Annihilation of Caste : the force behind dalit...

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR CREATIVE THOUGHT AND IDEATION Volume - 1, Issue - 1, NOVEMBER 2018, ISBN:978-81-939508-2 Website : www.ijcti.org | Email : [email protected] | Phone : 9739329099

Annihilation of Caste : the force behind dalit movement

PRUTHVIRAJ KATTIMANI Patil Layout, Sedam Road, Kalaburgi 585105

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Abstract

Annihilating Caste’ is perhaps the most eminent and desirable social and political objective that has

confronted progressive forces in Indian society, especially since the country’s independence in 1947.

Among all political forces, Ambedkarites and communists have played a prominent role in seeking an

end to caste-based oppression in the country and yet these two forces have failed to see eye to eye on

most issues that fall in their political trajectories. The author uses a recent conversation that he had

with an Ambedkarite friend on identity politics as a pretext to tease out tensions that exist between

Ambedkarites and communists. Issues thrown up by the conversation have been elaborated upon in

order to attain some understanding of the path that can be used to achieve the unfulfilled task of

‘annihilating caste’ to paraphrase Amedkar’s immortal phrase.

Keywords caste, Ambedkar, communists, class, annihilation

Introduction

In a letter dated 12 December 1935, the secretary of the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal (Society for the

Abolition of Caste system), an anti-caste Hindu reformist group organisation based in Lahore, invited

B. R. Ambedkar to deliver a speech on the caste system in India at their annual conference in 1936.

Ambedkar wrote the speech as an essay under the title "Annihilation of Caste" and sent in advance to

the organisers in Lahore for printing and distribution. The organisers found some of the content to be

objectionable towards the orthodox Hindu religion, so intemperate in the idiom and vocabulary used,

and so incendiary in promoting conversion away from Hinduism, that they sought the deletion of

large sections of the more controversial content endangering Brahmanical interests. They wrote to

Ambedkar seeking the removal of sections which they found, in their words, "unbearable.".

Ambedker declared in response that he "would not change a comma" of his text. After much

deliberation, the committee of organizers decided to cancel their annual conference in its entirety,

because they feared violence by orthodox Hindus at the venue if they held the event after withdrawing

the invitation to him. Ambedkar subsequently published 1500 copies of the speech as a book on 15

May 1936 at his own expense as Jat-Pat Todak Mandal failed to fulfill their word.

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In the essay, Ambedkar criticized the Hindu religion, its caste system and its religious texts which are

male dominant and spreading hatred and suppression of female interests. He argued that inter-caste

dining and inter-caste marriage is not sufenough annihilate the caste system, but that "the real method

of breaking up the Caste System was... to destroy the religious notions upon which caste is founded"

Many people confuse the Dalit movement with the anti-caste movement, often seeing them as one and

the same thing. They forget that caste is not exclusive to Dalits. Everyone who claims to be a Hindu

falls somewhere on the caste hierarchy and therefore is a part of the caste system.Dalits are at one end

of this spectrum – they have experienced extreme oppression, deprivation and humiliation. But at the

other end are those born in privileged families, their privilege lying in the fact that they aren’t

exploited on the basis of their caste identity. Instead, they often benefit from their privileged caste

status.These are the people who, thus, go on denying the existence of caste, not acknowledging the

role their privilege plays in cushioning their lives. As Anupama Rao puts it, being from a privileged

caste offers the “luxury” of ignorance of caste.Nobody who is a Hindu is free of caste. So how can the

caste system, which has trapped the entire Hindu society in its divisive structure and rigid identities,

be countered by Dalits alone? How can the caste system ever be annihilated without people at all

levels of the caste hierarchy fighting hard against it?

Objective:

This paper intends to explore the role played by Ambedkar in general and his views enunciated in

‘Annihilation of Caste’ in particular to Dalit revival

Dalit voices in search of representative

To say that the battle to annihilate caste is to be fought by the Dalits alone is to deliberately keep this

movement from reaching its full magnitude. It is also to say that the dirty problem (i.e. casteism) of

about 80% of the Indian population (the proportion of the Hindu population) should be cleaned by

only 17% of them (the proportion of the Scheduled Caste population), thereby re-enacting the caste

system when it comes to social reform. It is, therefore, crucial to acknowledge that an anti-caste

movement should not be limited to Dalits. Fighting the caste system is definitely an inherent part of

the Dalit movement, but the anti-caste movement needs to grow beyond it.There are other reasons

why it is more challenging for the Dalits to fight the caste system alone. Being systematically

sidelined and excluded from the cardinal spaces of a Hindu society – from its celebrations, rituals,

holy places, markets and settlements, intellectual endeavours and discourses, and positions of power –

even strong and rational Dalit voices like Ambedkar’s often get ignored.

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The caste system has trained the privileged and dominant caste members to remain deaf to the voices

of those they exploit and oppress. Just as a Hindi saying goes, if a horse becomes friends with the

grass, what will it eat? The caste system – which is designed to appropriate the benefits of the labour

of the toiling communities to a privileged few – ensures that the voices of those exploited remain

unheard so as to continue the system of exploitation. To leave the responsibility of dealing with this

system of exploitation to those who are most oppressed is to make it more difficult to end the caste

system.

It is also important to understand that although Dalits face the worst manifestations of the caste

system, it is mostly practiced and perpetuated by the privileged castes. To seek ways of caste

annihilation only within the Dalit communities is like trying to treat the symptoms instead of the root

cause of a problem.The root of the caste system is at the top of this hierarchy, from where the attitude

of superiority and discrimination initiates. Can any outside force cause a transformation in such

highly-guarded and closed communities of privileged castes that do not even welcome others into

their homes? How can we make sure that caste-based endogamy stops in privileged castes without

having someone from their own families argue against it? How can we make sure that such

communities do not practice casteist rituals without having someone who gets to attend these rituals

raise questions? How can we stop dominant castes from being abusive and violent to oppressed castes

without those leading attacks acknowledging and then dealing with their own hatred? How much can

we leave to government policies, their implementation, and surveillance without changing the will of

the people?

We do not have strong answers to these questions. If fighting caste would have been possible without

the involvement of people from all the levels of the caste structure, India would have been caste-free

by now. With a few exceptions, Dalits have been the only community in India persistently fighting

caste until now. And the harder they fight, the stronger the opposition they face. The violence they

face has also increased with their assertion to challenge the caste-imposed hierarchies. And still,

despite all the disabilities and deprivations they experience in this hostile society, they continue to

dedicatedly fight the caste system.It is, therefore, not surprising that the Dalit movement is considered

synonymous with the anti-caste movement. Indeed, the Dalit movement has been an anti-caste

movement in the true sense. Moreover, it is primarily from the Dalit movement and Dalit literature

that we get a critical understanding of caste and its manifestations in the modern times. The Dalit

movement has meticulously studied and documented the changing face of casteism with

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modernisation and globalisation. Without acknowledging these theoretical and practical contributions,

any attempt at understanding the caste system remains incomplete.

Caste system and reservation

However, seeing the Dalit movement and the anti-caste movement as one and the same has also cost

us dearly. The most flawed and yet the most common argument people use for not fighting the caste

system is that the reservation system reinforces the caste system, and, therefore, the caste system

cannot be done with until the reservation system exists.As a result, they instead focus all their efforts

and energy on fighting against the reservation system. People forget to see that the reservation system

is not a replica of the caste system, but is a response to it. The reservation system cannot even be

called a solution to the caste system as it does not counter the caste system entirely and effectively. It

is only a temporary safeguard for the people who are most exploited by the caste system. And,

therefore, as long as the caste system exists, measures like the reservation system are needed and will

exist.

Moreover, privileged caste people who are interested in making the reservation system more efficient

in the name of fighting the caste system are also mistaken. Their interference and involvement in

ensuring a better functioning reservation system does not help counter the caste system. All it does is

shift focus away from the casteism existing in their own communities. Only Dalits and other

oppressed communities remain under scrutiny all the time. The argument to stop the top layer among

SC, ST and OBC communities from accessing reservation is an example of this uncalled-for

interest.Even if the reservation system is improved and made more efficient, it is only going to benefit

the oppressed caste communities and not help the entire Hindu population constituting the caste

structure fight it. It thus makes sense to leave the reservation system alone to be worked upon by the

communities availing it and to trust their intellectual capabilities to research and improve the existing

system. The reservation system is an endeavour for Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi movements.

Distinguishing between these movements and the anti-caste movement, therefore, helps solve this

confusion. Similarly, other policy-level and ground-level efforts to safeguard the lives, rights and

interests of Dalits should be seen as part of the Dalit movement, and not directly as anti-caste efforts.

While these are equally valuable and much-needed endeavours, they do not directly attack at the core

of the caste system and, therefore, are not immediately effective in the annihilation of caste. These

measures only indirectly challenge the caste system by empowering Dalits to fight it effectively and

become formidable forces in the anti-caste movement.Then what constitutes the anti-caste movement

if not an active interest in strengthening or doing away with the reservation system? The anti-caste

movement is about actively exposing and fighting all sorts of beliefs and practices rooted in the caste

system. It is not about privileged caste communities expressing sympathy and charity for the

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oppressed castes. It is not about “studying” Dalit communities and their suffering, but about

identifying how the caste system gets practiced by the government, privileged communities, media

and intelligentsia to marginalise and exclude Dalit communities from important and coveted social

spaces.

For non-Dalits, it is about introspection, about initiating the process of the annihilation of caste within

their own communities. And most importantly, this movement is about privileged-caste communities

acknowledging and respecting the actions and leadership of Dalit activism. It is about listening to

their staunch critique of the caste system in Indian society and acting to address those critiques. Such

role of non-Dalits in the anti-caste movement is very important and needed for it to progress to its full

potential. Any interest of non-Dalits in the anti-caste movement without exposing, questioning and

destroying the caste-based beliefs and practices within their own communities and social spaces is a

fraud and should be called so. It is mainly to wake non-Dalits from their passivity when it comes to

fighting the caste system that it is now important to distinguish between the Dalit movement and the

anti-caste movement.

Ambedkar, real and unreal

The most interesting argument however came not from Dalits but, paradoxically, an upper caste

journalist (“B.R. Ambedkar, Arundhati Roy, and the politics of appropriation” by G. Sampath,

Livemint , March 18, 2014). Challenging Ms. Roy, it said that if she wanted the bauxite under the

Niyamgiri hills to be left to the Adivasis, why did she not leave Ambedkar who has been the only

possession of Dalits to Dalits themselves? Interestingly though, the implication of the argument can

be dangerous insofar as any engagement of the “other” defined as such on the basis of caste can be

dismissed as illegitimate. May be, Ambedkar symbolises the cultural good of Dalits, but still, to

ghettoise him to Dalits alone will mean downright disrespect to him and incalculable harm to the

cause of Dalits. Niyamgiri left to the Adivasis implies a progressive interrogation of the prevailing

developmental paradigm, while leaving Ambedkar to Dalits will mean retrogressive destruction of the

annihilation-agenda of Babasaheb Ambedkar.

The controversy has surprisingly gone past the main point — that it is the bland business logic of the

publisher that has fundamentally drawn Ms. Roy into writing the introduction. With her stature as a

Booker Prize awardee, later amplified by her fearless pro-people stands on various issues on various

occasions, the book was sure to go global. Moreover, it can well be imagined that her writing would

certainly create a controversy, as has happened before. All this would mean a bonanza for any

publisher in boosting sales of the book. Whether Navayana had consciously thought it out this way or

not, these established product strategies of a publisher cannot be grudged by anyone as, after all, s/he

has to follow the grammar of business. Notwithstanding the “anti-caste” tag Navayana tends to wear

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of late, publishing adulatory and cultish literature on Ambedkar is not the same thing as supporting

the annihilation of castes. Once this controversy raked up by a few dies down, the vast majority of

Dalits would rather take pride in the point that even Arundhati Roy joined them in worshipping their

god. Every such form of Ambedkar adulation has indeed been reinforcing the caste identity and

directly distances the annihilation project.

The acceptance of Ambedkar does not necessarily equate itself with the spread of an anti-caste ethos.

Today, Ambedkar certainly outshines every other leader in terms of public acceptance. No other

leader can rival him in the number of statues, pictures, congregations, books, research, organisations,

songs, or any other marker of popularity of/on him. Curiously, his picture has become a fixture even

in movies and television episodes. However, the incidences of casteism as indicated by cases of caste

discrimination, caste atrocities, caste associations and caste discourses, etc. also show parallel growth.

This paradoxical phenomenon can be explained only by separating the real Ambedkar from the unreal

one, cast into the icons constructed by vested interests to thwart the consciousness of radical change

ever germinating in Dalit masses. These icons package the enigmatic real Ambedkar into a simplistic

symbol: an architect of the Constitution, a great nationalist, the father of reservations, a staunch anti-

communist, a liberal democrat, a great parliamentarian, a saviour of Dalits, a bodhisattva, etc. These

icons of the harmless, status quo-ist Ambedkar have been proliferated all over and overshadow a

possible, radical view of the real Ambedkar.

Which Ambedkar?

Notwithstanding the intrigues behind the promotion of such icons by vested interests with active

support from the state, the evolution of Ambedkar, the pragmatist sans any ideological fixation, all

through his life, makes him intrinsically difficult to understand. A young Ambedkar who theorised

castes as the enclosed classes, the enclosure being provided by the system of endogamy and exogamy,

expecting the larger Hindu society to wake up and undertake social reforms like intermarriage in order

to open up castes into classes is in contrast to the post-Mahad Ambedkar, disillusioned by the rabid

reactions from caste Hindus, turning his sights to politics to accomplish his objective. Were his threats

of conversion to Islam for a separate political identity for Dalits, or to force caste Hindus to consider

social reforms? Then there is the Ambedkar of the 1930s, anxious to expand his constituency to the

working classes sans castes, who founded the Independent Labour Party (ILP), arguably the first Left

party in India, and walked with the communists but at the same time one who declared his resolve to

convert to some other religion to escape castes. What about the Ambedkar of the 1940s, who returns

to the caste, dissolves the ILP and forms the Scheduled Castes Federation, shuns agitational politics

and joins the colonial government as labour minister or the one who wrote States and Minorities ,

propounding state socialism be hardcoded into the proposed Constitution of free India? Or Ambedkar,

the staunchest opponent of the Congress or the one who cooperated with the Congress in joining the

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all-party government and accepted its support to get into the Constituent Assembly? Or even the

Ambedkar who developed the representation logic culminating in reservations, expecting that a few

advanced elements from among Dalits would help the community progress or the one who publicly

lamented that educated Dalits had let him down? Or the Ambedkar who was the architect of the

Constitution and advised Dalits to adopt only constitutional methods for a resolution of their problems

or the one who disowned it in the harshest possible terms and spoke of being the first person to burn it

down? And finally, the Ambedkar who kept referring to Marx as a quasi benchmark to assess his

decisions? Or the one who embraced Buddhism and created the ultimate bulwark against communism

in India to use the words of one of his scholars, Eleanor Zelliot, or even the one who would

favourably compare Buddha and Marx just a few days before bidding adieu to the world, saying their

goal was the same but that they differed in the ways of achieving them — Buddha’s being better than

Marx’s? These are just a few broad vignettes of him, problematic in typifying him in a simplistic

manner. If one goes deeper, one is bound to face far more serious problems.

Ambedkar is surely needed as long as the virus of caste lingers in this land but not as a reincarnation

of the old one as most Dalits emotionally reflect on. Not even in the way Ms. Roy would want him to

come now and urgently. He will have to be necessarily constructed to confront the far messier

problem of contemporary castes than that obtained in his times.

Conclusion:

The Caste system is no doubt an economic institution as stated by the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in his very

famous book ‘Annihilation of Caste’ and before that he has given a very systematic and scientific

analysis of the origin and growth of the caste system in India in his very important book ‘Castes in

India’, are very important and relevant contributions of Dr. Ambedkar in literature. The present paper

is an honest attempt to provide the economic analysis of the caste system as an economic institution

given by Dr. Ambedkar especially in the first book mentioned above. Likewise the paper also presents

the relevance of the economic analysis of the caste as an economic organization in the context of the

present India. This paper adequately proves that Dr. Ambedkar’s economic analysis of the caste

system is very much important today also, and more importantly it has lot of utility and significance

in the present Indian society. But the present study is solely based on the secondary sources of the

data, and it did not consider the primary sources of data and information at all. The study should also

have the primary data support, which increases the scope, reliability, application and importance of

the study. It is therefore there is very large scope in undertaking the number of studies on the present

relevance of the economic analysis of the caste based on the primary data and information in the

context of India, which is thinking of inclusive growth, and economic supreme power in the World.

This is possible through the further research in the form of the number of research papers, research

projects, dissertations and theses as well on this important topic.

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References

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Movement in Colonial India. Sage Publications. ISBN 81-7036-368-3.

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978-0-7619-3571-1.

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7625-817-2.

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Society. Manohar Publishers and Distributors. ISBN 81-7304-640-9.

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Ethnic Studies Report. XV (2). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 March 2004.

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Zubaan. ISBN 9788189013011.

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Babasaheb Ambedkar voice of the Dalit and his refutation of

upper-caste hegemony


[email protected]

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Abstract

Through this paper author intends to look into Ambedkar’s thoughts on casteism and in particular his

debates with Gandhi on caste system and Dalit assertion. Ambedkar’s point is that to believe in the

Hindu shastras and to simultaneously think of oneself as liberal or moderate is a contradiction in

terms. When the text of Annihilation of Caste was published, the man who is often called the

‘Greatest of Hindus’ — Mahatma Gandhi — responded to Ambedkar’s provocation. Their debate was

not a new one. Both men were their generation’s emissaries of a profound social, political and

philosophical conflict that had begun long ago and has still by no means ended. Ambedkar, the

Untouchable, was heir to the anticaste intellectual tradition that goes back to 200–100 BCE. Gandhi, a

Vaishya, born into a Gujarati Bania family, was the latest in a long tradition of privileged-caste Hindu

reformers and their organisations.

Putting the Ambedkar–Gandhi debate into context for those unfamiliar with its history and its

protagonists will require detours into their very different political trajectories. For this was by no

means just a theoretical debate between two men who held different opinions. Each represented very

separate interest groups, and their battle unfolded in the heart of India’s national movement. What

they said and did continues to have an immense bearing on contemporary politics. Their differences

were (and remain) irreconcilable. Both are deeply loved and often deified by their followers. It pleases

neither constituency to have the other’s story told, though the two are inextricably linked. Ambedkar

was Gandhi’s most formidable adversary. He challenged him not just politically or intellectually, but

also morally. To have excised Ambedkar from Gandhi’s story, which is the story we all grew up on, is

a travesty. Equally, to ignore Gandhi while writing about Ambedkar is to do Ambedkar a disservice,

because Gandhi loomed over Ambedkar’s world in myriad and un-wonderful ways.

Key words: casteism, anticaste, Dalit, dalit cause, feminized, chatur-varna, varnashrama



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Introduction

The Indian national movement, as we know, had a stellar cast. It has even been the subject of a

Hollywood blockbuster that won eight Oscars. In India, we have made a pastime of holding opinion

polls and publishing books and magazines in which our constellation of founding fathers (mothers

don’t make the cut) are arranged and rearranged in various hierarchies and formations. Mahatma

Gandhi does have his bitter critics, but he still tops the charts. For others to even get a look-in, the

Father of the Nation has to be segregated, put into a separate category: Who, after Mahatma Gandhi,

is the greatest Indian?Dr. Ambedkar (who, incidentally, did not even have a walk-on part in Richard

Attenborough’s Gandhi, though the film was co-funded by the Indian government) almost always

makes it into the final heat. He is chosen more for the part he played in drafting the Indian

Constitution than for the politics and the passion that were at the core of his life and thinking. You

definitely get the sense that his presence on the lists is the result of positive discrimination, a desire to

be politically correct.The fact is that neither Ambedkar nor Gandhi allows us to pin easy labels on

them that say ‘pro-imperialist’ or ‘anti-imperialist’. Their conflict complicates and perhaps enriches

our understanding of imperialism as well as the struggle against it.

History has been kind to Gandhi. He was deified by millions of people in his own lifetime. Gandhi’s

godliness has become a universal and, so it seems, an eternal phenomenon. It’s not just that the

metaphor has outstripped the man. It has entirely reinvented him. (Which is why a critique of Gandhi

need not automatically be taken to be a critique of all Gandhians.) Gandhi has become all things to all

people: Obama loves him and so does the Occupy Movement. Anarchists love him and so does the

Establishment. Narendra Modi loves him and so does Rahul Gandhi. The poor love him and so do the

rich.He is the Saint of the Status Quo.

Objective:

This paper seeks to explore the key points of Ambedkar’s views on caste hegemony and his debates

with Gandhi to further Dalit Cause

Gandhi v/s Ambedkar

Gandhi’s life and his writing — 48,000 pages bound into ninety-eight volumes of collected works —

have been disaggregated and carried off, event by event, sentence by sentence, until no coherent

narrative remains, if indeed there ever was one. The trouble is that Gandhi actually said everything

and its opposite. To cherry pickers, he offers such a bewildering variety of cherries that you have to

wonder if there was something the matter with the tree.

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For example, there’s his well-known description of an arcadian paradise in The Pyramid vs. the

Oceanic Circle, written in 1946:

Independence begins at the bottom. Thus every village will be a republic or panchayat having full

powers. It follows, therefore, that every village has to be self-sustained and capable of managing its

affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world… In this structure composed of

innumerable villages there will be ever-widening, never-ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid

with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose centre will be the

individual always ready to perish for the village… Therefore the outermost circumference will not

wield power to crush the inner circle but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength

from it.

Then there is his endorsement of the caste system in 1921 in Navajivan. It is translated from Gujarati

by Ambedkar (who suggested more than once that Gandhi “deceived” people, and that his writings in

English and Gujarati could be productively compared):

Caste is another name for control. Caste puts a limit on enjoyment. Caste does not allow a person to

transgress caste limits in pursuit of his enjoyment. That is the meaning of such caste restrictions as

inter-dining and inter-marriage… These being my views I am opposed to all those who are out to

destry the Caste System.

Is this not the very antithesis of “ever-widening and never ascending circles”? It’s true that these

statements were made twenty-five years apart. Does that mean that Gandhi reformed? That he

changed his views on caste? He did, at a glacial pace. From believing in the caste system in all its

minutiae, he moved to saying that the four thousand separate castes should ‘fuse’ themselves into the

four varnas (what Ambedkar called the ‘parent’ of the caste system). Towards the end of Gandhi’s life

(when his views were just views and did not run the risk of translating into political action), he said

that he no longer objected to inter-dining and intermarriage between castes. Sometimes he said that

though he believed in the varna system, a person’s varna ought to be decided by their worth and not

their birth (which was also the Arya Samaj position). Ambedkar pointed out the absurdity of this idea:

“How are you going to compel people who have achieved a higher status based on their birth, without

reference to their worth, to vacate that status? How are you going to compel people to recognise the

status due to a man in accordance to his worth who is occupying a lower status based on his birth?”

He went on to ask what would happen to women, whether their status would be decided upon their

own worth or their husbands’ worth.

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Gandhi never decisively and categorically renounced his belief in chaturvarna, the system of four

varnas. Still, why not eschew the negative and concentrate instead on what was good about Gandhi,

use it to bring out the best in people? It is a valid question, and one that those who have built shrines

to Gandhi have probably answered for themselves. After all, it is possible to admire the work of great

composers, writers, architects, sportspersons and musicians whose views are inimical to our own. The

difference is that Gandhi was not a composer or writer or musician or a sportsman. He offered himself

to us as a visionary, a mystic, a moralist, a great humanitarian, the man who brought down a mighty

empire armed only with Truth and Righteousness. How do we reconcile the idea of the non-violent

Gandhi, the Gandhi who spoke Truth to Power, Gandhi the Nemesis of Injustice, the Gentle Gandhi,

the Androgynous Gandhi, Gandhi the Mother, the Gandhi who (allegedly) feminised politics and

created space for women to enter the political arena, the eco-Gandhi, the Gandhi of the ready wit and

some great one-liners — how do we reconcile all this with Gandhi’s views (and deeds) on caste?

What do we do with this structure of moral righteousness that rests so comfortably on a foundation of

utterly brutal, institutionalised injustice? Is it enough to say Gandhi was complicated, and let it go at

that? There is no doubt that Gandhi was an extraordinary and fascinating man, but during India’s

struggle for freedom, did he really speak Truth to Power? Did he really ally himself with the poorest

of the poor, the most vulnerable of his people?

“It is foolish to take solace in the fact that because the Congress is fighting for the freedom of India, it

is, therefore, fighting for the freedom of the people of India and of the lowest of the low,” Ambedkar

said. “The question whether the Congress is fighting for freedom has very little importance as

compared to the question for whose freedom is the Congress fighting.”In 1931, when Ambedkar met

Gandhi for the first time, Gandhi questioned him about his sharp criticism of the Congress (which, it

was assumed, was tantamount to criticising the struggle for the Homeland). “Gandhiji, I have no

Homeland,” was Ambedkar’s famous reply. “No Untouchable worth the name will be proud of this

land.”

The aftermath

History has been unkind to Ambedkar. First it contained him, and then it glorified him. It has made

him India’s Leader of the Untouchables, the King of the Ghetto. It has hidden away his writings. It

has stripped away the radical intellect and the searing insolence.All the same, Ambedkar’s followers

have kept his legacy alive in creative ways. One of those ways is to turn him into a million mass-

produced statues. The Ambedkar statue is a radical and animate object. It has been sent forth into the

world to claim the space — both physical and virtual, public and private — that is the Dalit’s due.

Dalits have used Ambedkar’s statue to assert their civil rights — to claim land that is owed them,

water that is theirs, commons they are denied access to. The Ambedkar statue that is planted on the

commons and rallied around always holds a book in its hand. Significantly, that book is not

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Annihilation of Caste with its liberating, revolutionary rage. It is a copy of the Indian Constitution that

Ambedkar played a vital role in conceptualising — the document that now, for better or for worse,

governs the life of every single Indian citizen. Their divergent views came to a head after the British

government granted the separate electorate to the Depressed Classes on 16 August 1932. It had

Ambedkar’s support; Gandhi was vehemently opposed to it because it would divide the Hindus. In

protest, he went on a fast unto death on 20 September 1932. Four days later, Ambedkar caved in,

agreeing to abide by the Poona Pact, which abrogated the separate electorate. In return, the Depressed

Classes were granted reserved seats far higher in number than the legislators they would have elected

under the separate electorate.The Poona Pact symbolised Gandhi’s triumph over Ambedkar.

Thereafter, the Congress went in for the kill in the 1937 elections. It fielded the reputed Scheduled

Caste bowler, Palwankar Baloo, against Ambedkar, who was contesting from a reserved seat in

Bombay. On India’s unofficial tour of England in 1911, Baloo had bagged as many as 114 wickets, a

feat that instantaneously turned him into a Depressed Classes hero.Fielding Baloo was akin to cutting

Ambedkar deep. In his magisterial A Corner Of A Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British

sport, author Ramachandra Guha points out that it was Ambedkar who had delivered the welcome

speech in a reception that Bombay’s Depressed Classes had organised for Baloo on his return from

England. Baloo was also among the two who represented Ambedkar in the negotiations to stitch up

the Poona Pact.Undoubtedly, the Congress wanted to teach a lesson to the emerging leader who had

the temerity to lock horns with Gandhi. For one, as Guha writes, the list of candidates for Bombay

was “vetted by the Congress strongman, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel”. Launching a vicious campaign,

the Congress depicted Ambedkar as one who drew support from anti-nationals and reactionary forces

and stood against freedom. It is hard to tell whether Gandhi endorsed his party’s “defeat Ambedkar

mission” — but he did not seem to have opposed it either.Ambedkar polled just 2120 votes more than

Baloo to emerge victorious, made possible because the third candidate, a labour leader, spirited away

nearly 10,000 votes. The Congress had its revenge in the 1946 elections — Ambedkar was defeated.

Gandhi’s party did not seem interested in sending Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly.In fact,

Ambedkar was elected to the Constituent Assembly from the Bengal province, courtesy Jogendra

Nath Mandal, a Dalit leader and Pakistan’s first law minister. Ambedkar was then inducted as

chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution, a role he acquitted with such aplomb that his

stature was enhanced beyond his community. It would seem Gandhi did not oppose Ambedkar’s

induction as chairman.But Ambedkar resigned from the Nehru ministry over the Hindu Code Bill in

1951. In the general election of 1952, the Congress pitted against Ambedkar his personal assistant of

many years, Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar. It split the Scheduled Castes, for Kajrolkar, like Baloo,

belonged to the Chamar caste. Ambedkar lost by 15,000 votes, and failed to win a Lok Sabha by-

election two years later.

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This historical memory has prompted the Ambedkarites to pit their icon against that of the Congress

and the nation — Gandhi. On the face of it, the crowds that Ambedkar’s birth anniversary draws

testify that, as far as winning over the Dalits goes, his vision has been proved right, not Gandhi’s. The

most eloquent symbol of it is that Dalits no longer use the Gandhian term Harijan (children of God) to

describe themselves, discerning in it a humiliatingly patronising undertone.From this perspective then,

Gandhi, in death, has been deserted by Dalits, whose marginalisation he struggled to overcome within

the framework of revitalised Hinduism. Ambedkar has triumphed because his vision not only

encapsulates the lived experience of the social conflict that Dalits encounter, but also because the

story of his rise to eminence from his humble origin symbolises their aspirations.Let alone Dalits,

what is incomprehensible is that Gandhi’s mass support has continued to shrink. Caste, after all, was

just an aspect of Gandhi’s politics. He spearheaded the struggle for freedom, championed

nonviolence, tried to forge an amicable Hindu-Muslim relationship, and provided a blueprint of

economic development that was remarkably different from the Western paradigm. There should have

been an enduring romance for Gandhi, as is the case with Ambedkar. Alas, Gandhi seems to bewitch

only academicians, evident from tomes written on him.It is possible that decades after India’s

Independence, we take for granted the freedom that Gandhi crafted for us at such a low price. It is

even possible to argue that Gandhi has been “tamed” and turned into a symbol of the state and the

political class. Not for nothing then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose 2 October 2014 to launch

the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Given the declining regard for the political class, Gandhi might just have

suffered by association.

Appreciation

No less a reason is the steady decline of the Congress, which has taken down Gandhi with itself. As

also perhaps the cult of Nehru-Gandhi that Indira Gandhi fashioned, leaving the Congress with little

resolve to reinvent Gandhian ideas in the modern context.But there are also structural reasons.

Regardless of the academicians’ debate, Gandhi was appropriated by the privileged upper castes for

furthering their own interests. It included not just the industrialists, but also the landed class. Swami

Sahajanand, Bihar’s foremost peasant leader, suggests in his memoir that Gandhi turned his gaze

away from the exploitative ways of zamindars. Perhaps the need of the time was to build the widest

possible social coalition to challenge the British Empire.If the upper castes misused Gandhi and his

popularity for their selfish ends, their veritable en bloc migration to the Sangh Parivar since 1990, as

also of some sections of the OBCs, has reduced him to being a leader who was proud of his religion

and unabashedly practiced it. Forgotten in this appropriation is Gandhi’s penchant to reinterpret

Hinduism, his quest for social reform. His inclusion in the Sangh’s pantheon threatens to turn him into

a caricature.Then there is the growing middle class which finds Gandhi’s economic blueprint quirky,

best to laugh at; and Gandhi’s principle of ahimsa a threat to their masculinity, a surreptitious project

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to turn them effeminate, one reason why Nathuram Godse pumped bullets into him. Masculine

assertion also frames the increasingly fraught relationship between Hindus and Muslims, which has

inevitably eaten into the Gandhian plank of composite nationalism.It is hard to square up to the fact

that the name of Gandhi, at a popular level, is recited as a lament, as a dirge, after every incident of

communal violence. To the streets people go chanting, in Hindi, these words, “Gandhi we are

ashamed, your killers are still alive.”Indeed, we should be ashamed because Gandhi conceived ahimsa

as the weapon of the strong. It signifies a person’s willingness to court death for a cause he or she

believes in, accepting lathis and bullets without retaliating. The Gandhian ideals were perhaps

irretrievably buried the day the Sabaramati Ashram — Gandhi’s very own creation — closed its gates

during the Gujarat riots. It should have been, as the late reformer Asghar Ali Engineer wrote, the

principal sanctuary for victims fleeing the murderous marauders.In an interview to this writer two

years ago, political psychologist Ashis Nandy predicted that the catastrophe of climate change, largely

because of the unbridled exploitation of nature, would see the rise of hundred varieties of Gandhi.

Some hope that! Until then, it won’t be wrong to say that Ambedkar today influences the hearts, and

thoughts, and actions, of far more Indians than Gandhi does, a fact highlighted by the public responses

to 2 October and 14 April every year.

Using the Constitution as a subversive object is one thing. Being limited by it is quite another.

Ambedkar’s circumstances forced him to be a revolutionary and to simultaneously put his foot in the

door of the establishment whenever he got a chance to. His genius lay in his ability to use both these

aspects of himself nimbly, and to great effect. Viewed through the prism of the present, however, it

has meant that he left behind a dual and sometimes confusing legacy: Ambedkar the Radical, and

Ambedkar the Father of the Indian Constitution. Constitutionalism can come in the way of revolution.

And the Dalit revolution has not happened yet. We still await it. Before that there cannot be any other,

not in India.

Conclusion

Ambedkar himself had originally felt that with universal suffrage, reserved seats would be sufficient.

But universal suffrage was not given, and the issues at the conference revolved around separate

electorates. Gandhi was reconciled to giving these to Muslims; he had already accepted their identity

as a separate community. Not so for Dalits.When the Ramsay MacDonald Award was announced

giving separate electorates to Dalits, he protested with a fast to death. And this brought him into direct

confrontation with Ambedkar.For Ambedkar, the problem was simple. If Gandhi died, in villages

throughout India there would be pogroms directed against Dalits and a massacre. Ambedkar

surrendered, and the Poona Pact formalized this with reserved seats for Dalits – more than they would

have had otherwise, but in constituencies now controlled by caste Hindus.

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Ambedkar wrote, many years later, in What Congress and Gandhi have Done to the Untouchables,

“There was nothing noble in the fast. It was a foul and filthy act. The Fast was not for the benefit of

the Untouchables. It was against them and was the worst form of coercion against a helpless people to

give up the constitutional safeguards [which had been awarded to them].” He felt that the whole

system of reserved seats, then, was useless. For years afterwards the problem of political

representation remained chronic. Ambedkar continued to ask for separate electorates, but futilely. By

the end of his life, at the time of writing his “Thoughts on Linguistic States” in 1953, he gave these up

also and looked to something like proportional representation. But the Poona Pact remained a symbol

of bitter defeat, and Gandhi from that time on was looked on as one of the strongest enemies of the

Untouchables by Ambedkar and his followers.

The confrontation between Gandhi and Ambedkar did not stop with these issues and events. The final

difference between the two was over India’s path of development itself. Gandhi believed, and argued

for, a village-centered model of development, one which would forsake any hard path of industrialism

but seek to achieve what he called “Ram raj”, an idealized harmonized traditional village community.

Ambedkar, in contrast, wanted economic development and with it industrialization as the basic

prerequisite for the abolition of poverty. He insisted always that it should be worker-friendly, not

capitalistic, at times arguing for “state socialism”, (though he later would accept some forms of

private ownership of industry) and he remained to the end of his life basically a democratic socialist.

To him, villages were far from being an ideal; rather they were “cesspools,” a cauldron of

backwardness, tradition and bondage. Untouchables had to escape from villages, and India also had to

reject her village past. In sum, there were important and irreconcilable differences between Gandhi

and Ambedkar. Two great personages of Indian history were posed against one another, giving

alternative models of humanity and society. The debate goes on!

References:

1. Ahir, D. C. (1 September 1990). The Legacy of Dr. Ambedkar. Delhi: B. R. Publishing. ISBN

978-81-7018-603-8.

2. Ajnat, Surendra (1986). Ambedkar on Islam. Jalandhar: Buddhist Publ.

3. Beltz, Johannes; Jondhale, S. (eds.). Reconstructing the World: B.R. Ambedkar and

Buddhism in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

4. Bholay, Bhaskar Laxman (2001). Dr Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar: Anubhav Ani Athavani.

Nagpur: Sahitya Akademi.

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5. Fernando, W. J. Basil (2000). Demoralisation and Hope: Creating the Social Foundation for

Sustaining Democracy—A comparative study of N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783–1872) Denmark

and B. R. Ambedkar (1881–1956) India. Hong Kong: AHRC Publication. ISBN 978-962-

8314-08-9.

6. Chakrabarty, Bidyut. "B.R. Ambedkar" Indian Historical Review (Dec 2016) 43#2 pp 289–

315. doi:10.1177/0376983616663417.

7. Gautam, C. (2000). Life of Babasaheb Ambedkar (Second ed.). London: Ambedkar Memorial

Trust.

8. Jaffrelot, Christophe (2004). Ambedkar and Untouchability. Analysing and Fighting Caste.

New York: Columbia University Press.

9. Kasare, M. L. Economic Philosophy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. New Delhi: B. I. Publications.

10. Kuber, W. N. Dr. Ambedkar: A Critical Study. New Delhi: People's Publishing House.

11. Kumar, Aishwary. Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy (2015).

12. Kumar, Ravinder. "Gandhi, Ambedkar and the Poona pact, 1932." South Asia: Journal of

South Asian Studies 8.1–2 (1985): 87–101.

13. Michael, S.M. (1999). Untouchable, Dalits in Modern India. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN

978-1-55587-697-5.

14. Nugent, Helen M. (1979) "The communal award: The process of decision-making." South

Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 2#1-2 (1979): 112-129.

15. Omvedt, Gail (1 January 2004). Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India. ISBN 978-0-670-

04991-2.

16. Sangharakshita, Urgyen (1986). Ambedkar and Buddhism. ISBN 978-0-904766-28-8. PDF

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Pan India Dalit movements and contribution of Karnataka


[email protected]

[email protected]

Abstract

Power can be cut by only power. Hence, to attain power, the first thing required is knowledge. It was

thus, Phule and Ambedkar gave the main emphasis on the education of the Dalits, which will not only

bestow them with reason and judgement capacity, but also political power, and thereby socio—

economic status and a life of dignity. They knew that the political strategy of gaining power is either

an end in itself or a means to other ends. In other words, if the Dalits have power, then they do not

have to go begging to the upper castes. Also they will get greater economic and educational

opportunities.

The upper castes enjoy social power, regardless of their individual circumstances with respect to their

control over material resources, through their linkages with the other caste fellows in the political

system –in the bureaucracy , judiciary and legislature. And so , the Dalits require power to control the

economic scenario and thereby the politics of the country.

Phule thus added that without knowledge, intellect was lost; without intellect, morality was lost;

without morality, dynamism was lost; without dynamism, money was lost; without money Shudras

were degraded, all this misery and disaster were due to the lack of knowledge. Inspired by Thomas

Paine‘s ―”The rights of Man”, Phule sought the way of education which can only unite the Dalits in

their struggle for equality.

The movement was carried forward by Ambedkar who contested with Gandhi to give the Dalits, their

right to equality. In the words of Ambedkar, Educate, Organize and agitate. Education, the major

source of reason, inflicts human mind with extensive knowledge of the world, whereby, they can

know the truth of a phenomena, that is reality. It therefore, would help to know the truth of

Brahmanism in Indian society, and will make them to agitate against caste based inhuman practices.

Only when agitation begin, in the real sense, can the Dalit be able to attain power and win the

movement against exploitation.

Gandhis politics was unambigouslycentring around the defence of caste with the preservation of

social order in Brahmanical pattern. He was fighting for the rights of Dalits but was not ready for

inter-caste marriage.



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Key words: Radicalism ,Naxalites, BSP, DSS,Dalit Mahasabha, untouchability, avarna, savarna

Introduction

The human rights violation in this country is one of the major problems. The socio-economic milieu

of Indian society is inherently hostile towards protection of human rights of Dalits. It is the cast and

Varna system of social stratification which promotes the societal violation of Dalit human rights. The

rule laid down by the Hindu law giver, Manu, is that there are only four Varnas of Hindus and there is

not to be fifth Varna . The four Varnas are Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras.Gandhiji and

others in their campaign against un-touchability contended that untouchables and scheduled Tribes

fall under the fourth Varna namely Sudras on the basis of Manus law of stratification. Dr.Ambedkar

has pointed out that this theory is not acceptable because Manu speaks of untouchables as varn-baya

which means those outside the Varna system. The four classes of Hindus are called Savarnas while

those outside the four classes like the untouchables are called Avarnas.Manu has stated in his smiriti

that the devilling’s of the Chandals shall be outside the village and their wealth shall be dogs and

donkeys, their dress shall be the garments of the dead, they shall eat their food in broken dishes and

black iron shall be their ornaments, they must wander from place to place and they shall not sleep in

villages and towns at nights. 3 It is well known that in villages the untouchables live in separate

localities, while other castes live in the main village. It cannot, thus be denied that untouchables are

not part of Hindu society and they must remain separate and segregated.

Dalit (oppressed or broken) is not a new word. Apparently it was used in 1930s as a Hindi and

Marathi translation of „Depressed Classes‟, the term the British used for what are now called the

scheduled castes. Dr.Ambedkarchoose the term Broken man as English translation Dalits in his

paper- “The Untouchables” in 1948.The Dalit Panthers revived the term Dalit‟ and include in it the

scheduled tribes in 1973 in their manifesto. Buta Singh (ex- Chairman National Commission for

Scheduled Castes) said the word Dalit is an unconstitutional

Objective:

This paper is an attempt to look at dalit movements in their historical and social context and to find

important players of this struggke

Dalit Panthers

Dalit Panther as a social organization was founded by NamdevDhasal in April 1972 in Mumbai,

which saw its heyday in the 1970s and through the 80s.Dalit Panther is inspired by Black Panther

Party, a revolutionary movement amongst African-Americans, which emerged in the United States

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and functioned from 1966-1982.The name of the organization was borrowed from the ‘Black Panther’

Movement of the USA. They called themselves “Panthers” because they were supposed to fight for

their rights like panthers, and not get suppressed by the strength and might of their oppressors.

The US Black Panther Party always acknowledged and supported the Dalit Panther Party through the

US Black Panther Newspaper which circulated weekly throughout the world from 1967-1980.

Its organization was modelled after the Black Panther. The members were young men belonging to

Neo-Buddhists and Scheduled Castes. Most of the leaders were literary figures .The controversy over

the article “Kala Swatantrata Din” (Black Independence Day) by Dhale which was published in

“Sadhana” in 1972 created a great sensation and publicised the Dalit Panthers through Maharashtra.

The Panther’s full support to Dhale during this controversy brought Dhale into the movement and

made him a prominent leader. With the publicity of this issue through the media, Panther branches

sprang up spontaneously in many parts of Maharashtra.

The Dalit Panther movement was a radical departure from earlier Dalit movements. Its initial thrust

on militancy through the use of rustic arms and threats, gave the movement a revolutionary colour.

Going by their manifesto, dalit panthers had broken many new grounds in terms of radicalising the

political space for the dalit movement. They imparted the proletarian – radical class identity to dalits

and linked their struggles to the struggles of all oppressed people over the globe. The clear cut leftist

stand reflected by this document undoubtedly ran counter to the accepted legacy of Ambedkar as

projected by the various icons, although it was sold in his name as an awkward tactic.

The pathos of casteism integral with the dalit experience essentially brought in Ambedkar, as his was

the only articulate framework that took cognisance of it. But, for the other contemporary problems of

deprivations, Marxism provided a scientific framework to bring about a revolutionary change.

Although, have-nots from both dalits and non-dalits craved for a fundamental change, the former

adhered to what appeared to be Ambedkarian methods of socio-political change and the latter to what

came to be the Marxian method which tended to see every social process as the reflection of the

material reality. Both caused erroneous interpretations. It is to the credit of Panthers that the

assimilation of these two ideologies was attempted for the first time in the country but unfortunately it

proved abortive in absence of the efforts to rid each of them of its obfuscating influence and stress

their non-contradictory essence. Neither, there was theoretical effort to integrate these two ideologies,

nor was there any practice combining social aspects of caste with say, the land question in the village

setting. This ideological amalgam could not be acceptable to those under the spell of the prevailing

Ambedkar-icons and therefore this revolutionary seedling in the dalit movement died a still death.

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The reactionaries objected to the radical content of the programme alleging that the manifesto was

doctored by the radicals – the Naxalites.There is no denying the fact that the Naxalite movement

which had erupted quite like the Dalit Panther, as a disenchantment with and negation of the

established politics, saw a potential ally in the Panthers and tried to forge a bond right at the level of

formulation of policies and programme of the latter. But even if the Panthers had chosen to pattern

their programme on the ten-point programme of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the USA, which had

been the basic inspiration for their formation, it would not have been any less radical. The amount of

emphasis on the material aspects of life that one finds in the party programme of the BPP could still

have been inimical to the established icon of Ambedkar.

Radicalism was the premise for the very existence of the Dalit Panther and hence the quarrel over its

programme basically reflected the clash between the established icon of Ambedkar and his radical

version proposed in the programme. The fact that for the first time the Dalit Panther exposed dalits to

a radical Ambedkar and brought a section of dalit youth nearer to accepting it certainly marks its

positive contribution to the dalit movement.

There were material reasons for the emergence of Dalit Panthers. Children of the Ambedkarian

movement had started coming out of universities in large numbers in the later part of 1960s, just to

face the blank future staring at them. The much-publicised Constitutional provisions for them turned

out to be a mirage. Their political vehicle was getting deeper and deeper into the marsh of

Parliamentarism. It ceased to see the real problems of people. The air of militant insurgency that had

blown all over the world during those days also provided them the source material to articulate their

anger.

Unfortunately, quite like the BPP, they lacked the suitable ideology to channel this anger for

achieving their goal. Interestingly, as they reflected the positive aspects of the BPP’s contributions in

terms of self-defence, mass organising techniques, propaganda techniques and radical orientation,

they did so in the case of BPP’s negative aspects too. Like Black Panthers they also reflected ‘TV

mentality’ (to think of a revolutionary struggle like a quick-paced TV programme), dogmatism,

neglect of economic foundation needed for the organisation, lumpen tendencies, rhetoric outstripping

capabilities, lack of clarity about the form of struggle and eventually corruptibility of the leadership.

The Panthers’ militancy by and large remained confined to their speeches and writings.

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Phenomenon of Kanshiram and Mayawati (Bahujan Samajwadi Party)

In 1971 Kansiram quit his job in DRDO and together with his colleagues established the Scheduled

Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities Employees Welfare

Association.Through this association, attempts were made to look into the problems and harassment

of the above-mentioned employees and bring out an effective solution for the same. Another main

objective behind establishing this association was to educate and create awareness about the caste

system. This association turned out to be a success with more and more people joining it.

In 1973, Kanshi Ram again with his colleagues established the BAMCEF: Backward And Minority

Communities Employees Federation. The first operating office was opened in Delhi in 1976 with the

motto-“Educate Organize and Agitate“. This served as a base to spread the ideas of Ambedkar and his

beliefs. From then on Kanshi Ram continued building his network and making people aware of the

realities of the caste system, how it functioned in India and the teachings of Ambedkar.

In 1980 he created a road show named “Ambedkar Mela” which showed the life of Ambedkar and his

views through pictures and narrations. In 1981 he founded the Dalit SoshitSamajSangharsh Samiti or

DS4 as a parallel association to the BAMCEF. It was created to fight against the attacks on the

workers who were spreading awareness on the caste system. It was created to show that workers could

stand united and that they too can fight. However this was not a registered party but an organization

which was political in nature. In 1984, he established a full-fledged political party known as the

Bahujan Samaj Party. However, it was in 1986 when he declared his transition from a social worker to

a politician by stating that he was not going to work for/with any other organization other than the

Bahujan Samaj Party. Later he converted to Buddhism.

The movement of Kanshiram markedly reflected a different strategy, which coined the ‘Bahujan’

identity encompassing all the SCs, STs, BCs, OBCs and religious minorities than ‘dalit’, which

practically represented only the scheduled castes.

Kanshiram started off with an avowedly apolitical organisation of government employees belonging

to Bahujana, identifying them to be the main resource of these communities. It later catalysed the

formation of an agitating political group creatively coined as DS4, which eventually became a full-

fledged political party – the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Purely, in terms of electoral politics, which has somehow become a major obsession with all the dalit

parties, Kanshiram’s strategy has proved quite effective, though in only certain parts of the country.

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He has given a qualitative impetus to the moribund dalit politics, locating itself into a wider space

peopled by all the downtrodden of India. But he identified these people only in terms of their castes

and communities. It may be said to his credit that he reflected the culmination of what common place

icon of Ambedkar stood for.

Apart from these broad political trends, there are many regional outfits like Dalit Mahasabha in

Andhra Pradesh, Mass Movement in Maharashtra, Dalit Sena in Bihar and elsewhere, etc., some of

which dabble directly into electoral politics and some of them do not. So far, none of them have a

radically different icon of Ambedkar from the ones described above. They offer some proprietary

ware claiming to be a shade better than that of others.

Ghanshyam Shah, a scholar who wrote article on Dalits, classifies the movements into reformative

and alternative movements. The reformative is the one that tries to reform the caste system to solve

the problem of untouchability. The alternative movement attempts to create an alternative socio-

cultural structure by conversion to some other religion or by acquiring education, economic status and

political power. Both type of movements use political means to attain their aims and objectives. The

reformative movements are further divided into Bhakti movements, neo-Vedantik movements and

Sanskritisation movements, and the alternative movements are divided into the conversion movement

and the religious or secular movements. Bhakti movement in 15th century developed two traditions of

saguna and nirguna.

Mahatma Jyotiba Phule formed the SaytaShodak Mandal in 1873 with the aim of liberating non-

Brahmins from the clutches of Brahminism. Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur started Satya Shodak Mandal

in 1912 and carried forward the movement started by Phule. In the pre-independence period, the Dalit

movements comprised of a strong non-Brahman movement against Brahmanism in Maharashtra, Adi

Dravidas movement in Tamil Nadu, Shri Narayan Dharma Paripalan movement in Kerala, Adi

Andhras movement in Coastal Andhra and the like. Phule tried to formulate a new theistic religion.

Ambedkar at Mahad Satyagarah

The religious reformers of the 19th century were influenced by the work of Christian missionaries in

India. The Brahmo Samaj (1828), the PrarthanaSamaj (1867), the Ramkrishna Mission, and the Arya

Samaj (1875) are the examples of such institutions founded with a view to fight against social evils

practiced by the caste Hindus. Dr. Ambedkar, on his part, turned to Buddhism. In Tamil Nadu, non-

Brahmin movement tried to claim Saivism as an independent religion although both Ayyapan

proclaimed no religion, no caste and no god for mankind. All the above movements led, to some

extent, to the social upliftment of Dalits.

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All India HarijansSevak Sangh founded by Gandhi in 1923 started numerous schools for the Harijans

including residential vocational schools. The Congress Government that later came into power in

various States under the Government of India Act 1935 did useful work for restoring to the depressed

classes their rightful place. Dr. Ambedkar struggled to secure social recognition and human rights for

Dalits. The all India Depressed Association and the All India Depressed Classes Federation, the

principal organizations of these classes, initiated a movement to improve their conditions.

All these efforts aimed at improving the miserable economic condition of Dalits, and to spread

education among them. They worked to secure for them the rights to draw water from public wells,

admission into schools, and to the use of roads; and the right to enter the public temples. The Mahad

Satyagrah for the right of water led by Dr. Ambedkar was one of the outstanding movements of the

untouchables to win equal social rights.

In Una, Gujarat a couple of months ago, a group of Dalits was brutally assaulted by self-styled cow

vigilantes (gaurakshaks) for skinning a dead cow. This place turned into an epicenter of anti-

Brahmanical assertion for upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections in 2017, threatening to unseat the

BJP’s 20+ years old run in the state which was and still remains the first ever laboratory of Hindutva’s

project. Rohith Vemula’s mother Radhika Vemula hoisted the national flag in Una shortly after Modi

did the same at Red Fort. Among others, the rally had significant presence of Gujarat’s Muslims and

Muslim organizations from different corners of the Gujarat, who have not found a political voice

since the 2002 pogrom spearheaded by PM Narendar Modi. Jignesh Mevani, Una Dalit

AtachiyarLadat Samiti (ULS) convener, raised the slogan “Dalit-Muslim Ekta Zindabad,” with

Radhika Vemula. Other social activists and student leaders also joined the protest in solidarity.

Again, another institutionalized murder of Rajini Krishna happened; a student of JNU whose death is

suspicious and is the version-2 of Rohith Vemula. Even after couple of days, no proper response from

JNU students union as well as social activists raises a big question. The way Dalit NGOs from Tamil

Nadu hijacked the case and kept Dalit student’s body aside and Member of Parliaments raised the

issue in ongoing parliament session (March 2017) to project Rajini Krishna as a Tamil guy, and not as

a Dalit. No justice done to any of the Dalit victims or Dalit movements.

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Dalit movement in Karnataka

The emergence of the Dalit movement in Karnataka in 1973 had a far-reaching impact not only

among the untouchable communities across the state, but also in challenging the dictates of caste. The

movement ushered in a new vision of civil rights across India. In order to understand the dynamics of

caste and state bureaucracy, this paper specifically tries to capture the social evolution of a Dalit

movement, the Dalit SangarshaSamithi (DSS) in Kolar District of Karnataka. The impact of the DSS

among the Dalit communities in the district is analysed by focusing specifically on the ethnographic

details of Valagalaburre village. Finally the paper considers how the state machinery responded to the

DSS. By taking the fact sheets of the atrocities recorded by the social welfare department of Kolar

District the paper contends that the DSS did alter the ethnographic map of social relations, drastically

reducing the number of atrocities perpetrated upon Dalit communities. This in turn inspired the

committed workers of the DSS to organize villagers to come together to shackle the age-old

oppressive caste structures that defined the relations to resources in the villages. This study is well

aware that unfortunately the DSS has currently fallen into a sad state of affairs with innumerable

factions. However the present situation does not invalidate the very real achievements of the DSS,

which are aptly captured in the words of one of those involved: “The Dalit movement in Karnataka in

the past three decades was a vigorous march towards self-dignity. But today it sadly gives an

impression of being at a tangent turn of events. Indeed, as it emerged from a long historical slumber, it

gave rise to a stormy wave of protest against all sorts of oppressive tendencies inherent in the very

social fabric of the society in Karnataka. It played a decisive role in awakening the Dalits in

Karnataka.

But it also shook the rigid, irresponsible Hindu conscience. The movement spread like a wild fire

burning every sluggish mind to transform itself into a zealous flame… It really hailed a new era of

hope for Dalits in Karnataka”2 It is this saga that will never allow the spirit of the DSS to die in spite

of carnages like the Kambalapalli episode. The Kambalapalli carnage took place in 2000, and the

following account of it illustrates precisely what the DSS struggles against: “a flock of sheep

belonging to both Vokkaligas and Dalits was stolen from KambalaPalli Village. In this connection a

‘Panchayath’ was held in the village and it was unilaterally decided that Venkataramanappa,

Anjanappa and Ravanappa - all Dalits - had stolen the sheep inspite of their denial and it was also

decided to file a police complaint of theft against them. Fearing police action the above named Dalits

left their village along with their families.

A police complaint was filed in this connection and during investigation it came to light that the sheep

were stolen and taken to Andhra Pradesh and sold for Rs. 9,000/- by K.M. Maddireddy,

Anjaneyareddy, Reddappa, Narayanaswamy, Kittanna alias Krishnareddy and their followers all

belonging to Vokkaliga community of the same village. The sheep belonging to the Dalits were

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recovered and brought back and handed over to the owners. Dalit Venkataramanappa and his two

brothers who had left the village took leading part in the detection of the stolen sheep which resulted

in the exposure of Vokkaligas’ conspiracy. Further it also brought contempt and ridicule to

Vokkaligasas a whole in the village.

They wanted to do away with Venkataramanappa and were waiting for a chance for him to come back

to the village. According to Section 3(1) (VIII) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes

(Prevention of Atrocities) Act., 1989 whoever not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled

Tribe institutes a false criminal or other legal proceedings against a member of a Scheduled Caste or a

Scheduled Tribe shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six

months but which may extend to five years and with a fine. The police should have booked a criminal

case against the Vokkaligas who had filed false complaints against Dalits in the matter under the

above provision of law. That would have checked them from advancing further with their criminal

activities. On hearing the delivery of his wife Venkataramanappa came to the village on 5-6-1998 at

about 10.30 p.m. On getting information about his arrival Maddireddy, Anjaneyareddy and another 39

persons including Kittanna alias Krishnareddy formed an unlawful assembly and chased him to his

house and stoned him to death in the presence of his wife and other family members. He was buried

under the stones numbering about 50. All the above 41 culprits were released on bail and were

roaming in the locality.”3 This study highlights the value of the DSS in its continued challenges to

local caste relations and to LPG policies (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation) in Karnataka.

More particularly, the present study challenges the normative theoretical underpinnings of ‘caste’ to

show that Dalit activism did unravel the much-ignored fact of caste as experienced distance from

powerful castes that hinders the self-determination of Dalit communities.

Did State really help?

The post-1947 State, which has never tired of propagandising its concern for dalits and poor, has in

fact been singularly instrumental in aggravating the caste problem with its policies. Even the

apparently progressive policies in the form of Land Ceiling Act, Green Revolution, Programme of

Removal of Poverty, Reservations to Dalits in Services and Mandal Commission etc. have resulted

against their professed objectives.

The effect of the Land Ceiling Act, has been in creating a layer of the middle castes farmers which

could be consolidated in caste terms to constitute a formidable constituency. In its new incarnation,

this group that has traditionally been the immediate upper caste layer to dalits, assumed virtual

custody of Brahminism in order to coerce dalit landless labourers to serve their socio-economic

interests and suppress their assertive expression in the bud.

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The Green Revolution was the main instrument to introduce capitalisation in agrarian sector. It

reinforced the innate hunger of the landlords and big farmers for land as this State sponsored

revolution produced huge surplus for them. It resulted in creating geographical imbalance and

promoting unequal terms of trade in favour of urban areas. Its resultant impact on dalits has been far

more excruciating than that of the Land Ceiling Act.

The much publicisedprogramme for Removal of Poverty has aggravated the gap between the

heightened hopes and aspirations of dalits on one hand and the feelings of deprivation among the

poorer sections of non-dalits in the context of the special programmes especially launched for

upliftment of dalits. The tension that ensued culminated in increasingly strengthening the caste –

based demands and further aggravating the caste – divide.

The reservations in services for dalits, notwithstanding its benefits, have caused incalculable damage

in political terms. Reservations created hope, notional stake in the system and thus dampened the

alienation; those who availed of its benefit got politically emasculated and in course consciously or

unconsciously served as the props of the system. The context of scarcity of jobs provided ample

opportunity to reactionary forces to divide the youth along caste lines. Mandal Commission, that

enthused many progressive parties and people to upheld its extension of reservation to the backward

castes, has greatly contributed to strengthen the caste identities of people. In as much as it empowers

the backward castes, actually their richer sections, it is bound to worsen the relative standing of dalits

in villages.

Conclusion

Institutionalized efforts made by Dalit community leaders for the liberation of the downtrodden

masses can be termed as Dalit movement. These movements are protests against untouchability,

casteism, injustice and inequality in all sectors and for exterior classes, depressed classes or

Scheduled Castes. It aims to uplift the Dalits to the level of non-Dalits and to regain self-respect and

equal human status for them in the society, as well as to establish a new social order based on

equality, fraternity, liberty, social justice, and social, economic, cultural and political development of

Dalits. All this is the result of the consciousness of Dalits of their own identity as human beings,

equally equipped with physical and mental capacities as other human beings, and equally entitled to

enjoy all the human rights “without any infringement, abridgment or limitations. Let’s be a witness to

know how far these moments continue to get the justice, equality and freedom for Dalits from the so-

called upper caste Brahmins, how many lives they claim to treat man as man, when their thirst of

blood will end after killing hundreds of Dalits and Dalit farmers by banning beef which is their

livelihood.

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New politics or alternative politics need to be started to provide justice to these marginalized

communities, as few of the Dalit leaders are tools in the hands of many politicians for their political

gains and few Dalit leaders are corrupt to the extent of being ready to betray the trust of their

community just for few luxuries.

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Emancipation of Dalits in pre-independence India


[email protected]

[email protected]

Abstract

The Indian Caste System is historically one of the main dimensions where people in India are socially

differentiated through class, religion, region, tribe, gender, and language. Although this or other forms

of differentiation exist in all human societies, it becomes a problem when one or more of these

dimensions overlap each other and become the sole basis of systematic ranking and unequal access to

valued resources like wealth, income, power and prestige . The Indian Caste System is considered a

closed system of stratification, which means that a person’s social status is obligated to which caste

they were born into. There are limits on interaction and behavior with people from another social

status . Its history is massively related to one of the prominent religions in India, Hinduism, and has

been altered in many ways during the Buddhist revolution and under British rule. This paper will be

exploring the various aspects of the Indian caste system related to its hierarchy, its history, and its

effects on India today.

India social structure is based on caste system. It is matter of shame that the Indian culture, which

gave the message of world-brotherhood, but call some of its own brothers untouchables. After

independence, the influence of caste in political field has increased. Whereas, the influence of

casteism in social and economic life (such as the standard of living of dalits, poverty, education,

literacy, income, employment, health) has decreased to some extent, in politics it has increased. The

study has been framed with the objective to access the influence of casteism on social and economic

life of the dalits and with special reference to Indian politics. Indian politics changed dramatically

after the Mandal commission issue hit the national consciousness. In the present paper we have tried

to explore movements of dalit in India and provisions made in the constitution of India for improving

the conditions of dalits to bring them at par with other members of society and with the objective to

access the influence of casteism not on social and economic life of the dalits and with special

reference to Indian politics. For this purpose data was collected through secondary sources. We have

found that as the development movements of dalits is increasing day by day and the role of casteism is

also influencing Indian democracy.

Keywords: caste, activism, dalit, mobilize, Adi-Karnataka



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Introduction

Though attempts were begun by the dalit castes from the late 19th century to organise themselves, the

various sections of the dalit liberation movement really began to take off from the 1920s, in the

context of the strong social reform and anti-caste movements which were penetrating the middle-caste

peasantry and the national movement which was beginning to develop a genuine mass base.

The most important of the early dalit movements were the Ad-Dharm movement in the Punjab

(organised 1926); the movement under Ambedkar in Maharashtra mainly based among Mahars which

had its organisational beginnings in 1924; the Nama-shudra movement in Bengal; the Adi-Dravida

movement in Tamil Nadu; the Adi-Andhra movement in Andhra which had its first conference in

1917; the Adi-Karnataka movement; the Adi-Hindu movement mainly centered around Kanpur in UP;

and the organising of the Pulayas and Cherumans in Kerala.

In most of the cases the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms provided a spark for the organization of dalits

but the crucial background was the massive economic and political upheavals of the post-war period.

The movements had a linguistic-national organisational base and varied according to the specific

social characteristics in different areas, but there was considerable all-India exchange of ideas and, by

the 1930s, this was beginning to take the shape of all-India conferences with Ambedkar emerging as

the clear national leader of the movement.The founding of the Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942,

and its later conversion into the Republican Party, gave dalits a genuine all-India political organisation

— though this remained weak except in certain specific localities and did not by any means constitute

the entire dalit movement.

Objective:

this paper seeks to study the prevailing conditions of the Dalits in pre-independence movement

Conditions for Social reformation

The social reform and anti-caste movements played an important nurturing and facilitating — though

often an ambivalent — role in relation to the dalits. Thus the movements in Maharashtra and Madras

to a significant extent came out of, and were influenced by the non-Brahmin movements in those

areas, especially their radical sections — the Satyashodhak Samaj and Self-Respect movements.The

Punjabi Ad-Dharm leaders had nearly all been previously in the Arya Samaj. Brahmo Samaj upper-

caste reformers helped to instigate and aid the Nama-shudra movement and the Adi-Andhras. Dalits in

Kerala were influenced and helped by the Ezhava-based movement under Sri Narayana Guru.

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Thus, whereas the Punjabi Ad-Dharm movement broke with the Arya Samaj both organisationally

and ideologically (though the Arya Samaj itself continued to foster some anti-untouchability

activities), the dalit movements of the south and west accepted and even carried forward the general

ideology of the broader non-Brahmin movements but criticised the middle-caste non-Brahmins for

betraying this ideology and falling prey to Brahmanic culture as well as to pure self-interest in gaining

government jobs and posts.

Thus, in Maharashtra, Ambedkar's movement developed with support from leaders such as Shahu

Maharaj and with many activists coming from the Satyashodhak movement and out of schools

founded by non-Brahmin leaders. Ambedkar frequently referred to himself as a 'non-Brahmin' (not

simply an 'untouchable') scholar, and became a spokesman in the legislative assembly for all the non-

Brahmin ('backward' and 'depressed classes' in British terminology) groups. His Marathi speeches

often used the shetji-bhatji terminology of the Satyashodhak movement. Yet he consistently criticised

the opportunism of non-Brahmin leaders and, in the end, after the non-Brahmin movement was

absorbed into the Congress party under Gandhi's leadership and its radical elements forgotten, the

separatism in Ambedkar's movement came to dominate.

In Madras, educated dalits were part of the Justice Party; but a rift grew after the party won power,

partly stimulated by disputes in a textile mill strike and partly due to charges that the Justice Party was

not giving sufficient representation to them but was monopolizing posts for higher caste non-

Brahmins. M C Rajah, the most prominent untouchable leader, withdrew with his followers; though

after this many participated in E V Ramasami's Self -Respect movement which represented the more

radical thrust of the non-Brahmin movement.

In Punjab, the young educated Chamars who founded the Ad-Dharm movement had first been in the

Arya Samaj, attracted by some of its ideals which held open the promise of purification (shuddhi) to

the low castes, then became disillusioned by the control of upper castes in the movement and rejected

completely the paternalistic implication of shuddhi that untouchables needed to be 'purified'. The

pattern of these regional configurations needs to be more thoroughly studied.

But, in contrast to the ambivalence of the dalits' relations with caste-Hindu-based anti-caste

movements, their relationship to the national movement was, even worse, an antagonistic one. The

fact was that, with the notable exception of Kerala where the Congress leaders themselves undertook

anti-caste campaigns, almost everywhere the Congress leadership was in the hands of upper-caste

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social conservatives who were often not simply indifferent to dalit demands but actively resisted

them. Thus dalit spokesmen were inclined to argue that "British rule was preferable to Brahmin rule"

and to look for any means — special representation, separate electorates, alliance with Muslims - that

might prevent them from being swamped by caste Hindu nationalists.

The Rise of Dalit Movements

It has to be stressed that this alienation from the organised national movement (the Congress) was not

just the result of the self-interest of a few leaders but was a widespread opinion wherever dalits were

organised on militant lines, and that the Congress leadership up through the time of Independence did

almost nothing to heal the split and build up dalit confidence and unity. Though dalits under

Ambedkar did take a nationalist position, it was as a result of their own conviction that Independence

was necessary.

These movements then organised struggles in various ways over the rejection of all the forms of

feudal bondage imposed on dalits. The most spectacular mass campaigns in the 1920s were efforts at

the ritual level, i e, to break down the restrictions barring dalits from use of common temples and

water tanks. The biggest, and very carefully planned, campaigns took place in Maharashtra (the

Mahad tank satyagraha of 1927 which culminated in the burning of the Manusmriti, the Parvati

temple satyagraha of 1928, and the Kalaram temple satyagraha in Nasik of 1930-35) and in Kerala

(the Vaikom temple road satyagraha of 1924-25 and the Guruvayoor satyagraha of 1930-32).

Thus the movements were highly involved in founding schools, hostels, and other educational

associations; and they consistently demanded fellowships, positions in existing educational

institutions and reserved government jobs. The final outcome of this was the system of 'concessions'

which has become so controversial today. It is important to note that such concessions were

necessary, because existing caste discrimination (caste and kin-based recruitment pattern and the

cultural as well as economic disabilities of the low castes) had resulted in a heavily divided working

class.

Dalits and the National Movement: The Issue of Power

"We want to become a ruling community", was a saying of Ambedkar, and in fact the drive to achieve

power or a share in power was seen by him and by many not simply as the negation of the extreme

feudal subjugation of dalits but as the basis for achieving any other kind of gain. But, because the

national movement did not consciously organise to build alternative revolutionary systems of power

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in which dalits would find a place, this demand for a share in power became expressed in the demand

for special, separate representation within the bourgeois parliamentary forms being institutionalized in

India.An additional motivating fact was the strong feeling among dalits that they must represent

themselves, that caste Hindus could not be trusted to represent them (nor for that matter could the

British government), that the nature of caste and class conflict was so great that no caste Hindus could

speak for their interests.

The conflict took specific form in the dalit demand for separate electorates (constituencies only of

dalits choosing dalit representatives to the parliament) versus the original nationalist unwillingness to

concede anything until finally a 'compromise' of reserved seats (dalit representatives chosen by

general, i.e., caste Hindu plus dalit, constituencies) was forced on them.The issue here was different

from that of separate electorates for Muslims because there was at no point a dalit demand, or the

possibility of a demand, for a separate homeland. Rather, the question was one of how to achieve the

unity of the Indian nation. Gandhi's firm opposition to separate electorates, too, had nothing to do

with the threat to Indian unity but rather the threat to Hindu unity and came from his religiously

motivated insistence that dalits were part of the Hindu community.

It might also be added that the idea of separate electorates, or "functional' representation of specific

social groups or classes, was one that went beyond bourgeois democratic forms entirely and in a sense

could be seen as an aspect of proletarian democracy, whereas reserved seats not only allowed caste

Hindu control of dalit political representation (as Ambedkar so bitterly and effectively established in

"What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables") but also proved an ideal method for

the bourgeois State to absorb and negate the dalit movement, giving dalits some semblance of power

within the bourgeois framework but at the cost of giving up militancy.The issue, however, was very

rarely seen in this way. Instead, considerations of power prevailed (the upper class/caste drive to

control the legislatures through control of Congress, and the fact that dalits did not simply have the

same political clout as Muslims); the demand for separate electorates was seen by most non-dalits as

one leading to separatism and disunity.

Here it is worth noting that, when Ambedkar and Gandhi met for the first time in 1930, Ambedkar not

only felt he had been treated rudely, but Gandhi himself admitted that he had not known that

Ambedkar himself was a dalit but thought rather that he was a Brahmin social reformer aiding the

untouchables! In other words, Gandhi had not only done substantially nothing himself on the issue of

untouchability up to this time, but he betrayed a crucial ignorance of the movement which had been

going on for over a decade and of its leadership. Indeed he unwittingly betrayed his assumption that

dalits themselves were incapable of doing much on their own or of producing their own leadership,

Ambedkar, therefore, insisted on separate electorates.Gandhi insisted equally adamantly that dalits

were Hindus and must be represented by Hindus as a whole (and was met on his return from London

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by a black-flag demonstration of 8,000 Bombay dalits). The British Communal Award gave

Ambedkar his separate electorates; and Gandhi undertook his fast-to-death in protest. Here again it

has to be stressed that this first fast over the 'issue' of untouchability was not a fast against the British

for nationalist causes or against the oppressive caste system, but was a fast against dalits themselves

to force them to give up their demands. Ambedkar conceded—knowing that if Gandhi died there

would be massive reprisals on his people throughout India-— and the result was the Poona Pact of

September 25, 1932, which as a compromise gave dalits the reserved seats that Ambedkar had

demanded in the first place For dalits and for Ambedkar, the lesson was clear: not a faith in the ability

of satyagraha to 'change the hearts' of caste Hindus, rather that only by fighting for their rights would

dalits win anything at all.

After 1932, Gandhi made 'untouchability work' a major programme of the Congress and for many a

crucial moral part of the Indian national movement. And yet Gandhi's essential paternalism and

insistence that above all dalits were Hindus remained in the choice of the term 'Harijan', in the

insistence that caste Hindus and not dalits should control the Harijan Sevak Sangh.

However 'radical' Gandhi's own views on caste became (in approving of inter-dining and inter-

marriage, for example), he never dropped the belief in chaturvarnya or the idea that children should

follow their fathers' professions, themes that stood in direct contradiction to the anti-feudal principles

of the dalit movement. Even worse, anti-untouchability became identified with the Gandhian, that is

the conservative wing of the Congress and remained a distraction and diversion to the radicals within

Congress (and for that matter the communist Left) who never developed a programme of their own on

the issue of caste.

In 1917 — alter the first depressed classes' conferences were organised in Bombay, and dalits as well

as non-Brahmins made proposals for separate electorates—the Congress reversed its policy of

excluding 'social reform' and passed a resolution urging upon "the people of India the necessity,

justice and righteousness of removing all disabilities imposed by custom upon the Depressed

Classes".In the 1920s, the governments of Madras and Bombay (controlled or influenced by non-

Brahmin organisations) passed resolutions confirming the rights of dalits to equal use of government

facilities, schools and wells; so did several progressive princely stales. These did little, however, to

provide reinforcement, and remained almost totally ineffective. In 1931, the Karachi Congress session

propounded a programme of fundamental rights which called for equal access for all to public

employment etc, regardless of caste, and equal right to use of public roads, wells, schools, and other

facilities.Temple entry bills were introduced between 1932-36 in the Central Assembly, Madras and

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Bombay legislatures and generally met with opposition from both the government and conservatives

in Congress. Baroda and Travancore states proclaimed temple entry in 1933 and 1936. In 1938, after

Congress legislatures were elected, temple entry bills were passed in Madras and Bombay.

Dalits and the Left: The Issue of Land

The relation between the dalit movement and the emerging communist and Left movement was,

unfortunately, little better than that with the national movement. The Left evolved no programme of

its own, regarding the abolition of caste. And, in regard to working class organizing, a history of

antagonism was built up. The major exception was in fighting feudalism in agrarian relations where

the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) programme did make an important contribution. This, however,

remained partial and isolated from the organised dalit movement.

A category of 'agricultural labourers' was identified and this presumably included almost all dalit

toilers, but they were seen in European terms as peasants dispossessed of the land. The Kisan Sabha

leadership was ambiguous about their inclusion, but where they argued for unity of interest between

'kisans' and 'agricultural labourers' it was in terms of the fact that middle-poor peasants were rapidly

becoming impoverished, losing lands, and becoming landless labourers. The special, traditional,

position of dalit field servants with their hereditary connection to the land was simply not taken note

of.A 1947 AIKS resolution on the abolition of landlordism stated: ''All agricultural labourers must

have a minimum wage. All other tillers of the soil must get proprietary rights in it under their direct

cultivation, and cultivable waste land must be distributed among poor peasants and agricultural

labourers".

Thus, while, dalits here were somewhat ambiguously seen as 'tillers' they were not considered to have

any rights in the land at all; only their wage interests were to be protected and their land hunger

satisfied by leftover — i e, 'waste' — land. Thus, in spite of the participation of poor peasants and

landless toilers in Kisan Sabha agitation, it is not surprising — because only middle-caste cultivating

peasants were seen as having rights in the land —that the end result was land reforms which even in

their most radical version (e g Kerala) have benefited rich peasants. 'Land to the tiller', then,

systematically excluded dalits.On the other side, the dalit movement itself also took up the issue of

land, but in an equally partial way. Campaigns against veth-begar and specific menial and degrading

caste duties (carrying away dead cattle, serving officials) were, as noted above, an important part of

the movement and were, of course, equivalent to the AIKS opposition to 'feudal forced labour'. But

generally these were undertaken by the dalit movement in such a way that the alternative was seen,

419


not as revolutionary land reform in the villages or transformation of the villages, but rather as moving

from the villages altogether to new jobs in industry and service. The inability to see any real

opportunity for advance within the village was, of course, realistic in the absence of a revolutionary

movement.No direct struggles for land for dalits were apparently taken up before Independence, but

as far as Ambedkar at least was concerned it seems the issue of land was always present. Again,

though it was a question of looking beyond the village, in one of his earlier meetings he argued that

dalits should look for land for colonization. In later meetings, he considered the possibility of

settlements in Sind. The climax of this, however, came in 1942 at the conference which founded the

Scheduled Caste Federation when a resolution was passed on separate village settlements. This was a

demand that dalits from all the villages in one area (later sometimes specified as a taluka) should be

given land (to be provided both from unoccupied government land and from land bought up by the

government for the purpose) so that they could form independent settlements of their own. This has

come to be known as the 'dalitstan' demand.

Conclusion

One of the most striking features of the anti-feudal movement in colonial India was its fragmentation

— a fragmentation which reflected the divisions among the exploited sections that were so

characteristic of Indian caste feudalism.While social reform and anti-caste movements arose

throughout India, and all provided some kind of ground for dalits to begin to move ahead, the non-

Brahmin movements of south and west India posed a genuine possibility of a radical movement

against caste traditions that could unify both caste Hindu toilers and dalits. Their ideology itself and

the principles of their most radical organisations — the Satyashodhak Samaj and the Self-Respect

movement — posed a thorough challenge to caste hierarchy and in fact provided the central

ideological themes for the dalit movements. But such unity did not materialize as the more

conservative wing of these movements gained strength among caste Hindu peasants and educated

sections.It might have been expected that a national movement, dominated by bourgeois and upper-

caste forces would prove resistant to dalit demands and respond only in a nominal and co-opting way.

Most serious really was the failure of the Left to provide a radical and unifying anti-feudal alternative.

The communists organised the working class in its struggle for survival and at points this organisation

aided the lowest sections of that class, but they failed really to put the working class politically in the

leadership of the anti-feudal movement and as a result the class remains divided and the organisation

benefited mainly its skilled and more upper-caste sections.

420


Kisan Sabha organizing, in its areas of strength, benefited dalits more directly. The fight against

feudal forced-labour struck at bondage within the village; the organisation of agricultural labourers,

which had its beginnings in the 1940s, also involved a challenge to feudal servitude: as a Kerala

landlord put it, "His body and his father's body are my property and he dares to ask for wages. Is it

right?"

Still the achievements of the dalit movement are impressive, and are too often overlooked. They have

given birth to a tradition of struggle in many areas, not only on cultural and ritual issues but on

breaking feudal bonds. They have mounted powerful pressure on the national movement resulting in

constitutional provisions for reservations and laws making untouchability an offence; unsatisfactory

as these have been, they have still provided weapons in the hands of low-caste organizers. They have

created a deep-seated conviction of equality and self-confidence which is inevitably making itself

heard. If this has not yet achieved a revolutionary transformation in the life of the most exploited

sections of society, it is because of the incompleteness of the revolutionary and democratic movement

itself. If this is to go forward, the dalit movement will inevitably be a part of it.

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