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GENDER, CASTE AND LABOR

BOOK REVIEW

SUBMITTED BY: SHEENAM KOHLI

M.A SOCIOLOGY (SEM II)

Anand Teltumbde, a management professional, writer, civil rights activist, politicalanalyst, in his book THE PER!TA"#E $% #ATE& THE 'HA!R(A")! *+RERA" !"!A- H!E" APARTHE!-, has continuously emphasised that how evenafter feudalism, capitalist industriali.ation, a republican constitution and nowglobali.ation, caste has continued to survive in the !ndian society/ !n his book hementions that how "avy Pillay, the high commissioner of The +nited "ations %or

Human Rights has compared the situation of caste to that of apartheid/ This showsthat this problem of caste differentiation is so deeply grounded in our !ndian society/!t-s not 0ust that this problem of caste is limited to !ndia, it can even be seen in the!ndian diaspora/ The author has given various e1amples to e1plain the !ndiandiaspora and caste/ He even e1plains that caste is not 0ust restricted to the Hindupopulation but has infiltrated in !slam, #hristianity, 2uddhism and ikhism as well/Even after conversion to different religion the problem of caste could not beeradicated/ !slam ma0orly used this caste discrimination to influence people toconvert to !slam/ The author e1plains that despite adopting various measures toeliminate caste, like that of 2hakti *ovement and various other reform movementsin various parts of !ndia, caste prevailed in !ndia/ The ma0or reason for the failure ofthese movements was that the victims themselves never participated in thesemovements/ The author states that how during different time periods attempts weremade to finish the problem of caste but all went in vain/ Through the e1ample of the'hairlan0i case, author in this book is trying to portray that how this castedifferentiation has led to the problem of caste atrocity and the ma0or reason for thiswas the decline of the dalit movement/ These atrocities included any inhumaneactivity that one could think of/ And that the problem of atrocity is prevalent not 0ustbecause of the differentiation between the dalits and non&dalits but also because ofthe lack in the 0udicial system/ Author says that even atrocities have changed withthe passage of time/ He states that earlier, atrocities were committed in the

arrogance of impunity, for untouchables had no means of resistance3 now they arecommitted in vengeance against dalit assertion/ Earlier, atrocities were amanifestation of contempt3 today they are a manifestation of the deep resentment ofthe 4privileges5 cheduled #astes get from the state/- 6ith the emergence ofglobali.ation it was e1pected that the problem of caste would simplify, but withrelation to the lower classes, it had an opposite effect/ 7lobali.ation has brought forthem a crisis of livelihood and an erosion of confidence/ Through this book, via thee1ample of 'hairlan0i murders, the author wants to display that what caste reallymeans in this modern !ndia/ These atrocities constitute the state, media and the civilsociety as its agents/ The author initially describes how caste was earlier and aboutvarious caste massacres and moves on to the most recent case of 'hairlan0i/

Though caste has not withered away in spite of many attempts, it has faced certainchanges as observed by the author/ They try to contract inward and form new

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castes, they also implant their relative superiority in relation to other castes/ This hasled to an increase in the comple1ity of caste and has a huge influence of the politicaleconomy/ Earlier the 2rahmins had an authority over other castes but the hegemonyof the 2rahmins is steadily loosening/ Even in the case of 'hairlan0i, it was not theupper caste or the 2rahmins who attacked the 2hotmange family, rather it was the

hudras/ This contradiction between the dalits and the non&dalits that can be seen inrural areas creates its base from the opposition between the dalit-s role as a landlesslabourer and the shudra-s new position as a dominant landowner/ The main reasonaccording to the author for caste violence in villages is due to this changed positionand roles of the dalits and shudras/ Even the massacre of 'hairlan0i started off with asmall dispute over land/ The !ndian state has also contributed in caste contradictionby forming such modernist policies which brought more wealth to the landed 2#sand $2#s and failed to provide an e8uitable power to the dalits/ Taking capitalisminto consideration, which faded away feudalism from everywhere, could not do muchwith respect to caste in !ndia/ The pre&capitalist institutions, such as caste, religiousbodies and tribal customs, remained unchanged even after capitalism emerged in

!ndia/ As the author stated that capitalism was e1pected to provide 0obs, especially tothe lower class, but it could not eliminate the influence of caste already prevailing inthe occupational lines/ Even if a dalit was forward looking and modern, he wasalways reminded that he is a dalit and will always remain one/ Even the policy ofreservation has benefited and provided employment to 0ust about 9&:; of dalits/

6hen the oppressors were asked of the reason of attacking the dalits, ma0ority ofthem felt that it was their right and it was important to show the dalits their place inthe society/ #aste crimes or atrocities are planned activities to teach a lesson to theentire community/ 'eeping the proliferating cases of atrocities in mind, !ndiangovernment passed various laws for dalits to avoid and reduce atrocities/ The main

law, The chedule #astes and cheduled Tribes ?@?,also known as the PoA Act, was completely based on atrocities and recognised >@crimes as caste atrocity/ Though the act was anticipated to be beneficial to the lowercaste people, but its implementation lacked in various aspects/ The failure of the Actin meeting its ob0ective, as observed by the author, was due to the implementingmachinery, vi./, the police, prosecution and the 0udiciary, because laws and legalprocesses are never self&e1ecuting 3 they depend on human agency and institutions/#onsidering all the facts and figures it was observed that a crime against dalit iscommitted every eighteen minutes/ The author describes about the 'hairlan0i case indetail/ He states that how a family, the 2hotmanges consisting of a mother, two sonsand a daughter, was brutally murdered by a large mob and the reason was that thefamily was trying to move beyond their caste lines/ !t was strange to see that as theincident happened there was no one of their caste who came forward for theirsupport and help them get 0ustice/ Everyone was busy with the annual eekshacelebration and no one noticed about the atrocity happening >B kilometres awayfrom "agpur/ The police, who are the human agents of providing 0ustice, did notregister a case under the PoA act/ This shows that even the police was under theinfluence of high caste people and were in favour of them/ Even the media did notraise the issue of this case even after one month of the incident/ !t was very late thata local newspaper raised this case of 'hairlan0i murders/ The political leadersavoided to visit the incident site and help the deceased get 0ustice/ Also the dalit

leaders avoided a visit to 'hairlan0i as far as possible/ Even when they went there,they tried to score more points for their political career and paid less attention on

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providing 0ustice/ This made the public protests move from the focus of 0ustice to thecriminals to the lack of state machinery in protecting them from these atrocities/ !twas noted that most of the protest movements were lead by the dalit women/ Theinvestigation done by the police showed their disinterest in the case as after thepost&mortem was done many aspects of the case were hid like that the daughter and

mother were raped/ The lack of the state machinery in providing proper 0ustice tothese lower caste dalit people made the dalits against the state/ lowly this agitationof the dalits spread across different parts of the country/ Police suppressed theseevents by attacking the protestors and going to different dalit localities and abusingand arresting dalit people/ The main reason that could be sensed behind this wasthat they were trying to suppress the voices of this repressed caste/

!n a democracy media acts as an important institution/ As noted by the author thateven though the !ndian society was moderni.ing there were no dalits in the !ndianmedia/ !ts effect can be seen in the 'hairlan0i murder incident as the media displayedbiased reports and also considered the protests done by the dalits as an act of

creating nuisance/ *edia made no effort to understand the dalit agitation/ Ambedkarrightly mentioned that the untouchables have no press-/ Through the 'hairlan0i caseit can be inferred that the !ndian administration has a caste biased character/ Thedenial of 0ustice by the state machinery to the victims of atrocity leads to an increasein the cases of atrocities/ To curb away with these protests of the dalits the politicalinstitutions termed them as being na1alites, who 0ust want to be against thegovernment and create situations of abnormality in the society/ !t can be noted thatthe state, most of the times, uses na1alism as a repressive tool and to intensify thecrises/ (ooking at the intensity with which the state deals with people-s movements,one cannot but infer that the enmity of the state towards na1alism is merely ane1pression of its age old caste hatred for the subordinated, oppressed groups who

are na1alism-s adherents/ The contemporary struggles against the state-s land graboperations on behalf of big capital are also leading to many atrocities against dalitsand adivasis/ !nstead of responding to these struggles with sensitivity, the stateresorts to inhumane repression/ Therefore, we can derive that the state can wilfullylink any and every struggle by ordinary people with the na1alites and then havelicence to crush them/ 6hile concluding the book the author mentions about thevarious myths surrounding the 8uestion of caste/ %irst such myth is that globali.ationwill eradicate caste/ The failure of capitalism has demolished this myth and it can beseen that globali.ation has further created a crisis of livelihood for ma0ority of peopleas they are forced to go into the market to fend for themselves because of thechange in the government policies/ The ne1t myth is that economic development willeradicate caste but we can see through the 'hairlan0i case, where the 2hotmangefamily was economically independent and had satisfactory earning, that this myth isalso false/ The ne1t myth that the author talks about is the myth of civil society/ Hestates that as people become civil and educated they help in reducing castedifferentiation/ 2ut whenever there are issues related to caste then this civil societyleaves it all to the dalits/ There is no participation of the non&dalits on the name ofcivil society/ alits believe that if they have their own people placed in thebureaucratic structure then they would be in a better position/ This is seen as a mythby the author, the myth of representation/ (ooking in the 'hairlan0i case it can beseen the entire chain of bureaucracy, staffed with dalits, failed to provide 0ustice at

every possible step/ This is because as soon as an individual enters the bureaucraticstructure he starts working for the system and forgets about his people/ The last

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myth according to the author is the myth of the 2ahu0an/ 2ahu0an means thecoalition between different lower castes such as shudras, dalits and other minoritycastes/ 2ut the 'hairlan0i case demolishes this myth as well because it was theshudras who attacked the 2hotmange dalits/

These above myths mentioned by the author makes the people blind and it isimportant that these myths should be broken/ People should feel that they all are!ndians and that all the issues related to caste should not be dealt by dalits alone/$nly if all people will come together then only there will be no more cases like that of'hairlan0i/