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Events |
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- Peace Concert |
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- Presentation to the US congress |
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- Aid distribution at refugee camp |
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October 8, 2014
Can Caste Be Swept Away? : New Socialist Initiative
It is cleaning season in India.
Country's prime minister has gone to town with a broom. He started
the campaign to clean India by sweeping a dalit neighburhood of
erstwhile untouchables, seemingly breaking many caste barriers.
There are very few public defenders of caste system nowadays.
Upper caste men and women, whose ancestors only three generations
ago fought tooth and nail to not yield even an inch of their caste
privileges, now cry and organise under the slogan of Equality,
once affirmative action for lower castes in educational
institutions and government jobs has begun to have some traction.
Is now not an opportune time to sweep away the garbage of caste
into the dustbin of history?
Reality is too complex for this simple hope. If caste appears to
be disregarded, or flouted, in some domains, its prejudices and
violence are flourishing in others. The day country's news
channels were busy showing the prime minister sweeping a dalit
basti in the heart of the capital, a young woman of Madurai in
Tamil Nadu was burnt alive by her family for marrying a dalit. She
could have been from anywhere in the country, from Haryana in the
North to Maharashtra in the West, or Bihar in the East, to have
met a similar fate; if not murder, certainly social ostracism. In
all villages, where majority of Indians live, habitation areas are
divided along caste lines; upper castes occupying the most secure
central areas with easiest access to public utilities like road,
school, and panchayat ghar; and dalits on the outskirts. In cities
too, where caste markers are less visible, caste networks are the
most potent resource the poor fall back upon while searching for
job and habitation. Come election time, the caste distribution of
any constituency is the primary data for electoral calculations of
every major political party. Caste remains a major determinant of
personal life experiences. It stamps marriage and friendship of
Indians, from a landless agricultural labourer to high
professionals integrated into global economy. Yet, when one looks
at the self-articulation of influential Indians about their
country, caste is one social reality missing. The vision of the
great future that country's prime minister painted for his fawning
NRI audience at the Madison Square in New York had not a single
reference to caste. Country's popular media, soap operas, films
rarely refer to caste, in striking contrast to religion which is
almost always carried on the sleeve.
Why these two contrasting features of caste, its overwhelming
presence in social reality, while simultaneous absence in dominant
discourses? In fact, the absence of caste in India's dominant
imaginings is not really an absence, a silence resulting from
ignorance, lack of familiarity or interest. This absence comes
along with a carefully crafted sub-text about caste, that serves
the interests of a certain type of caste hegemony. Take the 'Swachh
Bharat' campaign, a five year campaign to make India clean. If the
campaign is successful, it will certainly make life better for
every Indian, irrespective of caste, creed or religion. What
better proof can be there of the universal concerns of the Indian
state, or the currently ruling Bhartiya Janta Party, for the
welfare of all? The inaugural 'event' of the campaign saw
country's prime minister sweeping a Balmiki basti on 2nd October.
But, why a dalit basti? Are these the dirtiest of the places in
the country? Decades before Mr Modi went for his sweeping errand
in the said bastee, Gandhi had lived there for a few days.
Country's media and chatterati only saw the association with
Gandhi on 2nd October, and his emphasis on cleanliness. But Gandhi
had started his struggle (or rather experiments) with cleanliness
by cleaning the community latrine at his Tolstoy farm in South
Africa, much before he started the practice of living in Dalit
bastees for a few days at a stretch, mainly after his conflict
with Ambedkar over separate electorates for untouchables. Our
prime minister is a proud Hindu, he would have surely known that
surroundings of Hindu temples, or places of pilgrimages like
Banaras, his parliamentary constituency, are among the filthiest
in the country. Why not start a campaign of cleanliness from
there? No secularist would have criticised him for that, for
exhorting his co-religionists to keep their places of worship
clean. Yet, only a dalit basti is seen fit for starting the
national cleanliness campaign! Why? Because in the caste ridden
popular consciousness of India, both dirt and broom are associated
with dalits, the Balmiki caste in northern India, and other
similar dalit castes in other parts of the country. Besides, the
prime minister of the country cleaning a dalit basti follows the
long tradition of politically dominant groups in India treating
dalits condescendingly. Gandhi had started that tradition by
christening untouchables as Harijans, a term much despised by
dalit activists. If a politician is not willing to target the real
scourge of dalits, the caste system, then the best s/he can do is
to proclaim how worthy their condition is. Gandhi declared them
'God's people'; Mr Modi in one of his rare writings has declared
cleaning others' filth a deeply 'spiritual' experience. Mr Modi's
jaunt also fit like a glove with the strategy of his mentor
organisation. The RSS, forever making stories to target Muslim
community, has come up with a new theory for the condition of
dalit castes in Hindu society. For it, pretty much like the second
rate position of women among Hindus, the social deprivation of
“untouchables” came about due to invasion of the country by the
outsiders. RSS's is a concerted plan to bring dalit caste voters
under its Hindutva fold, so that a solid electoral majority of all
the so called Hindus can be created. Gandhi too had tried the same
with his campaigns against untouchability.
While the dominant political forces in the country have been
trying to incorporate dalit castes within their political
programmes, their poverty and oppression has continued. Sixty four
years after the country was declared a republic based upon liberty
and equality, the Balmikis in the heart of national capital are
still living in a separate neighbourhood. Generations have come
and gone, yet the overwhelming majority of them still clean city's
filth. Many of them are employed by the government. But none of
the governments have thought of providing them with mixed housing
where their neighbours could be teachers, or clerks of other
castes? Why this segregation? Why decades after government jobs
were opened to all, irrespective of caste, one class of
profession, that of cleaning public places, has been one hundred
percent occupied by the men and women of only specific dalit
castes?
Caste question though,
is not only a question of dalit oppression and exclusion, even
while the latter are the most glaring examples of its inhumanity
and barbarity. As Dr Ambedkar shows in Annihilation of Caste,
arguably the most important social analysis of India coming to us
from the recent past, the caste system makes Hindu society
uniquely incapable of freedom, liberty, equality and fraternity.
Written in 1936, Annihilation of Caste is not about specific
conditions of outcaste untouchables, as are many of Ambedkar's
other writings. It squarely addressed itself to caste 'Hindus'.
Its identification of weaknesses of ‘Hindu' society are actually
weaknesses of society in India that continue to the present. Caste
is a system of privilege and hierarchy. While in most societies
that are unequal, privilege and hierarchy are largely a secular
affair, caste projects these to a sacred plane and justifies them
through religion. It considers as polluting the useful work of
those living through the sweat of their brow. It elevates the
chanting of Sanskrit mumbo jumbo, and the use of violence to rule
over others, as sacred karma duties, while the immensely useful
occupations like growing food, or cleaning the public places,
including taking care of dead animals, without which society can
not survive, as Karmic punishments for bad deeds in past births.
Further, as Dr. Ambedkar notes, it justifies not only a
hierarchical division of labour, but actually is a system of
division of labourers. The caste division of humans, inspired and
sanctioned by religion, and stamped from birth, gets so deeply
ingrained in the self conception of its human subjects, that they
come to view members of other castes in exclusive terms. So much
so, that according to him even a Hindu society can not be
said to exist in the usual sense of the word. ‘Caste has killed
public spirit. Caste has destroyed the public charity. Caste has
made public opinion impossible.' By prohibiting Shudras, the
majority of Hindus, from learning, bearing arms and owning wealth,
caste dis-empowered them to challenge the supremacy of upper
castes. Looking at European history for comparison, Dr. Ambedkar
notes 'But in Europe the strong have never contrived to make the
weak helpless against exploitation so shamelessely as was the case
in India among Hindus. Social war has been raging between the
strong and weak far more violently in Europe than it has ever been
in India. Yet, the weak in Europe has had in his freedom of
military service his physical weapon, in suffering his political
weapon and in education his moral weapon (emphasis in
the original).' These 'weapons were, however, denied to the masses
in India by Chaturvaranya.'
Caste continues to
explain many facets of India in the twenty first century. For
instance, why is India one of the filthiest of the countries in
the world, a fact of some embarrassment to its rulers in a
globalising world? Its poverty is not the chief reason. Many
poorer countries are cleaner. The rich in India are not only
profligate generators of garbage like the rich everywhere, what
distinguishes them is the abandon with which they throw their
garbage all around. Within India itself southern states like
Kerala and Tamil Nadu are cleaner than richer states like Punjab
and Haryana. A major part of the reason lies with the caste system
which made certain untouchable castes only responsible for public
cleanliness. The ones on whom fell the job of keeping public
places clean were the most oppressed, they could never command
others to not litter. On the other hand, precisely because of
caste, the cleanliness of public spaces never became a public
concern for everyone. Further, the Brahmanical notions of
pollution create irrational antipathy towards natural human
excretions. Indians will spit, shit and pee everywhere, rather
than follow simple rules and precautions to manage their bodily
wastes. Rich rural households in India are known to spend on fancy
consumer gadgets, rather than have a functional toilet at home.
Or, take another example. Why is India's youth so given to follow
parental and social diktats in matters as personal as love,
marriage, field of study and profession? Why this utter lack of
liberty, and fear of freedom? At root lies the social control and
moral world of caste. Individual initiatives, even asking
questions like Arjuna (Is the killing of kith and kin worthwhile
for gaining a kingdom?) are subservient to Karmic duties enjoined
by caste. Humans are but cogs in the Karmic wheel. Behind such
fatalism, seen as lofty spiritualism by a beevie of Hindu upper
caste thinkers and leaders, lies the fear of change and desire for
orthodoxy. Hindu caste endogamy is permised upon strict control
over female sexuality. Women are not only the means to maintain
caste purity, but as caste subjects they also become its votaries.
An incident narrated by Professor Uma Chakravarty is revealing.
Intense agitations by upper castes erupted in early nineties after
V.P. Singh government extended reservations in government jobs to
the so called other backward castes. Among the agitators were a
group of young women, city bred and university educated with
placards declaring their opposition to reservations because it
robs them off qualified husbands. Class conscious, upper caste
educated women just could not countenance the possibility that if
there were going to be fewer upper caste men in the elite
government services, they might as well marry government officers
from backward castes. Hindu caste system produces dutiful, even if
resentful, sons and daughters, who are too afraid to love freely.
It creates followers and upholders of tradition, who are too
scared to stand up for their rights as adult citizens, or raise
their voice against violation of others' rights.
Functioning of caste in
India now is much different from Dr. Ambedkar's days. Caste
segregation is still present, but caste aggregates have become
much larger than localised jatis of earlier times. The upper three
castes have largely moved into urban areas, where caste boundaries
have further weakened among them. In politics, culture,
professional lives, even in marriages to some extent, they are
beginning to form largely homogeneous groups at the regional
level. But they as a group, are still distinct from the rest of
the Hindus. In many places in rural India, sections of the
landowning erstwhile Sudra castes have emerged as the dominant
caste. They in fact are now the biggest perpetrators of violence
against dalit castes. Political mobilisation has been most
successful among the backward castes, and many of their leaders
and parties have gained access to state power. The majority of
backward castes though remain poor, and socially and culturally
backward. As Professor Ashwani Deshpande's research shows, the gap
between education, employment, income, etc between the three upper
castes and backward castes has practically remained same over many
decades. A small section among dalits, around ten percent, have
gained access to higher education and state employment through
affirmative action of the state. However, against Dr Ambedkar's
expectations this section has failed to lead dalits to a better
life. Key responsibility though lies with the failure of Indian
state to provide universal elementary education and basic health.
So that the poor, a major section among whom are dalits, keep
languishing in a life of illiteracy and poverty. Nevertheless, a
perception has grown that only particular castes among dalits have
monopolised the benefit of job reservations, and calls have
started coming for reservations within reservations. More
worryingly, even the dalits who have benefited often fail to stand
against oppression of their caste brethren. Anand Teltumbde has
shown how many state functionaries who dealt with the Khairlanji
murder and rape of dalits women were themselves dalits, yet they
failed to initiate proper legal action against perpetrators of the
crime.
Capitalism and
electoral politics have played a dangerous game with caste. They
have added new idioms to its prejudices, and created new fissures,
while also modifying its modus operandi. Even while de-ritualised
and secularised, caste remains a system of discrimination and
prejudice. Upper castes remain at the top of all power structures,
whether state, economy, or culture. Despite the formal trappings
of democracy, Indian state has failed to create a universalist
framework for citizenship rights. Popular culture does not espouse
freedom, and dignity of a person; it remains trapped in
regurgitating traditional relationships and motifs. While the
upper castes in power have failed in creating a society of equals,
they also do not accept as equal successful men and women of other
castes. Dalit students and government servants continue to face
harassment. Upper castes resent the success of Dalits or OBCs in
politics. They do not mind a Modi, or a Ramdev from backward
castes, who speak in their language and do not challenge their
caste supremacy, but Ms. Mayawati, who openly asserts her identity
and politics as different from upper castes, is an anathema. On
the other hand, the politics and mobilisations of oppressed castes
are increasingly taking the form of sectarian identity politics,
they too tend to project only narrow sectional demands, creating
further fissures, rather than unity of all the oppressed. Caste in
its current form continues to be an impediment to liberty,
equality and fraternity, as it is was in Ambedkar's time, and
Indian society appears as oblivious to this anti-democratic thrust
of caste now, as it was then.
The failure to deal
adequately with caste by the non-communal political forces in
India is an important reason for the rise of rightwing Hindutva
politics, which is leading country to another abyss. The dangerous
mix of a hidden caste prejudice and hatred for minorities will rob
Indians of little democratic rights they have. Even though the
rise of Mr Modi has many incidental causes, like the corruption,
incompetence and venality of the Congress led UPA, in caste terms
it represents a reorientation of upper caste hegemony. It is an
attempt to push caste under the dirty rug of a great 'Hindu'
tradition, the same tradition which actually dehumanised and
oppressed majority of Indians. While the politics of Hidutva right
is directly opposite to the vision of Dr Ambedkar, the opportunism
of narrow identity politics is so shameless that many dalit
leaders with some base among specific dalit castes, Mr Paswan, Mr
Udit Raj, etc., have joined the Hindutva band wagon.
The project of
democracy in India, of forming an association of free citizens who
have gotten rid of caste once for all, the one for which Dr
Ambedkar fought tirelessly, is dangerously cornered. Yet, this
precisely is the time to envision and etch outlines of a counter
hegemony that will challenge the hierarchy and prejudices of
caste. This vision should include democratic aspirations of all of
the oppressed. It should assert the citizenship rights of all
against an authoritarian state. It should create a humanist and
secular popular culture that honours personal freedoms and
liberties of everyone, irrespective of gender, caste, religion,
language, or nationality.
New Socialist Initiative (NSI)
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