10th Anniversary Issue
August - September 2003 

Year 10    No.90-91
CASTE

‘As great a service rendered on the caste question’

The journal, Communalism Combat (CC) is completing ten years of it existence. If one looks at the pages of CC over this long period, this journey has indeed been quite glorious, constructive and courageous. Courageous because CC has faced the issue of communalism up-front, in a most straightforward manner and at one of the most difficult times in post-Independent India – a period that has been marked by the emergence of fascism.

It has been constructive because CC has approached the issue of communalism in the most positive manner. To follow a positive and constructive approach is a difficult job. Most would attempt a balancing act to avoid conflict. CC, however, has taken risks and handled the issue with a good deal of passion and concern without falling in the trap of performing a balancing act. The journal has stuck to the right direction. Therefore, it deserves appreciation.

A ten-year period in the life history of a journal is indeed a long period to sustain itself. The fact that CC has grown and achieved a measure of respectability and recognition speaks for its place in the world of media and journalism.

In the arena of social reform and reconstruction, it is often said that it is not the distance that one covers that really matters but the direction in which one moves society. The strength of CC indeed lies in its vision for social and political change. CC’s prime concern and preoccupation has been to fight communal politics. However, its concern has not remained confined to see society free of communalism; CC also addresses other maladies in Indian society. Particularly in the last few years, CC has taken on the challenge of addressing another malady within Indian society, namely, caste oppression.

When the question of caste was included in its agenda, the editors asked serious questions of themselves and their readers and provided justifications for their decision when laying down their vision. The editorial in the May 2000 issue of CC observes: "To those who might wonder what a cover story on the Dalit issue is doing in a publication committed to fighting communal politics, we would say that our prime concern never was to defend one religion or religious community against another, or to take sides in any ‘Holy War’. Our preoccupation, instead, is to combat the politics of hatred and intolerance in all its avatars. If communalism is one manifestation of hate politics, which neatly divides the citizens of India into two simple categories – ‘we’ and ‘they’ – based on the religious identity of people, caste is another."

The editorial further observes that "in choosing to highlight ‘India’s Shame’ on our cover this month, we affirm that we fully identify with the Dalit cry for justice, that the insults and indignities heaped daily on millions of fellow citizens should shock all Indians. And that we see our small effort as part of that much larger struggle for human dignity and fraternity."

This is the wider vision with which CC has developed. The May 2000 issue of CC featured a powerful cover story titled "India’s Shame", in which it presented the atrocities on Dalits and the deprivation of Dalit women. But what is more important is that this particular issue of CC demonstrated a cogent analysis and perspective on the issue of caste oppression. Unlike many others who might possibly have shied away from looking at the issue of caste in terms of its foundation, CC indeed located the source of this malady in the social and religious ideology of Hinduism.

It is precisely because of this vision and clarity that this particular issue of Communalism Combat included a powerful and perceptive accompanying essay by Dr. Ambedkar, namely, ‘Hinduism, thy name is inequality’. It is quite obvious that publishing this particular essay by Dr. Ambedkar, and thus focussing on his understanding of the root problem of caste, not only requires insight on the issue of caste but also the courage to publicise it. By presenting this particular aspect of Dr. Ambedkar in the issue, Communalism Combat has indeed placed the issue of caste and rising fascism in a perfectly correct perspective.

The religious base of India’s rising fascism has been recognised by many but there are very few who really try to bring out the ideological elements of its roots, which lie in some aspects of Hindu social and religious philosophy. In picking up this particular essay, CC laid down the framework for its perspective on the issue of caste, which forms the basis of its approach to caste in issues of CC from May 2000 onwards.

In subsequent issues, the journal published three articles with a similar perspective. These articles exposed the various methods used by organisations that propagate fascist ideology. The articles titled, ‘Subversive Sangh’, ‘Militarising Hindu Society’ and ‘Dalits Still Do the Savarna’s Dirty Jobs’ (based on an extensive interview with Dr. Tulsi Ram of JNU) highlight the tactics of some Hindu militant organisations who use the grand old method of violence to enforce their ideology.

The same perspective runs through other investigative reports in the journal. In its issue of November 2001, Communalism Combat takes on the issue of distribution of trishuls in a very bold manner. The editorial, ‘Militarising Hindu Society’, asserts that given "the track record of this extremist outfit, given its arms training camps across the country in the last two years, and given recent calls by some from the sangh parivar to Hindus to prepare to ‘defend’ themselves, religiosity is the least plausible motive driving the current campaign. The most incriminating aspect of the Bajrang Dal’s trishul is that it looks nothing like what one associates with sadhus – if anything, they are nothing but Rampuri knives that can kill, specially crafted to look like a religious symbol."

The use of violence is not new to the Hindu tradition. The Manusmruti prescribes it for the Dalits, if they behave contrary to the customary rules of the shastra. That Hindus are a peace-loving people is an absolute myth, as Dr. Ambedkar has exposed in his writings. Continuing caste violence directed at the 25% Dalit population that averages 30,000 cases of atrocities per annum amply endorses Dr. Ambedkar’s views.

The September 2002 issue of Communalism Combat, through an article by Nilopat Basu titled ‘Subversive Sangh’, rightly maintains that "as long as the Hindutva forces are not ideologically weeded out from the body politic, the threat of Hindutva subverting Parliament will be real." The publication of these two accounts indicates how CC rightly perceives and conceives the larger context of the problem of caste in Indian society.

In a very lengthy cover story based on an interview with Dr. Tulsi Ram of JNU, CC’s February 2003 issue quite clearly brings out that while secularism means the separation of religion from the State, Hindutva forces are distorting the concept, trying to bring back the idea of a religious foundation to the State through the backdoor.

CC has not limited itself to projecting a perspective on the issue of caste oppression, but has also lent support to the efforts by Dalits at the national and international level. Combat projected the issue of caste oppression extensively in the context of the Durban Conference in its issue of April 2001 and September 2001. It lent support, with considerable argument and justification, to the participation of Dalits at the UN Conference on Racism at Durban.

In a powerful essay titled ‘Hidden Apartheid’, Teesta Setalvad put forth the case of Dalits in the strongest possible terms and provided justification for their efforts to raise the issue at the international level. This particular essay is insightful in the sense that it not only put forth the reasons why the issue of caste should be taken to the international level, but it also takes stock of the arguments put forth by the others.

The author argues: "To state that caste, descent and occupation-based discrimination is a distinct form of racism is to evocatively highlight the depth and details of the sub-human conditions that a fifth of the population of India is forced to endure – through segregation, exclusion and discrimination, hierarchy and domination. It is to racism, and not the theory of race, that the Dalit movement as a whole seeks to link its condition and demand world understanding, international condemnation and, yes, support. There may be individual voices within the movement who hark back to the issue of Dalits being a race but for the moment, at least, the overwhelming Dalit position goes beyond it. Incidentally, theorists associated with the movement intimately are emphatic in pointing to Dr. BR Ambedkar’s own rebuttal of the Brahmanical theory of race that justifies the exclusion and brutalisation of the atishudra."

Communalism Combat’s espousal of the Dalit cause is not unconditional. Therefore, it has not shied away from taking issue with those Dalits who collaborate with communal and caste forces. It observed through an interview with Dr. Tulsi Ram, "The trend among Dalits to collaborate with the BJP is dangerous and has diverted them away from what should also be their prime struggle: fighting for secularism. This process has been ably abetted by some Dalit intellectuals who crack crude jokes about secular ideas… Dr. Ambedkar has stated clearly that Dalits should never collaborate with the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS."

Thus, in a short time span over the past three years or so, the journal has rendered as great a service on the question of caste as it has done on the issue of communalism. Since both these maladies are present in abundance, the challenge before CC is much greater than before. I wish its editors great success.

(Prof. Sukhdeo K Thorat is director, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies and professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi).
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