Author – Dr Jas Simran Kehal

My dear oppressed brethren. Oppressed since centuries, why not take motivation from the ‘Black Lives Matter’ and make the world take notice of the Dalit’s plight and acknowledge that our lives also matter?

As we all know that ‘Black Lives Matter’ revolution has been ignited once again by the brutal murder of African-American George Floyd by a White police officer. A similar incident of a black man, Jacob Blake, being shot seven times in the back by a Wisconsin police officer and followed up by a white, 17 years old police admirer, shooting two people during protests that erupted upon Blake’s racial shooting. On the same lines, it’s high time that a caste revolution which has been pending from hundreds of years gets going.

The California lawsuit against network giant Cisco is a glaring example of how tentacles of caste have not even spared the most advanced country of the globe. Just like Black Codes and Jim Crows law segregated public spaces in the US based on race, Manusmriti-as a moral code-rendered us as second-grade citizens thousands of years ago. On the basis of these rulebooks, African-Americans in the US and the Dalits in the Indian subcontinent have been exploited for gratis labour and forced to take up hard menial work with less than subsistence wages.

Caste is an inveterate bias that has robbed our countrymen off basic moral values. National Crime Records Bureau shows that crimes against Dalits rose from around 33,000 to about 40,000 in four years with a consistent 6% increase in cases per year. And it’s a gross undercount. Going by this caste-based crime data, in the coming years, we are all staring at an abysmally high transgression into our lives and even our death. Casteism has not only denied us a respectable life but also many times declined an honourable end by refusing last rites.

If Floyd’s murder has catalysed the world against racism, our country reports caste-based confrontations and atrocities including murders on a daily basis. It’s either that we don’t have the guts to stand against them at a united forum, or we take it as a routine in our miserable lives. Or rather we expect the so-called upper castes or the oppressors to somehow act someday to end this selectivity based on birth. It’s barking up to the wrong tree. These are the same upper castes that could not guard our nation’s boundaries and conceded us first to Mughal invaders and then to the British.

A Bollywood actress from Himachal Pradesh generates a national outcry at the suicide of an actor whom she claims to have never met in spite of working in the same industry. This is the bonding of a Himachali Rajput with that of a Bihari one and this upper-caste-connect traverses inter-state as well as international boundaries. In contrast, division and subdivisions among the lower castes have been inherited by caste-codes since centuries and recently reiterated by a Supreme Court judgement which empowers states to enforce sub-castes based quota within quota. This nemesis renders us divided even if we are neighbours suffering together living in the same ghetto, what to dream about interstate or international bonding.

We are manual scavengers, we are agricultural tillers, we are beef workers, we are construction labour, we are housekeepers, and we are sewer cleaners or municipality sweepers. The caste system imposed on us has forced us to do all the menial jobs but, in fact, we are the real nation builders. For how many more centuries can still we remain neglected and discriminated? The sooner we stand-up, the stronger are our society. The stronger our society, the better will be our nation. So, if we dream for a better future, caste bias must end.

The love-hate relationship between upper and lower castes is, in fact, a pure hate relationship by the upper castes. It’s a bitter pill sugar-coated with love by the fear of the constitution. Rest all doubts that they feel any affection for you and will placate you amongst them.

Caste discrimination is like dust – it’s everywhere and it’s difficult to get rid of it. If we want to alleviate our self from this prejudice we need sacrifice. We need the sacrifice of time, treasure and talent. We need to contribute our resources, manual as well as financial, to consolidate this anti-caste movement and convert it into a revolution. It’s now or never. Our future generations will not spare us when they come to know that while the world witnessed an uprising in the name of ‘Black Lives Matter”, our ancestors were only concerned with filling their pot bellies on day to day basis.

Dr Ambedkar stated that “birth never decides worth”. The world should know that there are oppressive structures like caste which require similar condemnation as that of racial discrimination. And let us notify it. The onus is on us to raise the flag of revolt.

Dr Jas Simran Kehal

MBBS, MS (Ortho),

MA  (Journalism & Mass Communication).