Author of the book – Anand Teltumbde
Reviewed by – Kabir Dev

On the 24th of August, 2019 Arun Jaitley a Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart passed away at AIIMS after suffering from a prolonged illness. On the day of his demise, twitter was rife with offensive comments regarding the cause behind Jaitley’s death. An army of trolls primarily belonging to the BJP or ideologically inclined towards the ruling dispensation started spreading canards that it was a lower caste doctor that had primarily operated on the former finance minister which led to his untimely demise since the doctor in question wasn’t equipped to be a doctor owing possibly to the fact that he became a doctor owing to the system of reservations. The debate over reservations in India has been extremely polemical which has ignited passions on both camps, however, owing to the fundamentally and inherently skewed power dynamics between the two camps, i.e. the group advocating for reservations who constitute primarily the historically marginalized and disadvantaged and on the other hand the second group dissuading against the concept of reservations is of the purportedly advantaged and well off groups. This skewed status quo has led to the group against reservations consistently spreading vitriol and bile against the benefactors and even advocates for reservation. Often such blatant bigotry goes unnoticed in India primarily because it has become extremely normalized. The animosity towards the concept of reservations and the primary benefactors of reservation has exacerbated drastically after the rise of the Hindutva elements in India who have often insidiously and covertly been opposed to reservations. The attacks on Dalits and other marginalized minorities has reached a crescendo with the first six years of the Modi government it is imperative to understand the roots of this ideology along with the neoliberal agenda that has consistently been trying to disenfranchise and exploit marginalized groups through various means. 

Republic of Caste: Thinking Equality in the time of Liberal Hindutva by Anand Teltumbde attempts to throw light on the debate around reservations, how fundamentally discriminatory the Indian system is towards marginalized communities, the rising twin threat of Hindutva and more neoliberal policies which will further act towards exploiting and marginalizing the historically oppressed in India. Anand Teltumbde is a well known civil rights activist as well as a scholar who was written vociferously on Dalit rights and concerns. Professionally, he teaches at the Goa Institute of Management but as this review was being written was arrested in a deplorable manner by the Maharashtrian Police in connection with his purported role in the violence surrounding the Bhima Koregaon event in 2018. Through this extremely relevant and at the same time highly polemical work ‘Republic of Caste’, Teltumbde passionately makes a case for how India has failed on an extremely integral ideal enshrined in even the preamble of the Indian Constitution, i.e. Equality with regards the despicable state of marginalized groups in the country. In his searing analysis, Teltumbde spares no one in his disdain for their specific roles in letting down India’s marginalized groups from Mahatma Gandhi, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati to even Arvind Kejriwal as well as the Indian Left. He calls out the innate hypocrisies in some, the immense and glaring drawbacks in others approaches and the fundamentally ideologically flawed nature in dealing with the caste in others. Apart from castigating political icons and ideologies for letting India’s Dalits and other marginalized communities down, he presents the case for how insidious neoliberal designs have further exploited and marginalized the already marginalized. He presents a relentless takedown of state policies vis a vis education to hygiene and health in the form of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Even so-called Ambedkarites are not spared the wrath of his attack with regards to their doublespeak and glaring hypocrisies which have let down the Dalit cause further. While finally, his analysis with regards to the state resorting to manufacturing Maoists in order to construct a fictional enemy and subsequently arbitrarily incarcerating them often under inhuman circumstances this comes from a personal and often ironic standpoint too. He gives examples of Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Fereira, G.N. Saibaba, among others and their extremely unfair treatment by the state. Wherein Hindutva personalities ideologically inclined to the ruling dispensation like Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide are let off despite being the prime accused in the violence emanating after the Bhima Koregaon event.  

Read also – Book Review – I Could Not Be Hindu – A Story of Dalit in the RSS

Teltumbde begins with purportedly the most talked-about issue with regards to caste in India, which is the concept of reservations. As he himself claims “A conversation about caste in urban India more often than not ends up being about reservations.” He traverses the historical origins for the demands for reservation emanating during the colonial period primarily beginning with the example of Shahu Maharaj, the king of Kolhapur in Western India who pioneered the concept of reservation but himself was ironically discriminatory towards the untouchables thus showcasing the prevalence even then of oppressed communities bafflingly being biased towards communities that were further oppressed/marginalized than their own. Teltumbde reserves some of his harshest remarks for the Mahatma on his stand with regards to the Poona Pact through which in the author’s words extorted and blackmailed Babasaheb Amedbkar into accepting his demands. Teltumbde believes that the concept of separate electorates could have benefitted the cause of Dalits greatly and would’ve resulted in their massive emancipation by being in a sense alienated from the rest of the communities. He makes the claim that the Indian state further let the case for Scheduled Castes down by creating a parallel schedule with regards to reservations for Scheduled Castes as well as Scheduled Tribes which would have resulted in the complete annihilation of caste, but the state decided to keep two separate quotas which highlighted their caste identity instead reinforcing the stigma surrounding their caste. While the author in the same breadth makes a blatantly hypocritical statement about Pandit Nehru wherein he states that by designating the term Other Backward classes, Nehru was trying to distance himself from caste because he was ignorant or indifferent to the circumstances surrounding caste. This is highly hypocritical because when a liberal, modernist and extremely sensitive towards the plight of marginalized communities statesman like Pandit Nehru tries to dissociate the issue of caste in order to annihilate it or if he tries to give their struggle a specific individual identity he is amplifying it and reinforcing stigma. Through such partisan writing, the author comes off as a bit biased.

Further on the author highlights how reservations have made SC, ST and OBC communities seem in debt towards the upper castes for their benign and magnanimity since the marginalized have been given so to say ‘special provisions’ in the form of reservations. He examines how, despite through years of reservation for Scheduled castes, their plight hasn’t significantly improved since the graduating percentage section for the scheduled castes is still significantly less than the proportion for the general community. He presents further statistics and facts to drive his point home. The unfortunate pandering state of mind of the ruling classes with regards to vote banks has resulted in quotas and reservations for even historically well off communities like the Marathas, Patidars, Jats among others which have diluted the very rationale behind reservations. Although he presents a relatively well rounded and balanced argument apart from a few stray partisan remarks what would have made this section more objective through the factoring in of the point of view of even well-meaning personalities opposed to reservations such as Arun Shourie through his seminal and groundbreaking book “Falling Over Backwards” or Pandit Nehru when in letters to various chief ministers he claimed that reservations would be a bane for India comprehensively, not all criticism and adversity to reservations stem from an inherently “Manuwadi or Casteist” mindset, hence what is needed is more interaction between all sides of the debate which will result in a more holistic and accommodative framework for the future. 

In the next segment, Teltumbde derides the Indian left for it is an incredibly flawed understanding of the idea of caste in India which resulted in the Left movement never really gaining patronage from the marginalized groups in the country. By placing the issue of caste into the notion of the superstructure, which will automatically evaporate once the class consciousness arises and the economic base is changed with the revolution. Owing to the primarily Brahmin dominated leadership of the left over the years there has been inherently an indifference and an extremely naive approach towards the notion of caste. He calls out the failure of the Indian left as well as the Ambedkarites by primarily being placed in opposition to one another. Ambedkar definitely had problems with Marxism and the Indian left, but that did not necessarily imply that he was opposed to the left altogether. “The communist attitude towards the anti-caste movement was one of arrogant dismissal because it was unscientific, as well as resentment since they perceived it was dividing their ‘proletariat’.” Due to this animosity and scepticism towards one and other this has resulted in two groups which should ideally have been speaking in turn for each other since they have several common grounds, defeating their own purpose by being opposed to each other. Since the Indian left has been primarily obsessed with the class conditions plaguing India with regards to workers rights and exploitation on various levels it has neglected the marginalized communities who have been historically discriminated against based on caste. Although an extremely appropriate and succinct analysis, it again fails to look at the flip side wherein the Indian left has in some cases benefited the cause of Indian minorities, i.e. specifically the Dalits. Instances would include with regards to significantly empowering them to stand up against the atrocities being inflicted upon them in places like Bihar, especially when militant upper caste groups like the Ranvir Sena were gaining mileage. The Indian left has not wholly been in a vacuum when it comes to the cause of Dalits and other minorities hence making blanket claims ultimately defeats the otherwise seminal and groundbreaking nature of Teltumbde’s work. 

Subsequently, Teltumbde moves on to the nature of the Ambedakrite lineage from the Dalit Panthers to the Republican Party of India. He calls out those myopic individuals who have defeated the cause and ideology that Dr Ambedkar stood for all his life from taking an unequivocal stand against Brahminism and calling out Hindu majoritarianism to being unhesitatingly against deification and hero worship. Although with people like Ramdas Athwale essentially straying from the principles laid out by Ambedkar by fraternizing with every different political strand in order to maintain at least a semblance or facade of acquiring and maintaining power. Ambedkarites have neglected the integral aspect of persevering and struggling in order to voice the concerns of Dalits. Teltumbde calls out the many Ambedkarite factions for eventually ending up being inconsequential and not doing enough for the cause of Dalits. In his own words “Even after Ambedkar being dead, the various Ambedkarisims of the Ambedkarites continue to thrive, neglecting and hurrying past the Dalit masses engulfed in misery.” Building on the denigration of the innumerable Ambedkarite factions in another section, Teltumbde analyses the impact of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati through their political vehicle, the Bahujan Samaj Party. Despite starting on an extremely promising note by encapsulating not just the Dalits but also other marginalized groups which comprised of the Bahujan classes into a formidable vote bank. This resulted in Kanshi Ram and his party gaining prestigious status among the eyes of the electorate as a viable alternative to the Congress, BJP and others. However, owing to various compulsions and machinations, the BSP fell way to the tried and tested path of opportunistic political manoeuvres by allying with the BJP on various occasions and redacting on its earlier planks of being anti-communal with offensive comments on the Gujarat Riots vindicating the role of the Gujarat CM at the time. Mayawati has been severely chastised for indulging in incessant displays of fury, eventually signifying nothing with regards to building inconsequential statues, parks, monuments among others. These steps were contrary to the principles Ambedkar had laid out in terms of not resorting to hero-worship and deification however the author arguably upholds these as being assertive and bold steps which ended up acting as confidence boosters for Dalits. The investigations and criticisms levelled against the opulent gestures of Mayawati are, with one fine stroke labelled as being elitist and symptomatic of upper-caste privilege. The author seems to allude to the fact that these gestures were carried out to empower the Dalit community altogether. However, bafflingly he calls out similar measures that other politicians indulge in with regards to self-aggrandizement.

The author brings to the light the various caste-related atrocities across the country that have not been highlighted enough in mainstream media outlets. Teltumbde claims quite correctly to a large extent that the reason why the Nirbhaya case gained widespread condemnation and indignation was that it was an upper caste, upper class and along with the fact that the gruesome and heinous incident had happened in the capital. Otherwise, extremely gruesome incidents in Kharilanji, Kawlewada and Dulina have rarely made it to front-page news or ignited outrage among the middle classes as the Nirbhaya case did. This is further symptomatic of the monopoly over news coverage of the upper castes which ends up impacting to a large extent the kind of news that gets published and propagated. The author highlights the stark rise in the number of atrocities inflicted upon minority communities ever since the Hindu right-wing dispensation spearheaded by Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. He tries to draw parallels between the Una atrocity wherein Dalits faced the brunt of Hindutva extremists and the case of Mohammad Akhlaq wherein Akhlaq represents a significant number of Muslims like himself who have faced the brunt of Hindutva extremists aided and abetted by the ruling dispensation. Both these incidents arose from a false sense of adoration and deification for the cow, the discourse and narrative around which has consistently been hijacked by the Hindu right-wing forces over the years to suppress and marginalize the already marginalized, i.e. Dalits and Muslims for instance. Although, with the Una incident, there was a violent backlash with the rise of Dalit protests and figures like Chandrashekar Azad and Jignesh Mewani, among others. There has been a considerable amount of opposition from the Dalit community over the years which has threatened to dismantle the carefully designed facade of Hindu unity by the RSS and its affiliates. Also since over the years, it has been primarily lower castes that have converted to Islam and other religions in order to escape from the oppressive, Brahmanical and manuwadi exploitation ingrained in Hinduism. This notion of conversions to a more egalitarian set up like Islam further exacerbated the concerns of the Hindu right-wing against both lower castes and Muslims. The backlash from the Dalits represents a much broader concern of marginalized groups like Dalits and Muslims coming together in order to strike back against the incessant marginalization they have faced over the years. Building on this concern, the author devotes a portion over the blatant appropriation and co-option of Ambedkar by the Sangh Parivar over the years. From selectively taking statements out of context to portray Ambedkar as being inherently against Muslims and Communists in order to build a narrative that Ambedkar was cosy with Hindutva ideology. On the contrary, Ambedkar was ultimately against Hindutva majoritarianism; he despised Hinduism for its despicable treatment of the marginalized communities like the Dalits hence his co-option comes as a massive shock from the very forces that he was staunchly against all his life. As Teltumbde puts it “By inducting Ambedkar into its pantheon, the Parivar has been disfiguring Ambedkar even as it appropriates him.”

The author eventually goes on to highlight the fundamentally flawed nature of the States policies be it in the sphere of hygiene, education, or economy, etc. Beginning with the enactment of neoliberal reforms over the years since the 1990s, the predicament of Dalits and other minorities has not improved in proportion to the increase for other upper caste communities. Hence the notion that economic reforms will improve the conditions for lower castes does not stand the test of ground. The author also calls out the middle-class mentality that has over the years manufactured as such to be extraordinarily skewed and myopic. Examples of this would be that on the one hand, the middle classes call out the sops and benefits given out to the oppressed and marginalized groups in the country with regards to farm loan waivers, reservations but when it comes to essentially crony capitalist measures in terms of subsidies for the ultra-rich, indefinite bank loans, corporate tax concessions among others this culture needs to drastically change in order for India to progress the author states. With regards to the much-vaunted Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Teltumbde calls out the flawed understanding of caste, hygiene and accessibility through the objectives of the scheme. When till date scores of Dalits and other oppressed community members still engage in the inhumane practise of manual scavenging the mere building of toilets will not help since it is the cultural psyche of the average Indian male that needs to be radically transformed. He draws parallels between similarly developing countries like Bangladesh that despite having similar indicators on health, poverty and other indexes continue to have a drastically lower proportion of open defecation. The approach of Narendra Modi is eerily similar or is modelled on the approach of Mahatma Gandhi wherein he claims that the draconian nature of manual scavenging is a divine job wherein Dalits are doing god’s work by manually cleaning human excreta. This flawed understanding of caste comes from an extremely privileged and patronizing understanding of the machinations of caste. Teltumdbe claims that caste altogether needs to be annihilated in order for the grand optimistic scheme of Swachh Bharat to succeed. Teltumbde finally speaks about the failure of the Indian education sector wherein apart from a few stray examples like the Delhi government’s handling of public sector education which has resulted in a massive overhaul of the way education is perceived through the eyes of the government. Otherwise, the record in terms of literacy and educating children has been exceptionally dismal, which has resulted in a considerable amount of children being left behind in terms of better opportunities and avenues to progress. 

The final segment includes a segment on the Indian National Congress and its approach vis a vis caste which has, according to the author, has historically wronged the Dalit community. However, his approach again in terms of his analysis of Congress seems highly partisan and non-objective. When he calls out Rahul Gandhi for acknowledging his Hindu ness and wearing it on his sleeve as pandering to Hindutva elements its an extremely blanket statement. By passively acknowledging one’s Hinduness without resorting to minority bashing or exclusionary tactics this is merely an example of true Hinduness. If the actions of Mayawati vis a vis building inconsequential and opulent structures are examples of ways to empower Dalits for the author as a way of fixing the system from within by acting like it, then Mr Gandhi’s actions can also be a similar example wherein he aims to cleanse the communal and bigoted elements of Indian polity by procuring widespread patronage by going on the trodden path but eventually after achieving power cleansing the system from within. When women like Ramya Haridas a young Dalit lady from Kerala gets elected on a Congress ticket from Kerala, it truly is a revolutionary step which results in true empowerment of Dalits across the country. Mr Gandhi has continuously had the best interests of the marginalized groups at heart which is reflected in the handpicked candidates like Ramya Haridas that he has nurtured over the years in order to be catapulted into wider national fame and represent the causes of marginalized groups better. 

Correction * The author states that the Aam Aadmi Party was the single largest party in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections, but this is not factually correct since it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that emerged as the single largest party. 

The portions that immediately stood out and changed my perspective drastically were with regards to the Saffronisation of Ambedkar and Manufacturing Maoists. While in the segment on the RSS’s appropriation of Ambedkar brings to light several fresh perspectives backed with historical grounds and precedence which will change the way one looks at the Prime Minister or any other RSS functionary when he talks about Ambedkar. The issue of caste discrimination in the RSS has been in the limelight once again after Bhanwar Meghwanshi’s book ‘I Could Not Be Hindu’ was released. In the book Meghwanshi, a former RSS functionary talks about the discrimination he had to face within the RSS primarily because he was a Dalit. Coupled with ‘Republic of Caste’ these two books are required reading to understand the modus operandi of the RSS and its affiliates has been and will be with regards to Ambedkar and Dalits on the whole. At the same time, the second segment that immediately struck a chord was the portion on Manufacturing Maoists. Owing to the personal nature of this section due to Teltumbde’s incarceration due to his purported role in the Bhima Koregaon violence this portion presents an extremely different facet on the Indian State’s handling of dissent and gross violations of human rights.

Human rights violations via the State have been prevalent since time immemorial in the country. However, they have certainly exacerbated and reached new heights with the Hindutva dispensation coming to power in 2014. With the blatant labelling of any kind of dissent as Anti Nationals, Maoists and the new lexicon “Urban Naxal it has become effortless to muffle dissent by slapping draconian charges under UAPA and other archaic laws. He presents a searing critique of the State who has arbitrarily committed gross human rights violations against Adivasi populations, Kashmiris, North Easterners and civil rights activists, among others. With books like “Colours of the Cage” by Arun Fereira detailing the gruesome torture techniques applied against prisoners with charges of sedition and Maoism. It points to a much wider malaise which in Teltumbde’s own words is due to the “The Police who abuse and insult the poor, beat and torture them, molest and rape women, indulge in forgery and lies and foist false cases on innocents to cover up their misdeeds are the main catalysts in manufacturing Maoists. Politicians who promote police criminality and endanger democracy are the real internal security threat to our country.” The author also presents a new analysis of the Indian education system with specific regards to the abysmal nature of State-sponsored education which has arguably failed to reach the underprivileged sections of society. It has also arguably failed to cultivate talented individuals owing to inefficient teaching standards, dismal infrastructure, among other things. Although, in his section on the Aam Aadmi Party he lauds the efforts of Arvind Kejriwal in the sphere of education during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Delhi. The author ends on a hopeful and optimistic note with regards to the State of education stating that more and more states along with the centre altogether need to pull their socks up and follow the Delhi model to improve the State of education in India on the whole.

Hence, although a genuinely polemical and groundbreaking work Republic of Caste acts as an engaging and informative read although could have been more objective. Which could have been done by factoring in the arguments of scholars on the other side of the spectrum and engaging with their arguments. Also by, Presenting all facets of a picture when talking about ambiguous things like the role of Congress, the Left vis a vis the Dalit community and the well-meaning scholarly arguments against the system of reservations in India.