important scholars like Bama, Imaiyam, Alakiya, Periyaram, Punita Panthiyan, Kancha Illaiah.

The Dalit movement cannot be limited to any fixed time period. It is an ongoing revolution which shall continue till the annihilation of the caste system. The caste system has only manifested in different manners but carries in it the same hostile attitude towards the lower castes, hence the Dalit movement becomes all the more important in the contemporary times where human rights and development have been the discourses across nations.

THE NEED FOR A CONTINUING DALIT MOVEMENT IN THE NEO-LIBERAL ERA :

The myth of a free neo-liberal market that supporters of globalisation propound is inherently a flawed idea to remove caste. The “social – Darwinist ethos” required to survive in the neo-liberal simply would deny the weak and oppressed as they lack monetary and socio-cultural capital. The privileged castes favoured the “free market” offered by liberalisation reforms because it assured them their domination without any moral baggage. Many caste – Hindus could see India shining globally as a restoration of the ancient “Hindu” glory which was hitherto blocked by appeasing the “less – deserving”.
Another important task is to break the myth of economic development of the nation as directly beneficial to the Dalit community. Thorat Et Al (2012) provide empirical evidence on how in the neoliberal economy, caste discrimination in job applications is rampant and unceasing. Caste consciousness is still maintained by caste – profession linkages. Majority of policy work is still administered by Brahmins and Kshatriyas head the “ masculine armed forces”. Vaishyas have accumulated wealth through modern-day business. Scavenging, sanitation and filthy works are structurally relegated to Dalits. Prasad and Kamble make a path-breaking argument where they show that Dalit entrepreneurs tend to succeed in the modern sectors – buildings, tunnels, bridges etc. But these enterprises are an extension of the traditional (brick and mortar sector) in which Dalits have operated for ages.

Employment of Dalits in the field of journalism, judiciary and corporates is negligible. In this rapid modernisation period, mass media plays an important role and its bias can strongly determine how caste system actively prevails in contemporary India. BR Ambedkar said, “The untouchables have no press ”. In 2006, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) conducted a social survey of the profile of New Delhi’s media persons, almost 90% of the decision-makers in the English print media and 79% in television were to be found to be “upper-castes”. Brahmins alone constituted 49% of this segment and 71% of the total were “upper caste men”. The content of the news too is constructed in a manner so that it appeals to the elite middle class which tends to neglect caste as a problem.

Another major field where caste operates in clutches is the field of education. Shastric texts like Manusmriti banned almost 90% of people from education. Christian missionaries opened doors for education to the lower castes. But since Independence, the condition remains negligent. The neo-liberal argument for the privatisation of higher education is on the assumption that knowledge is not a public good. Privatisation of education significantly denies the fundamental right of a lot many “low-castes”. Recently, in the University of Delhi, a new system of reservation – the 13 point Roster Cut was implemented while keeping the department as the unit to employ professors. This reduced the seats starkly for the SC /ST categories. On the same lines, the government in 2019 passed the EWS Quota for the “Economically Weaker Section” belonging to the general category. This policy inherently has a caste angle to it and it dismantles the very idea of reservations which is based on social and educational backwardness.

Apart from reservation cuts in the already diminishing public funded educational institutions, certain chapters from NCERT textbooks on the issues of caste and peasants have been eliminated recently. Books by critical Dalit scholars like Kancha Illaiah too were ruled out from the post-graduate Political Science syllabus at the University of Delhi.

It’s important to bring in notice the much-hyped “Swach Bharat Abhiyan” to highlight an example of ironies and hypocrisy in public policy of India. This Abhiyan can never be successful without the annihilation of the caste system. It focuses only on the construction of toilets without laying down proper sewage system and their cleanliness is relegated to contractors who employ manual scavengers on petty salaries. A nationwide survey conducted in 2015 estimated that 52% of people in rural area still choose open defecation. What could be the reasons behind this despite having the resources to construct toilets? The answer lies in the idea of ritual purity with its locus in the household kitchen and shrine of gods as pure and hence unclean functions of defecation cannot happen under the same roof. The responsibility of cleaning the “polluted” is assigned to a particular caste. A caste – ethos is reflected in the behaviour of many Indians. As a part of campaigning the Swach Bharat Abhiyan, Modi visited the Valmiki Colony in Delhi, hence reinforcing the association between Valmikis and manual scavenging. Gandhi too, paternalistically dis the same when without speaking against the caste system, he displayed his “Mahatmahood” by living in the Bhangi Colony in 1946 according to Anand Teltumbde.

“Breaking up the caste system was not only to bring about inter-caste dinners and inter-caste marriages but to destroy the religious notions on which caste system was founded ”, Ambedkar rightly said. The caste system has strengthened its existence in fields of modernity. It is neither a thing of the past nor a system that operates only in the isolated, disconnected rural areas. The caste system is rigid in the sense that it creates monolithic blocks based on birth hence people cannot change it on their own but on the other hand it is fluid when it comes to the spread of caste system, it travels with the traveller across boundaries, cultures and classes. Annihilation of caste system requires a consideration of the multi-faceted mechanisms through which caste operates.

Author – Damni Kain

Image credit – PT