On January 3, 1831, 176 years ago Savitribai Phule, arguably India’s first woman teacher and forgotten liberator was born. With the first school for girls from different castes that she set up in Bhidewada, Pune (the seat of Brahmanism) Krantijyoti Savitribai as she is reverentially known, by the Indian Bahujan movement, blazed a revolutionary trial. There have been consistent demands to observe January 3 as Teachers Day. Without her, Indian women would not have had the benefits of education.

To mark the memory of this remarkable woman we bring to you her letters to life partner Jyotiba. Jyotiba and Savitribai were Comrades in Arms in their struggle against the emancipation of India’s disenfranchised people.

Translated from the Original Marathi with an introduction Sunil Sardar Reproduced here are the English translation of three important Letters – (originally in Marathi and published in MG Mali’s edition of her collected works, Savitribai Phule Samagra Wangmaya) – that Savitribai wrote to her husband Jyotiba in a span of 20 years.

The letters are significant as they write of the wider concerns that drove this couple, the emancipation of the most deprived segments of society and the struggle to attain for them, full human dignity and freedom.

This vision for a new and liberated society – free from ignorance, bigotry, deprivation, and hunger – was the thread that bonded the couple, arching from the private to the personal.

Theirs was a relationship of deep and shared concerns, each providing strength to the other. When large sections of 19^th century Maharashtrian society was ranged against Phule’s reconstructive radicalism, it was the unfailing and shared vision and dedication of his life partner that needs have been emotionally sustaining.  In our tribute to this couple and the tradition of radical questioning that they harboured, we bring to our readers these letters.

1856. The first letter, written in 1856, speaks about the core issue: education and its transformative possibilities in a society where learning, had for centuries been the monopoly of the Brahmins; who, in turn, used this exclusive privilege to enclave, demoralize and oppress. Away at her parental home to recuperate from an illness, Savitri describes in the letter a conversation with her brother, who is uncomfortable with the couple’s radicalism.

October 1856
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jyotiba,
Savitri salutes you!

After so many vicissitudes, now it seems my health has been fully restored. My brother worked so hard and nursed me so well through my sickness. His service and devotion shows how loving he really is! I will come to Pune as soon as I get perfectly well. Please do not worry about me. I know my absence causes Fatima so much trouble but I am sure she will understand and won’t grumble.

As we were talking one day, my brother said, “You and your husband have rightly been excommunicated because both of you serve the untouchables (Mahars and Mangs). The untouchables are fallen people and by helping them you are bringing a bad name to our family. That is why, I tell you to behave according to the customs of our caste and obey the dictates of the Brahmans.” Mother was so disturbed by this brash talk of my brother.

Though my brother is a good soul he is extremely narrow-minded and so he did not hesitate to bitterly criticize and reproach us. My mother did not reprimand him but tried instead to bring him to his senses, “God has given you a beautiful tongue but it is no good to misuse it so!” I defended our social work and tried to dispel his misgivings. I told him, “Brother, your mind is narrow, and the Brahmans’ teaching has made it worse. Animals like goats and cows are not untouchable for you, you lovingly touch them. You catch poisonous snakes on the day of the snake-festival and feed them milk. But you consider Mahars and Mangs, who are as human as you and I, untouchables. Can you give me any reason for this? When the Brahmans perform their religious duties in their holy clothes, they consider you also impure and untouchable, they are afraid that your touch will pollute them. They don’t treat you differently than the Mahars.” When my brother heard this, he turned red in the face, but then he asked me, “Why do you teach those Mahars and Mangs? People abuse you because you teach the untouchables. I cannot bear it when people abuse and create trouble for you for doing that. I cannot tolerate such insults.” I told him what the (teaching of) English had been doing for the people. I said, “The lack of learning is nothing but gross bestiality. It is through the acquisition of knowledge that (he) loses his lower status and achieves the higher one. My husband is a god-like man. He is beyond comparison in this world, nobody can equal him. He thinks the Untouchables must learn and attain freedom. He confronts the Brahmans and fights with them to ensure Teaching and Learning for the Untouchables because he believes that they are human beings like other and they should live as dignified humans. For this they must be educated. I also teach them for the same reason. What is wrong with that? Yes, we both teach girls, women, Mangs and Mahars. The Brahmans are upset because they believe this will create problems for them. That is why they oppose us and chant the mantra that it is against our religion. They revile and castigate us and poison the minds of even good people like you.

“You surely remember that the British Government had organised a function to honour my husband for his great work. His felicitation caused these vile people much heartburn. Let me tell you that my husband does not merely invoke God’s name and participate in pilgrimages like you. He is actually doing God’s own work. And I assist him in that. I enjoy doing this work. I get immeasurable joy by doing such service. Moreover, it also shows the heights and horizons to which a human being can reach out.”

Mother and brother were listening to me intently. My brother finally came around, repented for what he had said and asked for forgiveness. Mother said, “Savitri, your tongue must be speaking God’s own words. We are blessed by your words of wisdom.” Such appreciation from my mother and brother gladdened my heart. From this you can imagine that there are many idiots here, as in Pune, who poison people’s minds and spread canards against us. But why should we fear them and leave this noble cause that we have undertaken? It would be better to engage with the work instead. We shall overcome and success will be ours in the future. The future belongs to us.

What more could I write?

With humble regards,

Yours,

Savitri

The Poetess in Savitribai

The year 1854 was important as Savitribai published her collection of poems, called Kabya Phule (Poetry’s Blossoms).
Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (The Ocean of Pure Gems), another collection of what has come to be highly regarded in the world of Marathi poetry was published in 1891. (The Phules had developed a devastating critique of the Brahman interpretation of Marathi history in the ancient and medieval periods. He portrayed the Peshwa rulers, later overthrown by the British, as decadent and oppressive, and Savitribai reiterates those themes in her biography.)
Apart from these two collections, four of Jyotiba’s speeches on Indian History were edited for publication by Savitribai. A few of her own speeches were also published in 1892. Savitribai’s correspondence is also remarkable because they give us an insight into her own life and into the life and lived experiences of women of the time.

1868. The Second letter is about a great social taboo – a love affair between a Brahman boy and an Untouchable girl; the cruel behavior of the ‘enraged’ villagers and how Savitribai stepped in. This intervention saves the lives of the lovers and she sends them away to the safety and caring support of her husband, Jyotiba. With the malevolent reality of honour killings in the India of 2016 and the hate-driven propaganda around ‘love jehad’ this letter is ever so relevant today.

29 August 1868
Naigaon, Peta Khandala
Satara
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jotiba,
Savitri salutes you!
I received your letter. We are fine here. I will come by the fifth of next month. Do not worry on this count. Meanwhile, a strange thing happened here. The story goes like this. One Ganesh, a Brahman, would go around villages, performing religious rites and telling people their fortunes. This was his bread and butter. Ganesh and a teenage girl named Sharja who is from the Mahar (untouchable) community fell in love. She was six months pregnant when people came to know about this affair. The enraged people caught them, and paraded them through the village, threatening to bump them off.

I came to know about their murderous plan. I rushed to the spot and scared them away, pointing out the grave consequences of killing the lovers under the British law. They changed their mind after listening to me.

Sadubhau angrily said that the wily Brahman boy and the untouchable girl should leave the village. Both the victims agreed to this. My intervention saved the couple who gratefully fell at my feet and started crying. Somehow I consoled and pacified them. Now I am sending both of them to you. What else to write?
Yours
Savitri

1877. The last letter, written in 1877, is a heart-rending account of a famine that devastated western Maharashtra. People and animals were dying. Savitri and other Satyashodhak volunteers were doing their best to help. The letter brings out an intrepid Savitri leading a team of dedicated Satyashodhaks striving to overcome a further exacerbation of the tragedy by moneylenders’ trying to benefit.  She meets the local District administration. The letter ends on a poignant note where Savitribai reiterates her total commitment to her the humanitarian work pioneered by the Phules.

20 April, 1877
Otur, Junner
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jyotiba,
Savitri salutes you!
The year 1876 has gone, but the famine has not – it stays in most horrendous forms here. The people are dying. The animals are dying, falling on the ground. There is severe scarcity of food. No fodder for animals. The people are forced to leave their villages. Some are selling their children, their young girls, and leaving the villages. Rivers, brooks and tanks have completely dried up – no water to drink. Trees are dying – no leaves on trees. Barren land is cracked everywhere. The sun is scorching – blistering. The people crying for food and water are falling on the ground to die. Some are eating poisonous fruits, and drinking their own urine to quench their thirst. They cry for food and drink, and then they die.

Our Satyashodhak volunteers have formed committees to provide food and other life-saving material to the people in need. They have formed relief squads.
Brother Kondaj and his wife Umabai are taking good care of me. Otur’s Shastri, Ganapati Sakharan, Dumbare Patil, and others are planning to visit you. It would be better if you come from Satara to Otur and then go to Ahmednagar.

You may remember R.B. Krishnaji Pant and Laxman Shastri. They travelled with me to the affected area and gave some monetary help to the victims.

The moneylenders are viciously exploiting the situation. Bad things are taking place as a result of this famine. Riots are breaking out. The Collector heard of this and came to ease the situation. He deployed the white police officers, and tried to bring the situation under control. Fifty Satyasholdhaks were rounded up. The Collector invited me for a talk. I asked the Collector why the good volunteers had been framed with false charges and arrested without any rhyme or reason. I asked him to release them immediately. The Collector was quite decent and unbiased. He shouted at the white soldiers, “Do the Patil farmers rob? Set them free.” The Collector was moved by the people’s plights. He immediately sent four bullock cartloads of (jowar) food.

You have started the benevolent and welfare work for the poor and the needy. I also want to carry my share of the responsibility. I assure you I will always help you. I wish the godly work will be helped by more people.

I do not want to write more.
Yours,
Savitri

(These letters have been excerpted with grateful thanks from A Forgotten Liberator, The Life and Struggle of Savitrabai Phule, Edited by Braj Ranjan Mani, Pamela Sardar)

Bibliography:

Krantijyoti : Revolutionary flame
Brahmans: Priestly “upper” caste with a powerful hold on all fairs of society and state including access to education, resources and mobility (spelt interchangeably as Brahmins)
Mahars:The Mahar is an Indian Caste, found largely in the state of Maharashtra, where they compromise 10% of the population, and neighboring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed social reformer B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century.
Mangs: The Mang (or Matang -Minimadig in Gujarat and Rajasthan) community is an Indian caste historically associated with low-status or ritually impure professions such as village musicians, cattle castraters, leather curers, midwives, hangmen, undertakers. Today they are listed as a Scheduled Castes a term which has replaced the former the derogatory ‘Untouchable’
Satyashodhak Samaj:  A society established by Jyotirao Phule on September 24, 1873. This was started as a group whose main aim was to liberate the shudra and untouchable castes from exploitation and oppression
Shudra: The fourth caste under the rigid caste Hindu system; these were further made more rigid in the Manu Smruti
Ati Shudra: Most of the groups listed under this category come under the untouchables who were used for the most venal tasks in caste ridden Hindu society but not treated as part of the caste system.
Jowar: The Indian name for sorghum

How the Education for girls was pioneered

The Phule couple decided to start schools for girls, especially from the shudra and atishudra castes but also including others so that social cohesion of sorts could be attempted in the classroom. Bhidewada in Pune was the chosen site, a bank stands there today. There is a movement among Bahujans to reclaim this historic building. When the Phules faced stiff resistance and a boycott, a Pune-based businessman Usman Shaikh gave them shelter. Fatima Shaikh Usman’s sister was the first teacher colleague of Savitribai and the two trained teachers who ran the school. The school started with nine girl students in 1848.

Sadashiv Govande contributed books from Ahmednagar. It functioned for about six months and then had to be closed down. Another building was found and the school reopened a few months later. The young couple faced severe opposition from almost all sections. Savitribai was subject to intense harassment everyday as she walked to school. Stones, mud and dirt were flung at her as she passed. She was often abused by groups of men with orthodox beliefs who opposed the education for women. Filth including cow dung was flung on her. Phule gave her hope, love and encouragement. She went to school wearing an old sari, and carried an extra sari with her to change into after she reached the school. The sheer daring and doggedness of the couple and their comrades in arms broke the resistance. Finally, the pressure on her eased when she was compelled to slap one of her tormentors on the street!

Once the caste Hindu Brahmanical hierarchy who were the main opponents of female education realized that the Phule couple would not easily give in, they arm-twisted Jyotiba’s father. Intense pressure was brought by the Brahmins on Phule’s father, Govindrao, to convince him that his son was on the wrong track, that what he was doing was against the Dharma. Finally, things came to a head when Phule’s father told him to leave home in 1849. Savitri preferred to stay by her husband’s side, braving the opposition and difficulties, and encouraging Phule to continue their educational work.

However, their pioneering move had won some support. Necessities like books were supplied through well wishers; a bigger house, owned by a Muslim, was found for a second school which was started in 1851. Moro Vithal Walvekar and Deorao Thosar assisted the school. Major Candy, an educationalist of Pune, sent books. Jyotirao worked here without any salary and later Savitribai was put in charge. The school committee, in a report, noted, “The state of the school funds has compelled the committee to appoint teachers on small salaries, who soon give up when they find better appointment…Savitribai, the school headmistress, has nobly volunteered to devote herself to the improvement of female education without remuneration. We hope that as knowledge advances, the people of this country will be awakened to the advantages of female education and will cordially assist in all such plans calculated to improve the conditions of those girls.”

On November 16, 1852, the education department of the government organised a public felicitation of the Phule couple, where they were honoured with shawls.
On February 12, 1853, the school was publicly examined. The report of the event state: “The prejudice against teaching girls to read and write began to give way…the good conduct and honesty of the peons in conveying the girls to and from school and parental treatment and indulgent attention of the teachers made the girls love the schools and literally run to them with alacrity and joy.”

A Dalit student of Savitribai, Muktabai, wrote a remarkable essay which was published in the paper Dyanodaya, in the year 1855. In her essay, Muktabai poignantly describes the wretchedness of the so-called untouchables and severely criticizes the Brahmanical religion for degrading and dehumanizing her people.

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Supply Sodium Cynanide and a Rope to every Dalit student-Rohit to the VC a month before he took his life

This letter, dated December 18, 2015 has not been so widely quoted nor has it gone viral. It is a comment on all of us, especially those of us in the media, that we failed to read the warnings or feel the anguish.  After all it is since August 2015 that the social boycott and ostracizing of Dalit students, including Rohith was systematically afoot. That is close to five months ago.

Nearly a month to the day that he tragically gave up the struggle to live and took his own life, on December 18, 2015, a hand-written letter from Rohith Vemula to Vice Chancellor Appa Rao says it all. Taunting and tragic, the note will now be read as a precursor of what was to come. In a hand-written scrawl that hints at acute desperation, he says, “Your Excellency (addressed to the Vice Chancellor Appa Rao) “make preparations for the EUTHANASIA for students like me from the Ambedkarite movement…and may your campus rest in peace forever.”

The letter traces the officially sanctioned “social boycott” of Dalit students after they took on a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for his derogatory remarks to the Dalit students. “Donald Trump will be a Lilliput in front of you,” Rohith tells Appa Rao then offering a piece of chilling advice. “Please serve 10 miligram of Sodium Azide to all the Dalit students at the time of admission…Supply a nice rope to the rooms of all Dalits students..”The text of the letter can be read here and a scanned hand written copy seen here.

Now we know, and fret over the fact that his Rs 25,000 per month stipend (as of all his other suspended colleagues) was stopped after suspension and he had to borrow money, even from home, to survive the struggle. Now that he is dead we listen to the plight and anguish of his family. Why did we not listen before? As the isolation and anguish built up to make Rohith take a step so final that it signalled no return? Yes, we are all to blame.

“After the stipend was stopped, his family was struggling to support him. He borrowed Rs 40,000 from a friend and was living frugally. Almost every day, he used to say that his money was stuck,’’ said Velmula Sankanna, a fellow PhD scholar and one of the other five students who were suspended. “In December, Rohith wrote an angry letter to the V-C, sarcastically asking him to provide euthanasia facilities for Dalit students. Since then, he was scared to go to the administration building and ask about his stipend. He became silent and withdrawn. He said that he was falling into depression because he was being defeated by the system at every turn. He blamed himself, his caste, and the circumstances around him. He did not take much interest in anything except studies,’’ added Sankanna, a close friend.

We did not rise to feel, see or appreciate the seriousness implicit in the warnings. In August 2015, a questionable mode of ‘suspension’ of five singled out students of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) followed by the arbitrary stopping of their scholarship stipend, further followed by their being locked out of their rooms from January 4, 2016. Yet they fought on, sleeping out near the shopping complex in the cold. Awaiting fair hearing, democratic space for protest(s) and justice.

From the night of January 4, 2016 until today the sleep out protests continue.

After the tragic and unnecessary loss of the life of a budding science scholar, a proud Ambedkarite, will justice and fair hearing happen? Yesterday in a fully articulated representation to PL Punia, Chairperson of the National Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Commission, the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, University of Hyderabad (UoH) has demanded:

• Punish the Culprits under the SC/ST Atrocities Act:
• Banadaru Dattareya, Union Cabinet Minister of State for Labour and Employment
• P Appa Rao, Vice Chancellor
• Professor Alok Pandey, Chief Proctor
• Susheel Kumar, ABVP President
• Ramchandra Rao, MLC
• Remove P Appa Rao from the post of Vice Chancellor
• Employ a family member of Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad and give his family Rs 50 lahs in compensation
• Drop the fabricated cases against five Dalit Research Scholars immediately and unconditionally
• Revoke the suspension of Students immediately and unconditionally

The Anger Spreads; Demands for resignation of Vice Chancellor Appa Rao

Anger and grief are potent combinations and both were visible in plenty at the mortuary of the Osmania Hospital on Monday, January 18 where Rohith Velumal lay, a day after he tragically ended his own life. His mother’s anguished cry says it all, ““I used to proudly tell everyone in my village that my son was doing PhD at Hyderabad University. Today, I have come to collect his dead body.’’ The family is from Gurazala near Guntur, his mother a tailor and father, Manikumar a security guard at the Hyderabad University. Rohith has two siblings, an elder sister and a younger brother.

Over 1200 students of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) participated in a rally on Monday evening and have resolved to protest on Tuesday, January 19 and not allow the university to function until the current Vice Chancellor, Appa Rao steps down. Before the rally, his close friends and colleagues, along with his family were present at the cremation of Rohith in Hyderabad. (see Image story)

Simultaneous and spontaneous protests continued through the day yesterday at Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Mumbai and Delhi. The road outside Shastri Bhavan, the office of Smriti Irani, the Ministry for Human Resources Development (MHRD) was cordoned off akin to a war zone (see pictures). In Hyderabad, a visit from the chairperson of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes Commission allayed feelings somewhat.

Though it is Rohith is the one who has made the most recent and most tragic sacrifice, the question is whether it will still open India’s eyes and hearts?

We read every other day not just of the social boycott of Dalit children in the mid day meal schemes. In ‘Dravidian’ politics ruled Tamil Nadu colour bands on Dalit students brand them with their caste. There is little political, social or cultural outrage. The television channels, packed as they are with ‘journalists’ most of whom sport a myopic caste consciousness of the elite Indian that simply excludes any mention of discrimination or exclusion while badgering home ‘the banner of tolerance’, rarely flag anti-Dalit atrocities as an institutional ill to be faced squarely then remedied.
In ‘progressive’ west India the discrimination takes similar forms, and examples abound. In Phugana, three young Dalit children, one a baby was burnt alive in a burst of Rajput rage.

Just like the Blacks fought (and have barely won) the Civil Rights battle in the West – last year’s incidents at Fergusson are evidence of how thinly layered this success is –it is privileged India, caste Hindus who need to hang their heads in acknowledgement, first, and the, shame.

We need to internalize what Dalit students experience when they enter schools, colleges and universities and break the glass ceiling and enter India’s famed institutions of higher learning, the IITs, the IIMs and Universities.

Not only is the percentage of Dalit students who enter higher educational institutions small. They are subject to insidious caste practices and exclusion that batters the hard earned self-esteem. A dangerous argument of ‘meritocracy’ cloaks well organized money and caste induced privilege.

This everyday institutional and societal exclusion and othering needs to be acknowledged squarely by each and one of us.

It is time we ask difficult ourselves some hard and uncomfortable questions.

What kind of history do we teach? Who are our heroines and heroes?
How many Dalits are there in the media, print and television?
How many Dalits in Institutions of power and governance?

The Dalit experience says that entering the corridors of elite educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technologies (IIT) and Indian Institute of Managements and Central Universities for scores of Dalit students is like walking into a living hell, where the fear of being shamed and humiliated hangs heavy on the heart and soul of every student.

Before Rohit, we lost Senthil Kumar and Nagaralu Koppalas, also in the Central University of Hyderabad. Have these earlier losses, deaths of young men in their prime been internalized and taught the UoH any lessons worth learning? The recent and continuing unfair suspension of Dalit scholars would appear to suggest that no lessons have yet been learned.

Is India willing ready and able to accept her Not So Hidden Apartheid?

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This acute denial of access to common resources continues today… countrywide. In fact, the assertion of a right to life of equality has made Dalits even more susceptible to brute violence as a complicit state simply looks on. In terms of fair access, re-distribution and equality other categories of Indians have joined Dalits as victims of targeted brutality and hate. Notably Indian Muslims and Christians.

In 1927, in rural Maharashtra, the denial of access continued despite the Bombay legislative council passing a resolution in August 1923, years before, making resources, especially water to be freely available to all. The Chavdar Tale Satyagraha, 94 years ago today has entered protest folklore in Maharashtra and is also known as Mahadcha Mukti Sangram (Mahad’s Liberation Struggle) and Mahadchee Samajik Kranti (Mahad’s Social Revolution). India’s government institutions observe March 20 as Social Empowerment Day. Tragically, despite the history and the date India continues on a path of collusive denial.

21st century India remains cruel to her most oppressed sections, the state is often a silent onlooked, complicit in violence unleashed when rights are asserted and dignity fought hard for. Gujarat, hailed as a model state for a certain kind of development, saw the brute murder of Amrabhai Boricha, a 50-year-old activist, who was attacked with spears, iron pipes and swords till he died in Sanodar village, while a policeman silently watched No action to date has been taken against the policeman for this brutal attack that was carried out by Kshatriyas of the village, right in front of his daughter’s eyes. This was 18 days ago.

The present central government has admitted to parliament (Rajya Sabha, March 17) that in 2019 and 2018 respectively, there were 2,369 and 2,067 registered rape cases against women of the Scheduled Castes! Bad or worse, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, that deals with penalising perpetrators for sexual crimes against children, 2019 reported 1,117 cases and 2018 reported 869 cases against Dalit children.

Adivasi women and girls fared no better: registered rape case against women and children of the Scheduled Tribes for the last two years, 2019 saw 714 cases against women and 396 cases against children. In 2018, as many as 609 women registered rape complaints, whereas 399 cases were registered by minors. In this bleak scenario, Rajasthan reported the highest number of cases against Dalit women (491) and Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of cases against Dalit minors (214). Shockingly, Madhya Pradesh also recorded the maximum number of cases against Scheduled Tribe women and children with 219 and 139 cases, respectively.

Apart from violent crimes, many parts of India still follow the caste practice of not allowing Dalits to access handpumps, tube-wells, etc located in areas dominated by the more privileged castes One such area is Bundelkhand, which is constantly hit by water scarcity. Water tankers are not sent to Dalit villages, Dalits are not even allowed to touch functional water pumps and have to walk multiple kilometres just to get water.

A report by India Today in 2019 revealed how some of these water pumps in rural India are guarded by lathi-wielding men. When someone was asked why this protection of tubewells from people who need it, the answer was: “This is to prevent the theft of water. Unknown people (read Dalits) come here to steal water and we cannot afford this because there is already a water shortage.” 

What is the mindset that treats the drinking of water, a common resource as theft? The recent case of the young Muslim child beaten for drinking water from a temple in Ghaziabad is another case in point. Justifying the brutal beating up of the young boy, the logic used by the temple priest was that Muslims are not allowed entry into temples and, therefore his drinking of water is ‘theft.’

Denying water to the oppressed classes is a caste Hindu practice that continues, and is one of the most prevalent forms of othering that still exists. As we pay tribute to the Chavdar Tale (pond/tank) satyagraha, the words of Babasaheb in the lead up to the protest remain prescient: “The Untouchables, either for purposes of doing their shopping and also for the purpose of their duty as village servants, had to come to Mahad to deliver to the taluka officer either the correspondence sent by village officials or to pay Government revenue collected by village officials. The Chawdar tank was the only public tank from which an outsider could get water. But the Untouchables were not allowed to take water from this tank. The only source of water for the Untouchables was the well in the Untouchables quarters in the town of Mahad. This well was at some distance from the centre of the town. It was quite choked on account of its neglect by the Municipality”

(“The Revolt of the Untouchables”, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, Vol 5).

That day 94 years ago, was preceded by a conference organised by Depressed classes on the issue of Civil Rights and Babasaheb Ambedkar was the chief guest and guide of the event (March 19-20). Mahad, a town in Konkan, was selected for the event because it had a nucleus of support from ‘caste hindus’. These included A.V.Chitre, an activist, GN Sahasrabudhe of the Social Service League and Surendranath Tipnis who was then president of the Mahad municipality. Babsaheb was felicitated.  Over 2,500 delegates participated in it. The conference decided to start a Satyagrah led by Baba Saheb Ambedkar and drink water at the Chavdar Talab. This was a historic moment. Dr Ambedkar and the other Satyagrahis defied all the public pressure and reached the Chavadar Talab, drank water and got ‘implemented’ the resolution passed by the Bombay Legislative Assembly.  Ambedkar also made a statement addressing the Dalit women during the Satyagraha. He asked them to abandon all old customs that provided recognisable markers of untouchability and asked them to wear saris like the privileged caste women. (Before that time, the Dalit women were not allowed to drape saris completely).

The 1920s had myriad instances of caste Hindus defying the bonds of despicable and exclusionary caste practice and speaking against both untouchability, deprivation and denial.  The Manusmriti Dahan (burning of the Manu Smriti) was undertaken by both Sahasrabudhe and Ambedkar on December 25 of the same year. Ten years later, in December 1937, the Bombay High Court ruled that untouchables have the right to use water from the tank!

The India of today does not merely turn its eyes and ears away from instances of violent caste exclusion. Today’s privileged elite, disengaged with the realities of millions of Indians do not care to identify themselves with any symbolic protest for a more dignified or egalitarian society. So many comparative examples come to mind.

In 2020, USA broke out in outraged protest when a brutal killing of a Black man by a police officer leading to weeks and weeks of protests. This was in a country maimed by the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak where the protesters were overwhelmingly white. Or take yesterday when the president of the USA, Joe Biden ordered the US flag to be flown at half-mast due to the brute killings of Asians in Atlanta. India, ruled by a militarist and supremacist ideology today scoffs at the more modern parametres of equality and dignity. Tragically, the tricolour is also sought to be appropriated by those who have no regard for either the Constitution, Babasaheb, Social Justice or Empowerment.

An Ode then to the Mahad Satyagraha….

Flyer published before Mahad Satyagraha in 1927

Related:

Dalit RTI activist hacked to death in Gujarat
3,110 rape cases recorded against Dalits and ST women in 2019: Centre in RS

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It is clear that without fighting the forces that represent Hindutva, both ideologically and politically, the legacy of Rohith Vemula cannot be carried forward. The larger challenge lies in envisioning and struggling for a caste free society.

If anyone not of our own
Happens to read this manuscript:
Heads will roll
Hearts will beat to death
Brains will curdle.
All that one has learned
Will be lost.
Now, I have placed curses
On my own words.
 
– NT Rajkumar
(translated from the Tamil Panirendhu Kavithaigal)

A Preface to the Current Discussion
 Rohith Vemula’s death – an institutional murder of the casteist-communal combine – has led to numerous discussions and debates around the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the political ideology of Hindutva.
 
This is not the first time that the BJP-RSS combine has surfaced in controversies in recent times. Nor is it the first case of suicide by a Dalit-Adivasi in higher educational institutions. In recent decades the RSS along with it’s frontal organisations rose to prominence with three incidents starting with the anti-reservation riots in Gujarat in the 80s, followed by Advani’s rathayatra and the attempt to demolish the Babri Masjid, leading up to the Muslim genocide in Gujarat in 2002.
 
Vemula’s death has raised eyebrows all over the  world, as it is the continuum of the Hindutva assault on Dalit assertions. In many ways the radical Dalit politics espoused by groups like the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) is diametrically opposite to that of Hindutva. Nothing else punctures the pompous claims about Hindu civilisation, culture and rashtra, as effectively as radical Dalit politics.
 
The present phase of fascism is a more organised and systematic blend to sustain the caste-class-communal legacy for a prolonged period.

Ever since the articulation of the Phule-Ambedkar discourse, radical Dalits have pointedly questioned the very existence of a Hindu society, culture and civilisation. Against tall claims of Brahmanical spirituality, this discourse laid bare the inhumanity of the Vedas[1] and Smritis in justifying and establishing the system of caste brutality.
 
Against claims of a unified Hindu world existing through the millennia, this discourse highlighted the continued opposition to Brahminism in history through Charvaka philosophy, Buddhism, Sramanic traditions and radical sections of the Bhakti movement. Thus, Hindutva forces cannot accuse radical Dalit politics of being a conspiracy of a westernised elite, or of de-classed intellectuals. It is organically Indian, and is a result of the real life experiences of one sixth of the most marginalised and poor sections of Indians.
 
The radical Dalit discourse has also resisted the culture of domination, and rejected the patronising overtures of reformist caste Hindus as for example, Gandhi re-christening erstwhile untouchables as Harijans, or the more recent claim of Narendra Modi who said in the book Karmayogi (published in 2007), that cleaning garbage is a spiritual experience for scavenger castes.
 
Golwalkar praises Manu as the greatest lawgiver mankind ever had. It was the same lawgiver Manu's book, which was burnt by Ambedkar in his pursuit of getting justice for the Dalits. In current times Golwalkars’ successor also demanded a throwing away of Indian constitution.

Ambedkar's announcement that ‘though I was born a Hindu, I solemnly assure you that I will not die as a Hindu,’ encapsulates the relationship of radical Dalit consciousness to Hindu religion. The hegemony of upper caste Hindus over Indian society in modern times grew out of the failure of the Ambedkarite radical separatism in the face of Gandhian intimidation that led to the 1932 Poona Pact. While there indeed is a generalised hostility towards Dalits among caste Hindus, the contradiction of radical Dalit consciousness is sharpest with Brahmanical Hindutva.

Radical Dalit consciousness, in its Ambdekarite form, stands for rational humanism and liberation of all irrespective of caste, gender and ethnicity. Brahmanical Hindutva’s motivating force is communal hatred, and its organising principle is religion based, patriarchal and violent nationalism.
 
No wonder the British never repressed the RSS. The collusion between religion based nationalism and colonialism can be understood from such statements.

It would not be out of place to state that these philosophical and ideological postulations have not arisen out of the blue, rather they had a steady and thorough progress in history.
 
It is time to examine these ideological positions, which essentially have a communal colour. Examining them from the Dalit-Adivasi viewpoint is crucial since it would unfold the dynamics of the social, and religious politics of communal fascism to the lowest level.
 
In a broader perspective, communalism of polity is preliminary to fascism of polity. In today’s context what is going on in India is not mere communalism of polity –  rather it is the politics of fascism under the Hindutva brigade married to corporate capital. Hence, as a critical outlook, I would like to emphasis some of the major threats faced by the Dalits and Adivasis (or Indigenous people).

From left to right: Manu who inspired Friedrich Nietzsche who inspired Adolf Hitler

Fascism and the Political Theology of Dominance
 

Before getting into a detailed discussion let me place what fascism espouses. Fascism is a construct of entrenched political domination capable of infringing any eligible rights of any individual or group to an unpredictable degree, or magnitude. Historically it took different shapes and forms, depending upon the particular social order. Although it was coined as a political ideology in 1919 with the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, it has much older roots in India and some parts of the world (George 2006).
 
Never before in history have we witnessed such a period of deliberate drift of further confusing and disempowerment of Dalits and Adivasis.

Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology that celebrates the nation, or the race, as an organic community that transcends all other loyalties. It emphasises a myth of a national or racial puritan to be celebrated as a natural higher being. It could also be the resurgence of a particular race after a period of decline or destruction.
 
To this end, fascism calls for a ‘spiritual revolution’ against signs of moral decay such as individualism and materialism, and seeks to purge ‘alien’ forces and groups that threaten the organic community. Fascism as a rule celebrates masculinity, youth, mystical unity, and the regenerative power of violence. Often, except in exceptional situations, it resorts to racial superiority doctrines, ethnic persecution, imperialist expansion, and genocide. At the same time, fascists may embrace a form of internationalism based on either racial or ideological solidarity across national boundaries. Usually fascism espouses open male supremacy, though sometimes it may also promote female solidarity and new opportunities for women of the privileged races or nations (George 2006).
 
Fascism's approach to politics is both populist and elitist. While the former seeks to activate ‘the people’ as a whole against perceived oppressors or enemies, in the latter it treats the peoples’ will as embodied in a select group, or often one supreme leader from whom authority proceeds downward. Fascism seeks to organise a cadre-led mass movement in a drive to seize state power. It seeks to forcibly subordinate all spheres of society to its ideological vision of an organic community, usually through a totalitarian state. Both as a movement and as a regime, fascism uses mass organisations as a system of integration and control, and uses organised violence to suppress opposition, although the scale of violence varies widely (George 2006).
 

Understanding Fascism of Caste in Indian Perspective

In the Indian context historical fascism could be widely observed in caste domination and feudal relationship, championed by Hindutva. This is more vibrant than the modern paradigms of communal fascism. The mythical stories of killing of Shambhug by Ram, denial of Eklavya of his right to education and the subsequent chopping off of his right thumb, the counterfeited assassination of Asur king Ravana, the deceitful murder of Bali are only some impulses of this trend of domination over indigenous people. Further these communities were addressed as rakshashas (wild), mleccha (filthy) barbarian, uncivilised, and so on. Both Vedic and Sanskrit texts have justified the invasion and exploitation of Aryans and explicitly supported the superiority of the Aryan race and Vedic philosophy to the extent that their fate of being in the higher beings is considered as god given (George 2006).
 
The political successes of Hindutva are growing out of the casteism, patriarchy, insecurities and superstitions of the generalised Hindu common sense. It is high time social forces fighting against Hindutva realise its casteist core, and understand the nature of its assault on anything that is different or radical.

The present phase of fascism is a more organised and systematic blend to sustain the caste-class-communal legacy for a more prolonged period. In modern times it started with the emergence of Hindu Chauvinism and Cultural Nationalism under the leadership of the RSS led camp. This camp learnt various things from different sectors. They learnt the skills in organising and mobilising from Communist parties, mastered the management techniques from Churches and Christian institutions, the one-man dictator model of Adolph Hitler and the methods of maintaining private militia.
 
In a nutshell, the whole exercise was to sustain and strengthen the same old ideology of purity of the three upper varnas and to consider the Shudras and Panchamas as impure and polluting. This has resulted in a twin strategy of dictating to the ex-untouchables and non-Hindu groups, which is the present form of communal fascism in India. The current mode of ensuring a deeply polarised and communal polity coupled with sustained casteism apparently speaks of this truth (George 2006).
 

MS Golwalkar (left) and KB Hedgewar: Inspired equally by Manu and Hitler

The Ideological Upsurge of Hindutva

In modern times the ideological upsurge of Hindutva has got a definite periodicity which can be traced from the early nineteenth century. It arose as a system to put a break on the increasing reforms within the Hindu religion. These reforms could be listed as advocating freedom to women through abolition of sati, child marriage, opening the boundaries of educational institutions to women and to a certain level opening up educational space for the Shudras and untouchables.
 
However since the Muslims constituted a sizeable population, they were considered as a big threat to the Hindu society. Christians who opened health and educational institutions for all, particularly in Dalit and Adivasi areas, thus threatened the social fabric of caste.  On the other side Christianity was accepted as the mainstream faith by these oppressed groups – as a means to escape the order of caste. Thus Christian conversion turned out to be a major threat to the Brahminical social hierarchy of caste. Hence a counter ideology was obligatory for the sustenance of Hindutva. The ideological formulation in the Indian context could be seen in three different phases – first is the sowing of seeds of communalism through articulations and practice of a Hindutva worldview in modern India included its consolidation (Hindutva) as an ideological tool, and third through devised programmatic patterns (George 2006).
 
Perhaps Bankim Chandra Chatterjee first sowed the seeds of communalism through his novel ‘Anand Math’. This novel could be considered to be the foundational text of the current Hindu Cultural Nationalism.
 
There is a specific backdrop of this novel during British rule in India, where the context is projected against the white supremacy applying for a prolonged process of piecemeal conquest and prudent consolidation. This text fuelled discontent, resentment and resistance at every stage, wherein deposed Rajas, Nawabs or uprooted Zamindars and landlords often led a series of rebellions during the first hundred years of British rule. Peasants, ruined artisans, demobilised soldiers and discontented people formed the backbone of such rebellion. These rebellions were generally localised involving armed bands of a few hundred to several thousands. The civil rebellions grew in Bengal and Bihar as British rule was gradually consolidated and further spread to other places. There was hardly any year without an armed rebellion in some part of the country. From 1763 to 1856 there were more than forty major and hundreds of minor rebellions. Dispossessed peasants and demobilised soldiers of Bengal were the first to rise.
 
One of the major rebellions was the sanyasi (saint) rebellion of Bengal, which was described artfully in Anand Math. This is the background from where a clear divide between the Hindus and Muslims in Bengal began. It is in this novel that the song Vande Mataram first surfaced, which the Indian nationalists chose to sing in praise of ‘Mother India’. It comes from a tradition of mythologising a fictive imagined nation personified as a Devi (goddess). In the novel the context of the anthem was overtly anti-Muslim and treated them as a separate nation. Invocation of the deities like Durga, Kali and Lakshmi all run counter to the secular credentials. This was basically meant to instil inspiration among the Hindus to work for the destruction of the Muslim rule in Bengal.
 
The hero of the novel, Bhawan and is an ascetic. He recruits men for his mission. He meets a youth, Mahender. He then tries to explain to him the meaning of Vande Mataram and warns him that unless the Muslims are banished from the Indian soil, his faith will be in constant danger. Mahender asks him if he would face the Muslims alone. Bhawanand replies by  asking whether 30 crore voices with 60 crore swords in both their arms would be enough for the mission. (vide the third stanza of Vande Mataram) When Mahender is not satisfied even then, Bhawanand takes him to Anand Math (the title of the novel). The Brahmachari of the Math takes Mahender inside the Math.
 
The Math is half-illuminated with a narrow entrance. He enters the Math where he sees a big idol of Vishnu flanked by Lakshmi and Saraswati on either side. The Brahmachari introduces it to Mahender as the Mata and asks him to say Vande Mataram. He then takes him to another chamber where he describes the female deity as Jagatdhatri, the sole keeper of the Indian soil. He exhorts about the glorious past of India, symbolised by these goddesses, then he takes him to a chamber where he shows him the naked Kali. She is black, unclothed and wears a garland of skulls, symbolising death, decay and impurity.
 
Kali is described here as crushing Mahadeva, who is the said symbol of peace and unity. He synonymises the present state of the country with Kali. Finally he takes him to a chamber where a magnificent idol of goddess Durga is kept symbolising the future of the nation, which is to be upheld by her. Here the Brahmachari prays to the goddess chanting: ‘we worship ye, O Mata Durga, who possesses ten hands. Ye are the Lakshmi whose abode is lotus. Ye are the bestower of knowledge.’ (Vide the fourth stanza) Now Mahender receives the inspiration and takes a pledge (Islamic Voice: 1998).
 
The eighth chapter in the third part contains incidents of arson and bloodshed, which inspires the Hindus to turn the lives of the Muslims difficult. Voices are being raised to loot the Muslims and kill them. The atmosphere is filled with Vande Mataram. As a result, the Muslims try to take shelter far and near. The devotees of the Mata ask, ‘when would the time come when we would destroy the mosques and construct the temples of Radha and Mahadev?’ To this the hero of the novel replies, ‘now the English have arrived who will protect our life and property’ (Islamic Voice: 1998). The pertinent question that arises in this text is eventually to ask who is the aggressor, against whom is the aggression aimed at, and at which levels is it perpetrated? The convenient political negotiations and suitability of crude nationalist assimilatory purposes sow the seeds of a divisive politics at every level, which finally culminates in the division of East and West Bengal.
 
Yet, Hindutva was not established as a political ideology, neither in theory nor in practice. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar carried strains also present earlier in Bankim Chandra’s work. Hindutva became an ideology through his writings when his book ‘Essentials of Hindutva’ came into the public domain in 1924.
 
Savarkar (1924: 43-44), stated that an Indian could be only that person who could claim his pitribhumi (fatherland), and who addresses this land of his religion as punyabhumi (Holyland) both lay within the territorial boundaries of British India. These are the essentials of Hindutva – a common rastra (nation) a common jati (race or caste) and a common sanskriti (culture). Furthermore, there had to be a commitment to a common Indian culture, inevitably defined by Hindutva (ibid. 33-37). These qualifications automatically led to Muslims and Christians being regarded as foreigners.
 
Subsequently Golwalkar (1939: 89) added Communists to this list. Both Savarkar (1924) and Golwalkar (1939) introduced race and language as qualifiers of supremacy. While comparing these ideas and symbols with that of their European counterparts, both were contemporaries in the Indian context that reflected emerging and dominant fascist tendencies. Thapar (2004) refers to this as the periods of confusing change where the preference is for a theory that simplifies the social world into ëusí and ëthemí (Thapar 2004). Savarkar along with Golwalkar was the early ideologue of the entire thesis of Hindutva.
 
It is with this intention that the Hindu Mahasabha was formed. Further Savarkar was the inspiration behind the formation of RSS. Hedgewar, an Andhra Brahmin settled in Maharashtra, a disciple of Balkrishna Shivram Moonje and a close friend of Savarkar, established the RSS in 1925 at Nagpur. Hedgewar was sent to Kolkata by Moonje in 1910 to pursue his medical studies and unofficially learn the techniques of terror from the secret revolutionary organisations like the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar in Bengal. He became a part of the inner circle of the Anushilan Samiti to which very few had access. In 1915 after returning to Nagpur he joined the Indian National Congress and engaged in anti-British activities through the Kranti Dal. He was also a member of the Hindu Mahasabha till 1929 (Ramaswami 2003).
 
Although, Hedgewar established the RSS, it was Golwalkar who was the man behind the entire growth of RSS. Like Savarkar he took this idea of Hindutva further. In his book ‘We or our Nationhood Defined,’ he gives an outline of his ideology. Later his articles were published as a compilation, ‘Bunch of Thoughts.’ In both these books (Golwalkar 1939; 2000) and also in various other outpourings of his, he denigrates democracy and pluralism on one hand and upholds fascist concept of nationhood and sectarian version of culture on the other. His writing is most intimidating to the outcastes and minorities in particular. He was the chief of RSS for 33 long years and was instrumental in giving RSS a direction, which assumed menacing proportions in times to come. He strengthened the foundations of the ‘hate minorities’ ideology resulting in the consequent waves of violence, undermining the democratic norms in the society. He can also be credited with giving the sharp formulations which laid the ideological foundation of different carnages in India (Puniyani 2006).
 
Golwalkar praises Manu as the greatest lawgiver mankind ever had (Golwalkar 1939: 117-118; 2000; 239, 258, 264). It was the same lawgiver Manu's book, which was burnt by Ambedkar in his pursuit of getting justice for the Dalits. In current times Golwalkars’ successor also demanded a throwing away of the Indian constitution, to be replaced by the one which is based on Hindu holy books, implying Manusmriti, of course (Puniyani 2006).
 
Golwalkar’s formulation of Hindutva fascism is so blatant that even his followers struggle hard to cover many of his ostensive judgments. He portrays an ornate love of caste, naked hatred for minorities and eulogises Nazi Germany. Curran (1979: 39) in his classic study says that the ideology of Sangh is based upon principles formulated by its founder, Hedgewar. These principles have been consolidated and amplified by Golwalkar through critical indoctrination of Sangh volunteers (Puniyani 2006). What does Golwalkar say in this book?
 
He rejects the notions of Indian nationhood or even India as a nation in the making. He rejects the idea that all the citizens could be equal. He goes on to harp on the notions of nationhood borrowed from Hitler's Nazi movement. He rejects that India is a secular nation and posits that it is a Hindu rashtra. He rejects the territorial-political concept of nationhood and puts forward the concept of cultural nationalism, which was the foundation of Nazi ideology. He admires Hitler's ideology and politics of puritan nationalism and takes inspiration from the massive holocaust, which decimated millions of people in Germany. Golwalkar uses this as a shield to propagate his political ideology. It is this ideology, which formed the base of communal common sense amongst a section of the population (Puniyani 2006). He builds a parallel between Hinduism and Nazism.
 

 
Today the Modis and Togadias brought up on these lines, do believe in all these ideological propositions, but the language of expression is more polished so that the poison is coated with honey and administered with ease. Golwalkar (1939: 104-105) goes on to assert,
 

Interestingly these sections never participated in the national movement. As a matter of fact RSS and Golwalkar were very contemptuous towards the anti British movement. There is no mention of the presence of RSS in the anti British movement even in the most sympathetic accounts written about it. Since Golwalkar propounded religion-based nationalism, there was no place for anti British stance. Nor did it have any sympathy for the anti-caste movement led by Ambedkar, Periyar, Iyyankali, Mangu ram and others.
 

 
No wonder the British never repressed the RSS. The collusion between religion based nationalism and colonialism can be understood from such statements. Later the world saw that in tune with this pro imperialist ideology, Golwalkar was to support the US aggression on Vietnam and his successor Sudarshan defended the US aggression against Iraq while Modi is the champion of communal genocide in Gujarat.

Domineering Indigenous Life
Controlling all avenues of life at large is the general strategy of RSS and this is part of the larger design of ‘cultural nationalism’, an idea that stretches to the domains of power and political life. At the present time the most crucial aspect of the communal segment is to control the wholesome dynamics of indigenous life and its systems. These champions of the communal-caste brigade applied the stratagem of taking over all the possible institutions of the community and civil society, right from primary schools to the electronic media, in order to create a sense of inferiority and thus to manipulate the masses.
 
Among the indigenous people two processes went in parallel.
 
One was the deliberate formation of institutions such as Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Ekal Vidyalaya, Bal Bharti, Saraswati Sishu Mandir and Dalit and Adivasi Sanghs at the lowest level to train-up children and youth cadres and thus to inculcate a feeling that indigenous traditions and cultures are too little and inferior to that of Hindu religion.
 
Thus Hindu culture and civilisation is and was held up as the only standard and ideal option left for such groups; perpetuating a caste view that says that the duties assigned under their caste are mandatory to attain a higher janma (birth) in the next round of birth. Ardently following the dictums of the ideal culture and religion become the doctrinal duty of all caste groups. Secondly, an open support to capitalist forces through corporates thereby inducing a consumerist culture within such communities and in such areas. Both these processes went in parallel and are inter-related. One of the outcomes of these aggressive tendencies has been a crucial osmosis of ‘Hindu civilizational strains’ with all its flaws among the indigenous people plus a bonus of corrupting them as units of the consumer market (George: 2006).
 
This fondness for controlling the indigenous has had its own logic – to perpetuate social and cultural slavery along with the clear establishment of political power and to take over the control over community life though legitimising the social mechanics at one end. On the other to establish an unquestioned command over the resource zones spread over regions with indigenous populations.

Therefore a complete enslavement of social, cultural, political and economic nature remained part of the overall diabolic design. This could easily evade the precipitate of geo-centricity of the hitherto-untouchable strata. Another vicious conspiracy is the development of internal colonisation to cohere the Dalits into the upper caste fold in order to continue the historical mode of oppression in new forms and incarnations.
 
Contrary to the status of Dalit, Adivasis were never part of the Varnashram. The life of the Adivasis, a wonderful model of egalitarianism and naturo-centricity, who had a lively past in proximity and harmony with nature are today a target, given the mode of ‘development’ being adopted. Unlike Dalits, they have hardly experienced the life of slavery. Uprooting them from their natural habitats and uprooting them from their culture was and is part and parcel of this concocted design.
 
The result is that an egalitarian society is being transformed into an exploited class. Jharkhand, Odisha and Bastar are the best examples that reflect the impact of such trends and processes. Thus both Dalits and Adivasis have been placed in the category of exploited strata. Earlier these aspects were efficiently engineered through the socio-religious structures, but today it is taking significant political formations too, which in fact is resulting in the communalisation of the polity and the  inculcation of the culture of fascism among the indigenous masses.
 

Dalits and Adivasis – the Logical Targets

Communal-fascism has been exploring its way to elaborate its base, activities and action by building of philanthropic and religious institutions other than the ones mentioned above. Institutions like Deen Dayal Shodh Sansthan, Sanskriti Bihar, Vikas Bharit, Gayatri Pariwar, Brahmakumari Samaj and Samajik Samarasta Manch are some of the intervention points to create inroads among the Dalits and Adivasis.
 
Such institutions essentially engage in the recruitment of young boys from these communities into the cadres of the RSS, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP; International Hindu Council), Bajrang Dal,  and arming them with hatred and intolerance against minorities. Another plot has been the steady and systematic capturing of the community panchayats and organisations.
 
Mobilising Dalits and Adivasis against Muslims in Gujarat (2002), operations such as ghar wapasi andolan (return to home movement or reconversion movement) in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand or the creation of vigilante army like Salwa Judum (peace movement) are the  clearest examples where there has been a complete stranglehold.
 
All these have added impelling force to the Hindutva card among Dalits and Adivasis. By and large this consists of concepts like de-Dalitisation and de-Adivasisation. Eventually this tendency empowers the fascist forces and broadens its space and influence.
 
This expansion of fascism is disintegrating the Dalit-Adivasi ideology, theology, identity and threatening their very existence. This has also ruptured the sense of community, affected more communitarian notions of sharing, caring and co-operation, has expanded more entrenched notions of patriarchy and battered the belief in community ownership over resources and every single aspect of commons property.
 

To Conclude…

Never before in history have we witnessed such a concerted and deliberate disempowerment of Dalits and Adivasis. The ideology of Hindutva is backed by a formidable organisation and techniques of mobilisation methods that have successes in crushing the energy of people or diverted them from their own struggles for rights and emancipation; their ability to resist injustice. It is in this context that the case of Rohith turns more prominent.
 
It is clear that without fighting the forces that represent Hindutva, both ideologically and politically, the legacy of Rohith Vemula cannot be carried forward. The larger challenge lies in envisioning and struggling for a caste free society. The Indian constitution has tried to effect an internal reform of Hinduism, outlawing untouchability but not caste. Its half way measures have failed to stop caste brutality against Dalits. In the meanwhile caste domination has acquired newer forms in the seemingly modern institutions of the market, within the bureaucracy, within schools and universities.
 
These political successes of Hindutva have grown out of the casteism, patriarchy, insecurities and superstitions of an accepted ‘Hindu’ common sense. It is high time social forces fighting against Hindutva realise its casteist core, and understand the nature of its assault on anything that is different or radical. The specific patterns and form of Dalit oppression in modern India need to be confronted head on. The nature of injuries the caste system inflicts on sensitive spirits in modern spaces is largely unpredictable; often a means of ‘ramified oppression’, where human rights and alienation turn out to be the core of it.
 
The big challenge is to continuously engage with the liberation movement and shatter the vice-like grip of caste on Indian society. Under these  circumstances, where humanitarian norms and values are degenerating and the indigenous people stand at the receiving end, is it possible for us to go back to the communities and unveil the wolf inside the goat’s skin?
 
Dr. Ambedkar had shown the way by burning Manusmruti. Do we have the courage to engage? Can the Adivasis rediscover their own sense of socialist, secular, democratic and decentralised egalitarianism?
 

References

George, GM (2006). Fascism Versus Indigenous People; accessed from www.countercurrents.org/dalit-george020906.htm on November 10, 2013
Golwalkar, MS (1939). We or Our Nationhood Defined; Nagpur: Bharat Publications.
Golwalkar, MS (2000), Bunch of Thoughts; Third Edition 1996 (reprint 2000) Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana, Bangalore
Islam, S. (Undated) Undoing India: The RSS Way; Accessed from http://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/Misc/Shamsul%20Islam-Undoing_India-the_RSS_Way.pdf on November 14, 2013
Islamic Voice (1998). Vande Mataram – A Historical Perspective. 12 (144) December
Puniyani, R (2006). MS Golwalkar: Conceptualising Hindutva Fascism; accessed from www.countercurrents.org/comm-puniyani100306.htm on November 9, 2013
Ramaswami, S (2003). Hedgewar and RSS – Revising History in the light of BJP Perception; The Statesman, 26 June
Savarkar, VD (1924). Essentials of Hindutva; accessed from http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/essentials_of_hindutva.v001.pdf on November 10, 2013
Thaper, R (2004). The Future of the Indian Past; Seventh DT Lakdawala Memorial Lecture, 21 February, New Delhi: Institute of Social Sciences.

*Goldy M. George is an activist for Dalit and Adivasi rights for the past 25 years. He holds a PhD in Social Science from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The author can be contacted at goldymgeorge10@gmail.com)   

The post How Rohith Vemula was an Obstacle to Hindutva’s Hegemonic Agenda appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
This article written by K.P. Girija (

All the three suicides can be read as statements of protest against the insensitivity of various institutions and the discrimination being practiced there. Still, there has been a tendency to depict these deaths as acts of desperation (of course, personal) of the students and their inability to cope with advanced studies, especially in the Sciences. One can see a clear-cut trajectory of these students’ lives, which lead to personal desperation and suicides. Could we assess all these as something that happened without any intervention from the world they were situated in?

When alive, not one of them could politicise their experiences of discrimination and raise it at a macro level. Yet, all of them would have experienced caste in its micro formations. The fact that Rejani’s primary confidant with whom she shared her humiliations seems to be a woman friend who happens to be a Dalit, is crucial. In his diary Ajay writes about “superiority/inferiority” gazes, which unsettle him in his laboratory, clearly suggesting caste humiliations. Senthil was part of Ambedkar Students’ Association, a Dalit students’ political forum in the University of Hyderabad and might not have been a stranger to the caste debates and its theoretical formulations.

Yet, none of them could raise the issue at a collective level. The structure, which accommodated them within it, did it only as a .compensatory allowance. While it provided representation, it definitely did not provide dignified representation and no space to ask for it, either. Thus, while alive, none of them could raise the issue of caste and discrimination in a way it would be heard. It is tragic that only death could bring out the discrimination towards the ‘Dalitness’ of a student in all three cases.

Dalitness in Modern Spaces
How did these students experience their ‘Dalitness’? A short examination of the immediate incidents just before their deaths is all that we have. (In Ajay's case we hardly have that also).The often threatening phone calls received at Rejani’s neighbor’s house by her or her parents from the N.S.S. hostel, to whom she owed her fees, are not sufficient enough to unwrap the acuteness of caste discrimination.

The continuous journey to one particular bank, more than twenty times, for getting an educational loan to which she was officially entitled under a Reserve Bank of India order – neither is this enough to prove the denial of a loan to a Dalit student. [From the statements of K.Santhakumari, Mother of Rejani, given before Justice Khalid Commission on 14.05.2005].

Yet, we know that the Bank would have denied her loan precisely because of her status as both Dalit and woman though this was not hinted at anywhere except in the overall, tedious procedural approach. As a woman, the Bank would not be convinced that she would take up a career. They might not have been confident of her completing her course at all. Also, her coming to the Bank alone or sometimes accompanied only by another woman, her mother, might have destroyed her image as a ‘respectable’ woman.

As a Dalit, they would not have read her as ‘meritorious’ enough to gain employment, even after the completion of the course, and therefore loan worthy.

Due to her Dalit womanhood, the student life of Rejani seems to have become an endless knocking at various doors for financial support. The last straw seems to be the apparent denial of Transfer Certificate (T.C) from Adoor Engineering College. Rejani had got a chance to join Mary Matha College, which had promised her free education and lodging.

When she approached her college for a T.C, they sent her off to pay the dues. She was sent to the Entrance (Engineering and Medical courses) examiner’s office. It is here that she committed suicide by jumping out from the seventh floor of that building. The choice of her place of death was dramatic; it was the the Entrance examiner’s office. The act was charged with layers of symbolic meaning.

She, a Dalit, had gained her ‘entry’ into an inaccessible system by the impossible feat of passing the exam without attending formal coaching classes. Despite this, her entry was treated as ‘provisional’. In fact, with her death, we realise what Rejani would have constantly heard from the system that apparently gave her entry: “No Entry for Trespassers.”

When Rejani was alive, neither she nor the students’ union or caste organizations could bring out any of this. The deliberate tedium and drawn-out torture of an exasperating process as valid points of discrimination. There might have been protests at a personal level in a minimal way. More than protesting, Rejani had desperately tried her maximum to obtain a loan in order to cope with the situation, to continue her education, her only hope for a better future.

As far as Senthil was concerned, when he was alive, he could not point out the discrimination in the Physics department, which denied him a supervisor. This inability to politically voice his concern happens even though he was an active member of the Ambedkar Students’ Association. Failure in a subject in his course work was the determinant of his merit. Through his death, Senthil can be seen to raise doubts about the acceptance of Dalit students into the Science departments.

He evokes questions through his death on the formal acceptance of Dalit students in the higher academic studies and its true spirit. The ‘logic’, ‘rationality’, and the ‘merit’ that Science claims for itself need to be questioned, if the entry of a Dalit student creates so many ruffles within the system. The structure of the Science discipline was such that Senthil himself, at some point might have believed that he was not competent and meritorious at all to survive in the discipline.

The details of Ajay’s case are not known. Yet, his dairy notes and his status as a student who got twelfth rank in the All India Entrance, yet admitted to the institute as a reservation candidate, would have posed problems of the same Dalithood for him also. These Dalit students, or their existence and day-to-day encountering with their Dalitness (this is not as direct expressions of ritual untouchability, but denying access through new meanings of merit, untimely payment of dues, failure in many subjects/course work etc.) was something that could not be translated into a political process for agitation or bargaining for justice, when they were alive.

Yet, none of them could raise the issue at a collective level. The structure, which accommodated them within it, did it only as a .compensatory allowance. While it provided representation, it definitely did not provide dignified representation and no space to ask for it, either. Thus, while alive, none of them could raise the issue of caste and discrimination in a way it would be heard. It is tragic that only death could bring out the discrimination towards the ‘Dalitness’ of a student in all three cases.

Paradoxically, and tragically, the value of their death is much more than the value of their life to raise the various nuances of institutionalized casteism. As if death is the only elucidation to legitimize the worth of their life!

Refusal to Accept the Direct Meaning of their Deaths
There were instances to subvert the political reasons behind these suicides. For e.g., when Rejani committed suicide, there had been a demand to test the virginity of the girl. Lack of virginity, which pointed to the patriarchal world that she was not quite ‘moral’, was accepted as an overriding factor for a woman to commit suicide. But the fact of caste based harassment staring right into everyone’s face was not accepted or seen as one.

Also, it is strange that one was not thinking of analytically combining these factors – sexuality and caste. Sexuality, like many other categories, can manifest only in the context of other structures like caste. Her lack of virginity, as revealed in the test, assumes the primary importance in comparison to the obviously biased treatment from all corners that she knocked for help. Gender (together with her Dalitness) has played the role here as if her ‘immorality’ took away her right to protest against the caste-biased nature of the educational structure.

Similarly, the University of Hyderabad authorities maintained, even before the post-mortem examination, that Senthil died of a heart attack. The SC/ST employees had to invoke the Right to Information Act to get the post mortem report, which stated poisoning as the cause of Senthil’s death.
Ajay’s father never got to know why his son committed suicide, when he went to Bangalore to collect his body. He had to wait for a whole month to know the details of the tense situation faced by his son, in the lab in IISc, till the IISc SC/ST employees union took up the issue as one of caste discrimination.

‘Conditional’ Representation in Modern Spaces
These cases are examples of how caste functions in a ‘modern’ space like the Higher Educational institution. The structure seems to apparently include Dalits through representational measures like reservations. By this very act of representation, the system claims its neutrality to caste. However, this act of inclusion/representation is coded within certain conditions that are very often invisible and built into the so called inclusive nature of the system.

Paradoxically, these conditions result in the exclusion of the Dalit herself. Dalits have the right to enter the system through reservation, a ‘compensatory discrimination’. Yet, they do not have the right to be treated as equal with the mainstream representatives of the system in all terms and in all situations. There are various determinants to decide this equality such as merit, performance, articulation etc.

There is inclusion through representation and exclusion through different ‘assessment’ and differential approaches. While the system might claim credit for the entry of students like Rejani, Senthil and Ajay and their very presences might be seen as their inclusion into the system, we can see that their subsequent suicides were also a result of the conditions/exclusions that this very inclusion threw up.

Science and the Notion of Merit
If we measure merit in terms of marks obtained, all the three students got very good marks up to their intermediate courses and began losing marks (their brilliance/merit) after joining for the applied science courses. Does it mean that these students were not capable enough to cope with professional courses or applied science courses? If so, does it also mean that there is something wrong in the environment and attitude (in essence, the structure) of the professional institutions towards Dalit students?

Rejani had failed in nine out of the ten courses in her first semester. Senthil too had to clear one paper from his course work, which was understood as a condition to allot a supervisor for him and continue his research in the Physics department. Ajay had problems to cope in the laboratory. His diary shows that he was scared of one or more faculty members.

In general, these can be read as the inabilities of the students to cope with the applied science department, which needs ‘talent’ and ‘hard work’. Yet, it also carries the hidden meaning of the inability of the high skilled department to generate a friendly atmosphere to a group of people who are yet to be familiar with its language, hierarchy and protocol. Science seems to see itself as privileging logic and would shun perspective.

Rationality is prioritized and this is defined as transcending individual experiences. With this logic, students are supposed to be modern individuals who want to become scholars or scientists rather than bringing their other identities – like that of caste, community or gender. This rational and logical frame itself places the subaltern as the ‘other’ in the science department. The attributes of irrationality, illogic and intolerance are not for the mainstream students; those are reserved for the subaltern communities.

Modern Secular Institutions embedded in Caste
There is a preconceived notion that our educational institutions are caste neutral. If at all caste is expressed or practiced there in any form, it is treated as existing only because of the insensitivity of certain individuals. In addition, people do not believe that there is such a thing as ‘institutional casteism’.

Therefore the cultural democratic space like an educational institution will hardly be questioned until some direct caste atrocities happen in those spaces.

Marginalized individuals also do not experience the hegemonic control of the knowledge over them as discrimination and a structural problem. For them, caste is experienced as an attitudinal problem – either from department heads, economical institutions or from authorities who represent the institutions.

He evokes questions through his death on the formal acceptance of Dalit students in the higher academic studies and its true spirit. The ‘logic’, ‘rationality’, and the ‘merit’ that Science claims for itself need to be questioned, if the entry of a Dalit student creates so many ruffles within the system. The structure of the Science discipline was such that Senthil himself, at some point might have believed that he was not competent and meritorious at all to survive in the discipline.

One could think about the environment of this higher education as a space where there is a mingling of different kinds of students from different castes and classes and religions. Irrespective of the caste and religious identity, anonymity to a certain extent is possible in these spaces.

Yet, within this anonymity, the determinants of caste, religion or region could be ‘read’ through language, lack of or command over English, submissiveness or assertion, articulation capacities, regional or urban nature, mode of dress, complexion etc. In other words, these determinants of Dalitness or upper casteness are much more practically applied than the details in official records.

Conflict in Dual Representation
Dalit students have to carry the mark of their community (not in terms of the name of their jati but in terms of their Dalitness). They are also modern individuals in elite higher educational spaces. In these spaces, they face humiliations at a very personal, individual level, yet those very humiliations happen due to their Dalitness as a community. None of the above mentioned students could communicate their humiliations to their parents.

The parents residing in faraway places were not able to give emotional support to their children. To some extent, the parents were not aware of the intensity of the humiliation of the modern spaces. The humiliation for a Dalit student comes in the form of lack of performance or rather lack of merit, not paying the dues in time etc. It never comes directly as caste discrimination.

It never acknowledges itself as the inability of the system to assimilate some social groups. How to translate these kinds of approaches into caste discrimination and communicate it to the parents who stayed away from the modern institutions would be another painful task. It would be difficult for the children to tell the reality to the parents very often; whose only hope would be these kids.

In most cases, the parents/family did not get any hint of the desperation from the part of their daughter/son. Communities could overcome the humiliations in their togetherness in sharing and laughing out, negotiating and sometimes protesting too. Individuals have their own limitations to take the burden of these humiliations.

These students tried to negotiate and struggle their best, but after a point they couldn’t bear it anymore. Simultaneously, they were forced to shoulder the dual identities – that of a modern, educated individual (as science students, rational, logical etc) and at the same time, as a merit less Dalit. The contradiction was too much for them to bear. Finally it ends in their suicides through which they tried to question or destabilize the structure in whatever little way they could through their deaths.

They had all proved that they were ‘capable’ and ‘meritorious’ for this very educational system till their intermediate/degree courses. In that case, would they ever think about turning back and do some menial labour there after coming through the long 12-15 years of education?
In their aspiration to become modern educated individuals with better jobs, they fitted neither in the higher educational system nor in their villages. The long and excruciating journey from a remote village to an urban secular space lead them to a nowhere place.

Inherent Structural Tensions
Dalits or Tribals have entered the system mostly through representational measures like reservations. But, this is seen as an ‘excessive’ presence and hence ‘threatening’ presence to the system. That is why a bank manager is reluctant to sanction a loan to a poor Dalit girl for her higher education instead of thinking about the possibilities to grant it. That is why the University stopped the scholarship of Senthil Kumar instead of formulating a new approach to deal the situation. (Even though there is no law of the university which states that scholarship is connected to passing or failing in exams).

When the structure has been destabilized or questioned in a minimal way (only) through the death of the Dalit students, immediately it tries to retain its status quo, often using compensatory measures. In Senthil’s case, the University had granted an amount of Rs five lakhs to Senthil’s family. Here, it was the cost of a Dalit youth’s life and hope which was burnt in a University. Another ‘compensation’ was the immediate allotment of guides to two Dalit students. In Rejani’s suicide case, the State immediately enhanced the amount of monthly stipend for SC/ ST students from Rs 315 to Rs 1000.

These temporary compensations or welfare measures would pacify the troubled situations. It would also help various institutions to wash their hands off from the crime of pushing the students to suicides. Through compensation or some welfare measures the institution or the State is admitting its inability to assure distributive justice to the subaltern communities. Through these compensatory measures it is also trying to reinstate the status quo by reducing tensions though temporarily.
 

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Senthil Kumar, a Tamil student hailing from an interior region in the state, admitted for PhD in the School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, took his life on 24th February 2008.

Ajay Sree Chandra, a Telugu boy and an Integrated-PhD scholar at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, committed suicide the year before, on 27th August 2007.

If one were to look for similarities that bind these three disparate incidents, we find that all were doing courses in Sciences and admitted to prestigious institutions. They all were also in the prime of youth. Rejani and Ajay were both just 21 years of age at the time of their death. Senthil was 27.
Their youth might have been mixed with hope and an equal measure of uncertainty about their future. However, the most striking feature, that binds all these deaths, would be the caste of the deceased. All the three students were Dalits.

No suicide can perhaps be seen only as a result of .personal frustrations, least of all, Dalit suicides. These personal frustrations have visible connections with the context around them. They are political, cultural and social and therefore need special attention. Hence it becomes important for all concerned to analyse whether these suicides were intrinsically connected to the power structure of the higher educational institutions and the entry of Dalits into it.
 
Senthil Kumar
In 2007, Senthil Kumar came all the way to University of Hyderabad, from a village of Salem district in Tamilnadu. He was admitted for his PhD in the School of Physics. He belonged to the panniandi caste, which is traditionally involved in pig rearing and is at the bottom of the caste-hierarchy.

Both his parents are illiterate and are devoid of regular income. He was the only person in his family as well as in his caste to register for PhD. After completing his M.Phil from the Pondicherry University, he had to discontinue his studies for quite some time due to financial constraints. Since his graduation days, Senthil had been supporting his parents through his scholarships.

On February 24, 2008, just after one year of his admission, Senthil Kumar committed suicide in his hostel room. University authorities immediately claimed that he had died of cardiac arrest. But the postmortem report gave the cause of death as poisoning. Surprisingly, this report was kept as a secret until the Dalit students started demanding an enquiry and compensation for his family.

After the political intervention from the Tamilnadu MLA. Ravikumar, the University of Hyderabad had appointed an internal fact finding committee under Prof Vinod Pavarala. From the batch of 2007, Senthil was the only student who has not been assigned a supervisor till his death. In this batch, initially four students had not been assigned a supervisor.

Out of these four students, two eventually left the programme as dropouts and one got allotted a supervisor. Obviously, all the four students were from the reserved categories. Does it mean something? Was it an evidence of the inability of the School of Physics to accommodate the Dalit students in its culture of hierarchy?

Senthil failed in one of the four required courses. He failed the same course in the supplementary exam in January 2008 also. He had the provision of writing the exam again in March to clear this backlog. The students with backlogs, stop receiving fellowships as per the University of Hyderabad guidelines. Hailing from a poor family, the University fellowship was the only source for him to support his family and his own survival.

The University changed the rule of curtailing the fellowship to the students who had to clear the backlogs, a week before Senthil’s death, but did not make it public. Prof Pavarala committee made very clear in its report that, “All the Physics students that this Committee could meet have reported their sense that the School was acting against the interests of the SC/ST students.” Still, there is no culprit who led to the suicide of Senthil Kumar.

 
Rejani. S. Anand
Was a student of Institute of Human Resource Development Engineering (IHRDE) College at Adoor in south Kerala. She got admission on 6.11.2002 in the government quota seat under merit. The Scheduled Caste (SC) Department had remitted her fee. On 22nd July 2004, she committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor of the Office of the Entrance Commissioner (Medical and Engineering courses) at Trivandrum.

The sequence of events that could show the immediate trajectory that led her to take her own life is as follows – Since her college had no hostel facilities, Rejani was staying in a nearby N.S.S (Nair Service Society) hostel. The government had been paying an amount of Rs 315 as a monthly stipend to the SC students that was not sufficient for Rejani to meet her hostel fee of RS 1000 apart from transportation charges, cost of books etc.

Her father was a daily wages labourer and was unable to support her education. Rejani and her parents tried to get a Bank loan to meet her essential financial requirements. She first went to Indian Oversees Bank (Puzhanadu branch) for the educational loan. The bank manager was reluctant to even give her the application form.

Then Rejani and her mother went to the local M.L.A. Thampanur Ravi and asked him to intervene. It was only then that the application form was given to her. When she presented the application for loan in the bank, she was told to come after two weeks. Later, Rejani together with her mother went to the bank more than 20 times to enquire about the status of her educational loan application.

Finally, she was told that she was not eligible for an educational loan. Her family had no property other than their 2.5 cent land and a hut, and that was not valuable enough for the bank to sanction an educational loan. It seems that her gender and caste together played an important role towards this refusal of loan by the bank. In Kerala, a woman going to a bank without her father, brother or husband would be normally ignored.

Rejani could not afford to take her father along for the necessary .respectability.. Her father was a labourer and his daily wages were essential for the family. She had applied for an educational loan, which does not require surety, legally. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s circular on the educational loans – any merititorious candidate could avail herself a loan of up to Rs 4 lakhs for one course without furnishing security and without accruing interest on the loan until she gets employment.

Here the non-secured ‘future’ of a Dalit woman might be an obstacle for the bank manager to sanction loan. As a woman, there was no guarantee that Rejani would complete the course; she might have dropped out of her studies if she were to get married. As a Dalit girl, there was no guarantee of a good job even after the completion of the course.

These points might be bothering the non-Dalit manager and in that case, how can a bank grant the educational loan? Afterwards, Rejani went to the State Bank of Travancore but here also she was denied the loan. Then her parents approached Thampanur Ravi (the local MLA) for financial assistance.

Though he immediately made the promise but never bothered to fulfill it. They went to the Block Panchayat for assistance but were told that it had no such financial assistance programme and funds. They went to Pazhavangadi Scheduled Caste office but were returned empty handed.

She could not go to her college for more than two months as her hostel authorities were threatening her to deposit the hostel fees. The last straw seems to be the apparent denial of Transfer Certificate (T.C) from Adoor Engineering College due to the non-payment of the fees. Rejani had got a chance to join Mary Matha College, which had promised her free education and lodging. When she approached her college for a T.C, they sent her off to pay the dues. She was sent to the Entrance (Engineering and Medical courses) commissioner’s office. It is here that she committed suicide by jumping out from the seventh floor of that building.
 

Ajay Sree Chandra
On 26th august 2007, Ajay sree Chandra commited suicide in his hostel room. Ajay had a middle class background, as his father is a faculty at the Government Polytechnic College in Hyderabad. He belonged to madiga community and hailed from Malipuram village, Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. Ajay was a second generation literate from a Dalit family and was ‘meritorious’ enough to compete with the normative ‘value’ of merit. Yet, as a Dalit he had no choice except to commit suicide!

Ajay was meritorious (in terms of marks secured) enough to get a seat in IISc in the general quota. He was one of the top twelve in India, to get into PhD course in Biological sciences at IISc Banglore. Still he was admitted in the reserved category. Labels are labels and one could not even symbolically discard them just because of ‘merit;!

The diary that Ajay maintained was possibly tampered with at the time of his death and it is quite probable that this must happened at the behest of the institute with the help of police. The suicide note had disappeared.

The only clue of the circumstance that would have led him to commit suicide is given in his diary where he described the atmosphere of his lab in the following word-“Those eyes, they scare me, they look with such inferiority/superiority complex @you. They tell everything (most of that time). Those eyes scare me… those scares me a lot. My legs are paining…”

According to his friends at IISc, Ajay was undergoing tremendous mental torture by couple of professors, who are non-cooperative and often humiliated him on caste lines. But according to the Institute, Ajay commited suicide, because of his ‘personal’ stress.

When informed by the IISc authorities, Ajay’s father came there to receive the body of his son and at that time he did not had any clue about caste discrimination. Later, after some time when the SC/ST union from the institute informed him of the caste discrimination, he was shocked.

As a middle class student, Ajay had all the tools to be a meritorious student, to compete well with the mainstream upper caste students. But failed, as merit is not the percentage of marks one secured, it seems to be the mark of caste.
 

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About an hour back, about 3.30 pm on Thursday January 21, 2016 agitating students if HCU were informed that the highest body if the university, Hyderabad Central University (HCU), the Executive Council has revoked the suspension of five students including Rohith Vemula who committed suicide on January 17. The text of the resolution can be read here.

Agitating students see this hurriedly taken decision as a response to the cross country protests against what is being increasingly viewed as the institutional murder of Rohith. 

Rohiths scathing letter to Vice Chancellor Appa Rao dated December 18, 2015 is a precursor to what happened.

Agitating students representing the Ambedkar Students Association and the Students Federation of India see this as a placatory measure meant to diffuse the demands for  fair probe. The conduct of the Vice Chancellor and ministers of the Modi government in the targeting of these students has raised serious questions of improper exercise of executive power.

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Dalit Students as Victims of Institutional Casteism in India

Re published from http://routesblog.com/2016/01/19/dalit-students-as-victims-of-institutional-casteism-in-india/
 
India’s unparalleled revolutionary leader B.R.Ambedkar’s infamous dictum is ‘Educate, Agitate, Organise,’ none of which the Indian Brahmanical state wants the 200 million Dalits (former untouchables) to do and this intentional objective of the state was exemplified in the death of an young Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula of University of Hyderabad who aspired to become a scientist like Carl Sagan.

His only fault was that he was a Dalit, that too someone who was conscious of his identity and followed the footsteps of Ambedkar involved in the construction of a Dalit selfhood and claimed himself as a Dalit-Marxist, a political category propagated and made famous among the student community by comrade Chittibabu Padavala.
 
As president of Ambedkar Students Association, Rohit worked hard to forge a Dalit-Muslim solidarity and fought against food fascism by organising beef festivals a visibly upsetting political exercise for right wing Hindutva forces in the state who had earlier in another educational institution of higher learning had tried hard to foil the establishment of a study circle on Ambedkar but in vain. A whole young generation of conscious Ambedkarites is the most threatening factor for these right wing forces.
 
What followed was arm-twisting by the Hindutva politicians and the casteist university administration, which succumbed to it and expelled five Dalit students. The expelled students continued their protest by staging a sleep-in-protest within the campus, however as a result of deep inflicted psychological pain, one of the students committed suicide leaving a note depicting the cruelty of caste, he wrote, “The value of a man is reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility to a vote, a number to a thing, never was man treated as a mind.” This evaluation of what is being valued it is not mind but identity which in practical terms does count in the most hierarchical society in the world leaves us with what Gopal Guru[1] famously formulated as the Theoretical Brahmins and Empirical Shudras where the latter is a matter of mere numbers while the former is associated with cognition.
 
The Brahmanical state follows certain uniformity when it comes to dealing with the Dalits, they practice humiliation to an extent that is disgusting. The state, which was not able to provide a dignified life to Dalits at least should guarantee a honourable final journey. More like the recent incident that happened in Tamil Nadu where a 100 year old Dalit man whose funeral procession was prevented by caste Hindus despite a High Court Order which finally saw the police instead of implementing the HC Order were found carrying the body doing the cremation.
 
In Rohit Vemula’s case too, the state after seeing the students assemble in huge numbers sensed that they would showcase the anger towards state secretly without a grain of respect for the departed soul hurriedly performed the cremation.
 
The educational institutions in India are largely nothing but an extension of rural life marked by caste rigidity for most of the Dalit students, the only difference is caste is tangible in the latter case while in the former it is a combination of visible forms of caste practices and also in more subtle forms. The caste discrimination starts from the level of primary schools where once can cite numerous cases of Dalit kids being asked to clean toilets to use separate utensils to eat and drink.
 
And, it is also a common phenomenon to witness the social boycott of Dalits as mid day meal programme cooks. Citing ritual pollution the caste Hindu parents would make their children go hungry than eat food cooked by a Dalit. In a recent incident, a Dalit kid was asked by his teacher to remove faecal material in front of fellow students using bare hands. Ashamed by this act the child has developed a psychological disorder, an obsession to constantly wash his hands. Suspecting reasons for this change in his behavior, when parents probed the child to find out what had happened, and it was only after strong protests that the caste Hindu teacher was arrested. This is one among numerous cases we see unfolding in what are called “spaces of learning.” Coloured wrist bands as a form of identification of their respective castes is a common feature in most of the schools in the rural and semi urban pockets of southern Tamil Nadu and a few areas in Northern Tamil Nadu.
 
You can pick any random Dalit and inquire with him about caste discrimination in classrooms prevalent there. There would be many tales to tell, the perpetual psychological fear of being discriminated against and humiliated based on their identity is a lived experience that every Dalit has to undergo inside educational institutions in India. Many are in fact living their lives masquerading their identity for want of caste discrimination.
 
As deftly put forward in a recent piece by Meena Kandasamy,“ Education has now become a disciplining enterprise working against Dalit students: they are constantly under threat of rustication, expulsion, defamation, discontinuation.” By restricting social interaction the Dalit students are thus faced with deprivation of capabilities, a common feature practiced and perfected by caste Hindus in educational institutions to maintain and safeguard their caste privileges.
 
The percentage of Dalit students who enter higher educational institutions are meagre in number and even they are not spared. In the name of accumulated privilege over centuries in the form of both cultural and social capital the upper caste Hindus function within an invented realm called meritocracy. Entering the corridors of elite educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technologies (IIT) and Indian Institute of Managements and Central Universities for scores of Dalit students is like walking into hell, the fear of being shamed and humiliated based on birth status hangs like a Damocles sword above their heads. After years of relentless struggles in their everyday lives they reach these institutions only to get caught in the entanglement of the most-unfair game of caste based micro power politics. It was no wonder why given nature of its exclusivity the IIT’s were dubbed as Iyer and Iyengar Technology, a stronghold of Brahminical supremacy.
 
Root of the Problem
 
The root of this problem definitely lies with the caste Hindus who are nurtured and brought up within a feudal mindset and even the progressive among them carry a patronizing self as pointed out clearly by Ambedkar,
 
It is usual to hear all those who feel moved by the deplorable condition of the Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering the cry. We must do something for the Untouchables. One seldom hears any of the persons interested in the problem saying, ‘Let us do something to change the Touchable Hindu.’
 
It is invariably assumed that the object to be reclaimed is the Untouchables. If there is to be a mission, it must be to the Untouchables and if the Untouchables can be cured, Untouchability will vanish. Nothing requires to be done to the Touchable. He is sound in mind, manners and morals. He is whole; there is nothing wrong with him. Is this assumption correct? Whether correct or not, the Hindus like to cling to it. The assumption has the supreme merit of satisfying themselves that they are not responsible for the problem of the Untouchables.
 
The idea of caste Hindus to empathise and sympathise with the Dalit cause needs to be shunned, instead they should all question their own selves and accept the bitter truth that they as part of this Brahmanical structure indeed failed not only to see annihilation of caste as a praxis but used it as a mere rhetoric. The guilt as practitioners of the most carefully planned hierarchichal system should haunt them as they in a way by remaining silent also played a part resulting in the death of Rohit Vemulas, Senthil Kumars and Nagaraju Koppalas. Ambedkar both as a symbol and an ideologue remains as the ‘weapon of the weak’ in India and carrying his ideals let us march forward to brazen out the social distinctions, inequalities and injustices of a caste-ridden society.
 
References
 
[1]. Guru Gopal (2002) How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India? Economic and Political Weekly 37: 5003-5009.
 
(The writer is a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on caste processions and commemorations in Tamil Nadu, and his interests include, identity politics, social movements, caste and class, film studies and urban studies. He was previously working as a Correspondent for The Hindu Newspaper in India)
 
 

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“They say we are untouchables,  let’s be untouchables by be coming live wire,” was the call  given last week by minister  for communications Ram Vilas Paswan to hundreds of Dalit activists who had converged upon Delhi for the release of the ‘Black Paper’ on the status of Dalit Human Rights, a report published by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR).

The next day, on December 9, charged and electrified by the resounding rhythm of Dalit drummers and the rallying slogans of hundreds of Dalit activists who had marched with them from Mandi House to the Parliament, an NCDHR delegation met with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. They were accompanied in solidarity by Paswan, Ramdas Athawale, Member of Parliament, Bandaru Dattathreya, deputy minister for urban development, and Bangaru Lakshman, Member of Parliament.

Collectively, the group called upon the PM to implement the demands listed in the ‘Black Paper’, and to support the tabling of a ‘White Paper’ in Parliament on the actual condition of Dalits today and the performance of the Indian State since Independence in the area of Dalit Human Rights. They also urged him to declare the next decade as ‘Ambedkar Decade’ in order to implement the demands spelt out in the Black Paper’. 

The ‘Black Paper’ is a severe indictment of the State for its denial of Dalit rights to livelihood, education, reservation and employment, land and labour, life and security, and gender equity for Dalit women. It is a well–researched document containing enormous data on the socio–economic situation of Dalits today.

Upon releasing the ‘Black Paper’ the previous day, Athawale, who is also secretary, SC/ST Parliamentarians’ Forum, called the ‘Black Paper’ the “announcement of our fight for human rights and social justice. The rights in the ‘Black Paper’ are very important. If we gain these rights no one in the world can oppress us.”

He made an urgent and vigorous call to implement ‘Black Paper’ demands, including lowering the ceiling limit in the Land Ceiling Act and implementing the reservation policy and compulsory and universal education. Citing ‘Black Paper’ statistics, which show that 2/3rds of Dalits are illiterate and primary school enrolment among Dalit children is only 16.2 per cent, Athawale called upon the government to provide free and compulsory education to Dalits at all levels and to launch a total literacy program for Dalits to be achieved in ten years.

The link between landlessness and atrocities, noted Athawale, needs to be crucially addressed by taking stringent measures against culprits who perpetrate atrocities and by distributing five acres of cultivable land to each Dalit household.  86 per cent of Dalit households are landless or near landless. That struggle for land is a root cause of atrocities against Dalits is evident in the killing of 277 Dalits in Bihar between August 1994 and February 1999 by the Ranavir Sena, a militia of upper-caste landlords. Almost all those killed were poor and landless agricultural labourers who had dared to demand land and minimum wages.

“We should demand land. If by asking we don’t get it, we should build up our strength to fight and get it,” exhorted Athawale. “What is of urgent importance, therefore, is that Dalits have to be militant. When we start insisting on our rights, there will be resistance, but we should not be afraid,” he added, while minister Paswan appealed to the Dalits to join others on social justice issues.

“Irrespective of the parties to which one belongs, the cause of Dalit rights should be our priority concern and commitment,” said Paswan.

Paswan, Athawale, the NCDHR delegates, along with Dr. Dattathreya and Lakshman took up many of these same demands and issues the next day in their meeting with the Prime Minister.

When the Prime Minister commented that untouchability was on the decline, the group cited numerous surveys from the ‘Black Paper’ which show that a large majority of villages in rural India still practice various and numerous forms of untouchability, including the two glass system in hotels, barring temple entry, and separate water sources. Also, almost 9 lakh Dalits in India today continue to earn their livelihood as manual scavengers, 15,000 of them in the national capital itself.

They went on to urge the PM to bring an amendment to Article 21, Part 3, Fundamental Rights, to ensure livelihood rights and the passage of the Basic Rights Agenda 2000 in the 13th Lok Sabha for the upliftment of Dalits. 

Today, Dalits are denied even basic livelihood rights. Over 20 per cent of the community do not have access to safe drinking water, almost 50 per cent live below the poverty line, 70 per cent lack electricity, and 90 per cent lack sanitation. To ensure the livelihood rights to Dalits, the NCHDR calls for the allocation of 20 per cent of GDP and a 15 per cent annual income tax on the corporate sector.

For the protection of Dalit life and security, the campaign urged the Prime Minister to promote and enforce effective implementation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and Rules, 1995.  This would be further backed up by recruiting a proportional percentage of Dalits to different classes of the police force, providing arms and training for self–defence against the perpetrators of atrocities and violence, and establishing special courts at the Supreme Court and district levels to speedily try cases of atrocities and untouchability covered by the act.

Reiterating the necessity for continuing the reservation policy, Paswan emphasised the need for reservation in the judiciary and in promotion to all the services in the bureaucracy. He underlined the duty of the government to fill in all the Class I & II reserved posts that are currently being occupied by non–SC/STs. The backlog of SC/ST appointments is supposed to be enormous — around 10 lakhs in the Union Government Services, not to mention many more in different states.

The Prime Minister assured the group that he is committed to the empowerment of Dalits as has been forcefully stated in his party’s manifesto. Earlier in the week, Athawale had submitted to the Prime Minister a memorandum reiterating the demands of the NCDHR that had been signed by many other Dalit and pro–Dalit MPs.

Over 300 hundred Dalit women delegates also met on December 8 for a National Dalit Women’s Conference, the outcome of which was ‘The Dalit Women Declaration of Gender Rights and Demands’ to be presented to the Indian public and the government for immediate consideration and action. 

(Press release dated December 14, 1999 of the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights).

Archived from Communalism Combat, January 2000. Year 7  No, 55,  Dalit Drishti 1

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The electoral arena in the 90s has taken a qualitative turn for the worse. The earlier electoral equation, Congress vs. the Janata Dal/Janata Party and its allies, has been replaced by a triangle with first the BJP and now the BJP and its allies as the base of the triangle. Of the two other arms of the triangle, one is the Congress and other is the declining Third Front.

Progressive groups and individuals are faced with a serious dilemma as far as voting in various constituencies and campaigning is concerned. Barring the Left parties — whose secular and democratic credentials are strong — and the other earlier constituents of Third Front — though they had earlier stood on secular and democratic ground, many of them now seem to be wavering — both the major combatants in the electoral battle field are tainted with communalism of different varieties. It is in this context that the stance of the Left in singling out the BJP as THE communal force, to be isolated and dumped on a priority basis, has come for criticism from certain friends and groups from the liberal, progressive and left spectrum. Bringing to our attention the gory deeds of Congress in subtly tolerating communalism, these radical elements are advocating equi–distance from the BJP and the Congress. I would like to examine the pitfalls of this equi–distance thesis in this article. Congress and Communalism: Right since its inception, the main thrust of the Indian National Congress has been to struggle for a democratic, secular India at the formal level. At the same time, there has always been a weakness to accommodate and tolerate communal elements, more so Hindu communal elements. Some of the major leaders of the Congress had strong streaks of Hindu nationalism. The important ones in this category include Lala Lajpat Rai, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Dr. Munje (one of the founders of RSS). Many leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha were also the members of the Congress. Dr. K. B. Hedgewar, the first Sarsanghchalak (supremo) of the RSS founded in 1927 was formally in the Congress till 1934. In the pre-Independence era, the Congress acted merely as a platform, the dominant part of it being secular and democratic as represented by the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru. 

Undoubtedly, Hindu communal elements within the Congress put pressure from within to supplement the agenda of the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, to act as the opposite and parallel of Muslim communalism represented mainly by the Muslim League. With Partition, formation of Pakistan and the migration of theMuslim elite from different parts of the country to Pakistan, Muslim communalism in a way got deflated.But it did survive in the Indian polity, assuming strident postures at crucial times like the Shah Bano case etc, to provide much needed prop to Hindu communalism. 

The Congress underwent major transformation in the mid–sixties. Though it continued to pay lip service to secular rhetoric, apart from appeasing the fundamentalist sections of Muslim community, it did little to ameliorate the conditions of minorities. Also, the state apparatus started getting infiltrated by the Hindu communal elements — RSS trainees — who at the grass root level started giving a Hindu slant to the policies of a formally secular state. It is due to these factors that Muslims started getting discriminated against in jobs and social opportunities. They also became victims of anti–Muslim violence led by Hindu communal organisations, supported and abetted by a  ommunally infected State. The Congress was not principled enough to oppose and curtail this as a section of its leadership was either ‘soft communal’ or had no qualms in compromising with and promoting Hindu  communalism. 

During these years the principal project of the Congress was to build a strong Indian State. In this process it started suppressing ethnic and regional aspirations and imposed the Indian identity and laws on many
ethnic groups and regions by force. The Congress pursued the policy of relentless centralisation and intervened in state affairs at every minor pretext. This led to situations of insurgency in the Northeast, Kashmir and Punjab. In Punjab and Kashmir, the worsening situation was allowed to take a communal turn. The anti–Sikh pogrom led by the Congress in 1984 can be said to belong to this category of repression of ethnic aspirations of Sikhs. 

But as Aijaz Ahmed pointed out some years ago, Congress communalism is a pragmatic one that has been used by it time and again to ‘solve’ some other problem, for example, suppressing  thno–regional aspirations (Economic and Political Weekly, June 1,1996, Pg. 1329). They have to be contrasted with the systematic and sustained anti–Muslim violence whose ideological roots lie in the very concept of Hindu Rashtra. 

Hindu Communal Politics: The basic premise of the RSS is to work towards the goal of Hindu Rashtra and as its political arm, the BJP, is committed to help in the realisation of that goal. Since 1986, the BJP has pursued the aggressive agenda of Hindu Rashtra through the Ramjanambhoomi campaign leading to the demolition of Babri Mosque, post–demolition communal violence etc. Most of the inquiry commission reports on communal violence (Jagmohan Reddy, Justice Madon, Vithayathil, Srikrishna and Venugopal) have proved without any shadow of doubt that the various constituents of the sangh parivar have been the major actors in anti–Muslim communal violence. More recently, the National Human Rights Commission, National Minorities Commission and independent human rights groups have highlighted the role of most of the progenies of the RSS in anti–Christian violence. Lately, after realising that it cannot grab power at the Centre on its own on a communal, the BJP has ‘cleverly’ been talking of the need for a ‘National Agenda of Governance’ and a ‘National Democratic Alliance’ to woo the regional parties whose narrow regional interests and tubular vision does not permit them to see the core communal project of BJP. This temporary democratic posture of the BJP is merely for the sake of gradually increasing its vote bank/social base to be able to come to power at Centre on its own so that the agenda of Hindu Rashtra ‘in toto’ can be imposed on society. Till then the decent looking agenda will remain sprinkled with hidden agendas.

In the long term this elite, middle class party will freeze society in the existent social dynamics, taking away the rights of exploited, oppressed and those on lower rungs of hierarchy to struggle for social, economic and gender justice. The communalism of BJP is a cover for a gradually evolving fascism, with the aim of foisting Brahminical Hindu politics on the country. In the words of Aijaz Ahmed, the sangh parivar’s and the BJP’s is a programmatic communalism. 

Equi–distance and comparisons: It is not to say that the other parties are desirable, ideal and capable of sustaining the secular democratic programme. We have seen that the Congress could impose Emergency with ease and pass various anti–democratic legislation time and again. It has often compromised with and aided Hindu communalism. The other parties have also shown manifest inadequacies as far as perusal of democratic principles is concerned.

But all said and done, none of them is driven by the engine of RSS, a fascist organisation wedded to the concept of Hindu Rashtra — a Brahminical–Hinduism based nationalism akin to race based nationalism or Muslim nationalism. This is what makes the BJP a different cup of tea – nay, poison. Historical Precedents: As I have argued elsewhere(Fascism of Sangh Parivar, EKTA, Mumbai, 1999), the sangh parivar is a fascist variant with a number of similarities to European fascism which got strengthened, post–Mandal, in reaction to Dalit, OBC assertion in 1990s. 

In Germany, Hitler rapidly increased his social and electoral base by projecting the fear of a strong workers movement. The triangle there was: communists, Hitler’s National Socialists (fascists) and the Centrists – Social Democrats, akin to the Congress in India. In spite of seeing the methods and dangerous potential of Hitler, communists, who were a substantial force, in a way followed the electoral policy of
equi–distance from Social Democrats (whom they called social fascists) and the National Socialists (Hitler’s party). Though Hitler did not have majority he was able to come to power through negotiations as the opponents had shifting and divided aims and were unable to focus on the real essentials of power while Nazis had unwavering aims and had a firm grasp on ‘real politics’.

The Imminent Dangers: In view of what I have argued above, the BJP should totally be out of reckoning as far as electoral choice is concerned. Just because there is a vacuum of parties with decent secular and democratic credentials does not mean that one lands up supporting a party whose fascist potential is there without any shadow of doubt? What if the Congress, which time and again has used communalism to fulfil its political ambition, benefits from it? Surely, it is an evil whose magnitude is ‘n’ times lower than thedangers of BJP being in power. 

The equi—distance position stance holds no water. The BJP cannot be equated with any other party; it has to be an ‘untouchable’ for us — Historical revenge of the untouchables!

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 1999, Year 6  No. 51, Debate

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