Frontline

July 2000
Dalit Drishti


Stifling dissent

Dr Kancha Ilaiah, an unsparing critic of brahmanism and the caste system, is told to hold his pen

BY ANAND

The registrar of Osmania University, Pannalal, in a letter to Dr Kancha Ilaiah, associate professor of political science at the university, took unreasonable exception to his writings on the caste system. In a letter dated May 6, Pannalal drew Dr Ilaiah’s attention to an article of his published in the Hyderabad-based Deccan Chronicle, ‘Spiritual Fascism and Civil Society’ (February 15, 2000), stating that "writing such articles and debating on such issues (as caste system) is definitely an accepted way in civil society... (but) while doing so, it is absolutely essential to bind ourselves within the basic canons of conduct of our profession."

The registrar, exceeding his brief, issued a crude warning to an academician who has been producing stimulating writings in journals such as Economic and Political Weekly and Mainstream and in newspapers such as The Hindu, The Hindustan Times, Pioneer and Deccan Chronicle. His celebrated book, Why I Am Not A Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy (1996) is a classic widely used in the classrooms of both Indian and foreign universities.

Pannalal took the liberty of instructing Dr Ilaiah, who was earlier a fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi: "Basically being teachers, we are bound to contribute to the uplift of every segment of society, promote social harmony and emotional integration. We have to positively ensure that either our writings or any other action do not in any way lend a slant in accentuating existing prejudices and inflame hatred among different section of people."

And the intimidatory letter ends with a warning: "You are requested to keep these in mind and discharge your role as a teacher with greater vigour and vitality to the betterment of society as a whole."

The status–quoist brahmanical and Hindutva forces have been constantly targeting those who ask uncomfortable questions, and the curbs sought to be imposed on Dr Ilaiah’s writings are very much part of this larger tendency towards intolerance. It is shameful and sad that an academic who has been doing more than merely "teach" is being victimised. But this is not merely a case of an infringement on an individual’s basic right to freedom of expression in a democratic society. It is clearly linked to the person’s caste and the kind of difficult questions Ilaiah has been asking vis–à–vis Hinduism.

In 1996, with the publication of Why I Am Not a Hindu, Ilaiah became a nationally known intellectual figure. This work, written in a semi-autobiographical style, begins with the author declaring his caste position — how he hails from the Sudra/OBC caste of sheep–rearers, golla-kurumaas; how his childhood experiences were shaped on caste lines; how the schools and universities he attended were controlled and dominated by the brahmanical castes and had a brahmanical agenda, though these institutes refused to publicly acknowledge/discuss caste; how the brahmanical culture was uncritically upheld as a role–model in society; how even the Telugu they learnt at school/college was brahmanical both in its aesthetics and politics... how growing up in such a discriminatory atmosphere, Sudra and dalit children would be forced to drop out mainly because of the alienation that the total absence and negation of the life–experience of Dalit–bahujans caused... Ilaiah wrote about all this by invoking ‘personal experience’ as a framework for knowledge — a premise he borrowed from the feminists who declared that the ‘personal is political’.

There are two primary and important differences between Ilaiah’s theory and Dr. BR Ambedkar’s. While Dr. Ambedkar talked of ‘quitting’ Hinduism — how having been born a Hindu he would not die one —, Ilaiah begins by arguing how the Dalits and Sudras are NOT Hindus in the first place. Secondly, while Ambedkar looked at the Dalits as a ‘minority’ — like the Muslims — who therefore needed ‘protection’ from the oppression of caste Hindus, Ilaiah evolves this theory of the ‘Dalit–bahujan’ — the ‘oppressed majority’ (the phrase was given popular currency by the BSP leader, Kanshi Ram). Here, as in Periyar, unity between Dalits and Sudras (and women) is seen as necessary and paramount for a liberatory struggle. In fact, Ilaiah argues how the material and spiritual cultures of the Dalits and Sudras have a lot in common — food habits, man–woman relationships, attitudes towards labour etc. Ilaiah is, of course, alive to the fact that the Sudras are ‘caste Hindus’ if not ‘dwijas’, but he argues that they have much to gain by making common cause with the Dalits.

In evolving his theory of why Dalits and Sudras need to reject the label of Hinduism imposed on them, Ilaiah looks at how while among the dwijas contempt for labour is what places them higher in the caste hierarchy, among the Dalits and Sudras it is knowledge of labour — their production culture — that sets them apart as ‘low’. While in non-caste societies, knowledge of scientific labour such as leather work, soap–making, manufacture of agricultural tools etc is recognised as positive, in the brahmanical social order the more difficult your labour, the lower in the hierarchy you are. In Ilaiah’s framework, such a caste culture must be understood as a division of the population into passive ‘consumers’ — the upper castes who look down upon labour but control the means of production, and ‘producers’ — the Dalits and Sudras who are denied the right to consume/control what they produce.

For holding the kind of ‘casteist’ views that he does, Ilaiah has been harassed by both the Hindutva forces and the ‘secular’/leftist brigade. Academicians who do not know how to counter Ilaiah’s arguments term him ‘unscholarly’ only because he does not oblige them with references and footnotes. But what do you do when you are writing about a people who have been denied history, who have been disallowed from writing their own history? What historical footnotes can a modern Dalit–bahujan scholar gather about the history of tanning and shoemaking which Madigas, Chakkiliyars and Mahars have evolved?

Historians like Romila Thapar, even when they are not part of the Hindutva forces, have only written history as a story of invasions/kings. Ilaiah in a seminar at Chennai recently asked: How then can Romila write the history of pot–making or the history of washerpersons who would have been the discoverers of the first soap?

(The writer is a Chennai-based journalist who specialises in Dalit and caste–related issues).

 


[ Subscribe | Contact Us | Archives | Khoj | Aman ]
[ Letter to editor  ]
Copyrights © 2001, Sabrang Communications & Publishing Pvt. Ltd.