Recently, twitter witnessed a wave of tweets on #ShoesForTheDM which was a counter-response of Dalits to the casteist remark of DM of Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh. [Though DM of Ballia apologized after Dalit’s protest on social media, it still shows casteist mindset of so-called upper castes.]

DM of Ballia mocked Dalit leader on his well-dressed appearance, his shoes, his clothes. why? Because they were not the one which was in the imagination of savarna DM. The well dressed Dalit was not normal for the savarna casteist DM.

Savarnas stereotyped Dalits as the one who is poor, illiterate, incapable, brutal, unhygienic. And when anyone breaks this stereotype, which means breaking the hegemony created by Brahmins they get offended. 

The Dalit in the imagination of savarnas is the best example of ‘How hegemony is created?’

Hegemony the concept given by Gramsci is a system of the class alliance in which a ‘Hegemonic class’ exercise the political leadership over ‘subaltern class’ by ‘winning them over’.

What does it mean winning them over?

It means that the dominant class creates the web of belief and institutional as well as ‘social relation’ which are projected as acceptable to all part of society. The institution of civil society like school, family, church, temples and other primary groups plays a leading role in creating consent. (consent-based on ignorance)

I believe that Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony is the best way to describe ‘How Brahmins hold the superior position in the Varna system.’ 

Varna system is the prime character of the Hindu religion which states about the 4 varnas which are based on the birth and not on the worth.

The four varnas are believed to be emerged out of different body parts of Hindu god The Brahma. the 4 varnas are Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaishya and  Shudra. The bottom-most strata of this system are ‘The Untouchables’ who are not part of this varna system because they did not emerge out of any body part of Brahma. In the varna system, the Brahmins hold the superior position as prescribed by Brahminic books. 

What was the basis of regarding Brahmins as the superior over the others?

The answer lies in the concept of hegemony given by Gramsci and the idea of ‘purity and pollution’. The Brahmins created a wave of ignorance by running the propaganda based on religion. On the basis of fear of religion and status of exclusivity, Brahmins got the consent of other strata. To strengthen their hegemony, Brahmins further started emphasizing on ‘How other varnas are not capable of holding the top position to strengthen their hegemony. The idea of ‘purity and pollution’ was an example of the justification of the caste system. 

According to the idea of ‘purity and pollution,’ the purest is God and then comes the Brahmins. we can find many instances in which Hegemony of Brahmins had been challenged by Kshatriyas. 

Another example of how Brahmins tried to hold their hegemony is at the time when Buddhism was able to establish itself at the cost of Brahmins, the Brahmins attempted to regain their lost political status by incorporating many traditions of Buddhism in Hinduism.

According to Babasaheb, ‘Beef’ was not prohibited in the initial form of Hinduism. It was Buddhist who advocated the non-violence and opposed eating animal meat.

Another example of creating Brahminic hegemony is their efforts for getting the ‘status of exclusivity’.

Brahmins started the process of endogamy which means ‘purity of blood’. The concept of ‘purity and pollution’ was the weapon of Brahmins to get the status of exclusivity over the Bahujans.

The ‘purity and pollution’, vegetarianism was the symbols of exclusivity. The other castes too started imitating Brahmins to gain the status of exclusivity. This is why we call Brahminism as a mindset.

Babasaheb in his ‘Annihilation of caste’ talks about ways of destroying Brahminism/caste system. He talks about exogamy (INTER CASTE MARRIAGE) as a counter to endogamy. He believed that neither education nor economic empowerment (here we can understand the basic difference in thoughts of Ambedkar and Marx’s concept of superstructure) can give the life of dignity to ‘The Untouchables’, it is the alteration of a social order based on caste system which can do so. Babasaheb kept on emphasizing on raising consciousness among Dalits.

Now we are returning to the incidence with which we started our discussion.

The DM of Ballia represents the Brahmanical mindset of ‘purity and pollution’ to justify his casteist remark (passive untouchability). This racist remark of DM gives pieces of evidence of efforts of Brahmins in preventing their hegemony to break. They want Dalits to be how they are stereotyped by the Brahmin mindset. They want Dalits to be ignorant, to be subjugated under the social hierarchy dominated by Brahmins. 

What does Babasahab’s suit mean to Dalits?

I never came across the picture of Babasaheb in which he was not well dressed or not in a suit. 

What does well dressed Dalit mean?

While Gandhi or other leaders of Ambedkar’s time were wearing or promoting Dhoti or ‘chaddi’ (RSS), Ambedkar wore suit and tie, giving an important message of leadership. Babasaheb also wanted his Dalit brethren to shun dirty jobs and start going to schools hence well-dressed Ambedkar was a role model for them.

Well-dressed Dalit represents the person who is conscious and works with the reasons. Reasons mean the ability to think and take decisions based on rationality. Well-dressed Dalit represents a person who is not struggling, manual scavenger, beggar, etc. Even well dressed Dalits icons’ statues give Dalits educational, political, and social ambitions.

Even various social experiments have shown that just wearing suits and ties give a new outlook toward the people who are wearing those, i.e. others look at that person completely differently. It also represents confidence, authority and influence, hence the reason why people wear suits and ties when going to white-colour job interviews. 

Well-dressed Dalit represents new Dalit who is not in the veil of ignorance, is educated, is aware of his identity and proud of being.

While you can still read the news that Dalits being killed for wearing clothes to riding horse, wearing nice clothes also represent a fight against the varna system that never allowed so-called lower castes to wear nice clothes and acquire any wealth.

You can say, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s suit means a lot to Dalits, representing their hopes and dreams to achieve greatness.

Author – Akash Ghodeswar