Dalit
Bahujan castes were never allowed to develop into
modernity and equality
What
is Dalitization
Dalit
Bahujan Motion of Private Property
Labour
as life
Dalit
Bahujan Democracy
Dalit
Bahujan Man-Woman Relations
The
Future|
|
As
I have argued in the preceding chapters, the life-world of the
Dalitbahujans of India has hardly anything in common with the
socio-cultural and political environment of Hindu-Brahminism. The
Dalitbahujans live together with the Hindus in the civil society of Indian
villages and urban centers, but the two cultural worlds are not merely
different, they are opposed to each other. Hindu thinking is set against
the interests of Dalitbahujan castes; Hindu mythology is built by
destroying the Dalitbahujan cultural ethos. Dalitbahujan castes were never
allowed to develop into modernity and equality. The violent, hegemonic,
brahminical culture sought to destroy Dalitbahujan productive structures,
culture, economy and its positive political institutions. Everything was
attacked and undermined. This process continues in post-Independence
India.
While conducting the anti-colonial struggle, brahminical leaders
and ideologues did not attempt to build an anti-caste egalitarian
ideology. On the contrary, they glorified brutal Hindu institutions. They
built an ideology that helped brahminical forces reestablish their full
control which had, to some extent, been weakened during the political rule
of the Mughals and the British. In the building of brahminical
nationalism, Raja Rammohan Roy, at one stage, and Gandhi, at another,
played key roles in recreating ‘upper’ caste hegemony. After 1947, in
the name of democracy, the Brahmins, the Baniys and the neo-Kshatriyas
have come to power. Post-colonial development in its entirety has been
systematically cornered by these forces. The Brahmins have focused their
attention on politico-bureaucratic power, the Baniyas established their
hegemony on capitalist markets and the Neo-Kshatriyas established their
control over the agrarian economy. This modern triumvirate restructured
the state and society to affirm and reproduce their hegemonic control.
In spite of the immense hold of modern Brahminism on various
structures of power, the intellectual forces that emerged from the womb of
the Dalitbahujan social structure as a result of both education and
reservations have attempted to fracture modern Brahminism in many ways.
The elite of modern Brahminism recognized this force and resurrected
Brahminism in the more aggressive form of Hindutva in the anti-Mandal
ideologies, the Ayodhya-based Rama slogan, as well as in the Sangh
Parivar’s theory of ‘Akhandabharat’ (united India) and ‘minority appeasement’.
All these are part of the anti-Dalitbahujan package.
Such a basically anti-Dalitbahujan thesis is advanced to modernize classical Hindu varnadharma to suit post-colonial capitalist structures, so that Hinduism itself can modernize in a way that will sustain the hegemony of brahminical forces. This is the reason why the thesis is put forward that Hinduization should be within the broad framework of urbanization, modernization, and so on. We reject the Hinduization programme in toto for two reasons. One, Hinduism has never been a humane philosophy. It is the most brutal religious school that the history of religions has witnessed. The Dalitbahujan castes of India are the living evidence of its brutality. Second, even if Hinduization expresses a desire to humanize itself in future, there is no scope for this to happen, since the history of religion itself is coming to an end. We must, therefore, dalitize our entire society as Dalitization will establish a new egalitarian future for Indian society as a whole.
Dalitization
requires that the whole of Indian society learns from the Dalitwaadas
(here I am speaking specifically about Scheduled Caste localities). It
requires that we look at the Dalitwaadas in order to acquire a new
consciousness. It requires that we attend to life in these waadas; that we
appreciate what is positive, what is humane and what can be extended from
Dalitwaadas to the whole society.
It is common sense knowledge that the starting point of Dalitbahujan society is the collective of ‘untouchable’ houses, the homesteads of the Maadigas and Maalaas (similar castes exist in almost all linguistic regions of India). What is most striking about Maadigaa and Maalaa society is its collective living and collective consciousness. The human being in the Dalitwaadas is not only a collective being but also a secular social being. Here human relationships operate in a mode that has been sensitized to human needs. Though Dalitbahujan society does have contradictions, these contradictions are not antagonistic. They are friendly and can be resolved. Their social context is productive and distributive. Equality is its innate strength. In the current repressive social structure of the village, it is only the Dalitbahujan masses who have had the strength to survive as productive beings. Consciousness in the Dalitwaada is not individual but collective. Human beings relate to each other basically on humane terms. The material basis of the society is rooted not in wealth but in labour power. However Dalitbahujan labour power earns diminishing returns. Such diminishing returns have the effect of completely alienating them. In fact, there is a triple process of alienation taking place in the Dalitwaadas: (i) They are alienated from village production and marketing; (ii) they are alienated from the main village social setting; and (iii) they are alienated from themselves. In this respect, the Dalitbahujans of India live in far more adverse conditions than the working classes in the West. Yet the hope of life among them is greater and stronger. Where does this hope come from? This hope comes from their own inner strength that expresses itself in the form of Dalitbahujan culture and consciousness. Its soul lies in its collective consciousness.
In
the Dalitwaada the individual is subsumed into the collectivity. While
being a member of that collectivity, this individual retains a certain
individuality. The interaction with nature on a day-to-day basis
reproduces the freshness of life. To ensure that life within the
Dalitwaada is not free, within every village the ‘upper’ castes,
particularly the Brahmins and the Baniyas, have created mini-states that
constantly oppress the Dalitbahujans both physically and spiritually.
Despite all this Dalitbahujans have been re-energizing themselves to
struggle to improve their lives. This is possible because of their
collective consciousness.
What are the implications of Dalitbahujan collective consciousness?
Everything—good or bad—that takes place within the Dalitwaada is
shared by everyone. Pleasure, pain and social events
are all shared. If there is a birth in one house, both the
pleasures and the pains of that birth are also social. The mother’s
labour pains are at least emotionally
shared by all the womenfolk of the Dalitwaada. The pleasure of giving
birth to a new human being, who will add to the number
of working hands, a human being never regarded as a burden on
society, this pleasure is not merely that of the mother and the father but
of whole waada. If there is a death, the whole Dalitwaada shares in it
emotionally. Men and women are both part of the funeral procession,
cremation or burial. All the women and the men gather to mourn the loss of
a human being who ate with them, drank with them and smoked with them; a
human being who was never a burden as long as that person was able bodied.
It is commonly observed by the villagers that Dalitbahujan women and men
go to every house where death has taken place—even to the
‘upper’ caste houses. There they recount as they mourn, the ‘good’
that the person has done. On this occasion, they do not mention short
comings or evil deeds. But in the normal course of life the defects of
‘upper’ castes occupy the principal place in their discourse.
Very recently I happened to visit a village where a rich Reddy’s only son (aged twenty) had committed suicide, ostensibly because his stingy father had refused to spend money on his education. The first people to reach the Reddy’s house to abuse the stingy father were the Maadigaas of the village. They abused the father and mourned for the boy. The response of the other Dalitbahujans, by and large, was the same, whereas the ‘upper’ castes ‘understood’ the father-son relations of the family within the context of private property. The so-called upper castes saw what was ‘wrong’ in the boy’s anger against his property-conscious father. A father who was ultimately accumulating property in the interest of the lone son. The Dalitbahujan understanding of the father-son relationship was the opposite of that of the ‘upper’ castes. For them the question was totally different. They posed the question as follows: Is property meant for human beings, or human beings meant for property? To appreciate the implications of this question we must understand the whole notion of private property among the Dalitbahujan masses.
The
Maalaa-Maadigaa society has not become a society structured by
private property. The notion of private property has not become part of
their thinking in any major way. individuality and possession of property
has not acquired the pride of place in Dalitbahujan consciousness that it
has in Hindu consciousness. If Dalitbahujans get hold of a goat or a sheep
or a bull or a cow they share the meat. Even today, they do not weight the
meat first but simply distribute it by dividing it into equal shares, one
share for each family. Such distribution has become central to the
Dalitbahujan consciousness. Even the welfare doles that the government
gives are shared equally. This is one of the main reasons why welfare
inputs disappear into collective consumption within no time.
Why is it that they do not acquire the consciousness of retaining
something for tomorrow, for two days, for two months or for two years,
thus forming private property of their own? The main reason for not
acquiring such private property is rooted in the confidence they have in
their power to labour. Dalitbahujans are the most hard-working people in
village society. For them it is their labour power that is property. If
the Dalitwaadas had disengaged themselves from the labour process, the
village economies would have collapsed long ago. The Dalitwaada knows that
for the labour that they invest in the production—whether agrarian or
non-agrarian—very little comes back to them. Every day they consume
something less than what they need to re-energize themselves. Thus, they
know that every day they are also being alienated from their own selves.
Yet they are not disillusioned about life. They take life as a struggle in
both production and procreation. Far from being a burden to the society,
they are the productive pillars that keep the whole society standing, the
blood that keeps the whole society alive.
In contrast to this, the ‘upper’ castes are the most
non-productive and lazy forces. Their values have been completely
distorted by their life of perennial luxury. Their notion of private
property is inhuman and exploitative. They can live tomorrow only on the
property they preserve and to acquire that property, any brutality can be
committed and it can be regarded as part of Hindu dharma. Among the
brahminical forces there is no notion of ‘work’. Labour is negated.
All relations among human beings are reduced to relations of private
property and distrust. Human values stand destroyed to the core. Eating
and sleeping become the two principal tasks of human beings. Not that all
Brahmin-Baniyas are rich. There are poor among them. Even they do not make
their living by manual work (small pockets like Uttarakhand are
exceptions).
Dalitbahujans, on the other hand, layer by layer, keep working for
the well-being of these so-called upper castes. Clearly what needs to be
changed is the culture of ‘upper’ castes who live by exploiting
Dalitbahujan labour and by converting the fruits of that labour into their
property. All human beings including the Brahmins and the Baniyas must
learn to live with the kind of confidence that the Dalitbahujans have.
What is that confidence? The confidence that ‘our tomorrow is guaranteed
by our labour’. That is possible only when they begin to think in terms
of the Dalitization of brahminical society.
As a result of brahminical alienation from productive work, Hindu society has created a very powerful notion of private property. The non-productive life of the ‘upper’ castes can survive only on private property. Unlike in non-caste systems, the accumulation of private property by brahminical Hinduism did not come about through a mixture of labour, investment and exploitation. The caste system has given enormous scope for accumulation of private property with a single instrument: exploitation. The spiritual mantra alone was brahminical investment. The whole world knows about the Brahmin’s fear of labour and their disgust for work. brahminical greed and gluttony ensure that property is accumulated only through exploitation. Moreover, property accumulated through such exploitation is given the highest social status. Brahminical literature concerns only the rich. Brahminical Hindu society has assigned all virtues to the rich and all vices to the poor. As far as I know, this is not true of the priesthood of other religions. The foundations of ‘upper’ caste culture lies in this brahminical notion of private property and non-productive living. Accumulation of property is designed to enable people to live without working. In Hindu society private property is not a social reserve to be used when society as a whole needs it. This is one place where Gandhi was wrong. For Brahmins, all that is in their possession becomes sacred, and is untoucbale by others. If a Brahmin has some extra rice, it will not be given away. Even Baniya property is sacred property. The casteization of property destroys the social basis of property. In fact, it is because of the caste system, which in turn casteized property, that the system of property could not play a progressive role in India at any stage.
For
Dalitbahujans labour is life. For a
Dalitbahujan body, labour is as habitual as eating is to the stomach. In
fact, every Dalitbahujan body produces more than it consumes. As a result,
Dalitbahujan life recreates itself in labour more than it recreates itself
through eating and drinking. While labouring, a Dalitbahujan mind does not
disengage from thinking but goes on producing ideas that make labour a
pleasure. If labour is not pleasure, if Dalitbahujan minds do not derive
pleasure out of that labouring process, given the low levels of
consumption on which they subsist, Dalitbahujan bodies would have died
much earlier than they do. Even if Dalitbahujans were to consider work as
a monotonous, tortuous course of life, given the amount of labour that
they expend during their lifetimes, death would have invited them much
earlier than it does today.
If without giving up such a practice of labouring, and labouring
with pleasure, when adequate calories of food are provided, a Dalitbahujan
body will live longer and more healthily than the non-labouring
‘upper’ caste/class body.
In the process of labour Dalitbahujans engage in a constant
intercourse with the land. Their thorough understanding of land and its
productivity, its colour and combination, is solely responsible for
increase in productivity. Even before ‘knowledge from without’ (what
we call urban-based, expert knowledge) influenced Dalitbahujan productive
skills, they had been experimenting constantly to improve their labour
productivity, trying to understand scientifically the relationship between
land and seed. They also tried to understand to the relationship between
the seed and human biological systems. Before cross-breeding was studied
in modern laboratories, the Dalitbahujans had cross-bred seed systems.
Dalitbahujan women selected and preserved seeds for planting. They
maintained huge stores of plant genes. They grafted plants and worked out
whole systems of hybridization. All this knowledge was a product of their
labour and its creative intercourse with land and nature.
Dalitbahujan labour has creatively interacted with a whole range of
non-agrarian plant systems. Dalitbahujans who were engaged in sheep-, goat
and cattle-breeding made tireless investigations of plants and their
medicinal values. These investigations were done with an exemplary
combination of physical labour and mental acumen. Dalitbahujan knowledge
never separated physical labour from
mental labour. In India this
bifurcation took place in a caste/class form. For Dalitbahujans, physical
and mental labour was an integrated whole. If we want to understand the
process by which the contradiction between mental and physical labour is
resolved as Mao did in the Chinese context, we must return to studying
carefully the way the Dalitbahujan societies of India combined mental and
physical labour, without a so-called wise man intervening, in the process
of labouring to integrate, break open, reintegrated and finally discover
new systems.
The Dalitbahujan masses have enormous technological and engineering
skills which are not divorced
from their labour. One who lifts dead cattle also knows the science of
skinning it. They themselves know how to process the skin and make
chappals, shoes or ropes. All these tasks involve both mental and physical
labour. This work is not like reading the Vedas or teaching in a school.
Reading the Vedas or teaching in a school does not require must investment
of physical labour or creative thought. Certain types of mental labour may
not involve physical labour, but all physical labour involves mental
labour. Dalitbahujan society has shown exemplary skill in combining both.
Take, for example, the Goudaas who climb the toddy trees and combine in
themselves the talent of mind and the training of body. While climbing the
tree a Goudaa has to exercise his muscle power. He has also to invent ways
of climbing tall trees which do not have branches. While climbing, if he
does not focus his mind on every step the result is death. A Brahmin dance
teacher, while dancing certainly combines both physical and mental labour
but does not encounter a risk in every step. Despite this, why is it that
brahminical dance has acquired so much value? Why is it that brahminical
dance is given so much space in literature? Why not celebrate the beauty
and skill of a Goudaa, which over and above being an art,
science and an exercise has productive value. As I have already
discussed, the tapping of a toddy tree layer by layer, involves enormous
knowledge and engaged application besides physical and mental skill.
Tapping the gela in a way that makes the toddy flow, but does not hurt the
tree, cannot be done by everybody. It needs training and cultivation of
mind. Training in this specialization is much more dangerous and difficult
than training in reading the Vedas. All the same a Hindu is told to
respect and value the training to read Veda mantras, but not the Goudaa
skills of producing something which has market-value and
consumption-value.
Hindu Brahminism defied all economic theories, including feminist
economic teory, that all market-oriented societies valued labour which
produced goods and commodities for market consumption. Feminist economic
theory points out that though women’s labour in the house contributes to
the economy, it does not find social respectability or receive economic
compensation. In the brahminical economy Dalitbahujan labour (male or
female) even if it is produced for market consumption has no value. On the
contrary, the so-called mental labour of the Brahmins and the Baniyas
reciting mantras and extracting profit by sitting at the shop desk has
been given enormous socioeconomic value. Herein lies the Hindu
delegitimization of productive creativity. The brahminical economy even
devalued production for the market and privileged its spiritual-mental
labour over all other labour processes.
Brahminical scholarship legitimized leisure, mantra, puja, tapasya
and soothsaying, though these are not knowledge systems in themselves.
Scientific knowledge systems, on the contrary, are available among the
Dalitbahujan castes. A pot maker’s wholistic approach to knowledge which
involves collecting the right type of earth, making it into clay, turning
it on the wheel, and firing it required knowledge of local materials and
resources, scientific knowledge of the clay and the firing process,
besides a sharp understanding of the market. It requires mental skill to
use the fingers, while physically turning the wheel, skill to convert that
clay into pots, pitchers and jars—small or big—of
all kinds. Firing is an equally skill
to convert that clay into pots, pitchers and jars—small or
big—of all kinds. Firing is an equally skill—intensive process. The
oven has to be heated to an exact temperature and the pots baked just long
enough for them to become durable and yet retain their attractive colour.
This whole scheme is a specialized knowledge in itself. Thus, Kamsalies
(goldsmiths) have their own scientific knowledge, Kammaris (blacksmiths)
theirs, and Shalaas (weavers) theirs. But all these arts and sciences, all
these knowledge systems have been delegitimized. Instead of being given
social priority and status, mantric mysticism has been given priority.
These knowledge systems will get socioeconomic value only when their
legitimacy is established.
Hinduism constructed its own account of Dalitbahujan knowledge
systems. As discussed earlier, while the Dalitbahujans live labour as
life, the Hindus inverted this principle and privileged leisure over
labour. The ancient theoretical formation of the thesis ‘leisure as
life’ was propounded by Vatsyayana in the Kamasutra, where
he constructs a nagarika (citizen)
as one who embodies this notion. This very theory was reinstated at
different stages of history whenever brahminical Hinduism was in crisis,
or whenever Dalitbahujan organic forces rebelled against Hindu theory and
practice. As we saw, the 1990 anti-Mandal Hindutva wave again aimed at
reviving the ‘leisure as life’ theory as against the Mandal movement
that aimed at universalizing ‘labour as life’ (irrespective of caste,
everyone should do both manual labour and work in an office). In other
words, it aimed at dalitizing Indian society.
The whole world has overcome the theories of privileging leisure
over labour. Whether it is countries like Japan and China or in the West
itself, labour has acquired more market value and social status than
leisure. Mandalization of the Indian state and society would have
integrated us into these universal systems. But Hindu Brahminism reacted
to this historical transformation and started the counter-revolutionary
Hindutva movement by reemphasizing leisure, mantra and moksha as basic
principles which will undermine the onward march of Indian society. But a
quicker development of Indian society lies in privileging labour over
leisure. Only Dalitization of the whole society can achieve this goal.
Dalitbahujan social systems are democratic in nature, structuring
themselves in social collectivity and in a collective consciousness.
Collectivity and collective consciousness are reinforced by the negation
of the institution of private property. As I have discussed earlier,
Dalitbahujan society has negated private property because it has
tremendous confidence in its own labour power and because of its concept
of labour as life.
In political terms, Dalitbahujan democracy expresses itself in
several ways. The relationship between wife and husband, though
patriarchal, is also democratic. The wife does not have to be known in her
husband’s name. She can learn and practice all skills. Human strengths
and weaknesses are integrated into Dalitbahujan life. Men and women can
abuse each other, at times beat each other, though it is true that often
women will be at the receiving end. Between wife and husband, there exists
a loving relationship based on shared work that plays a positive role.
Though marriages are often arranged and child marriage is practised,
divorce and remarriage (maarumaanam) are socially accepted. Divorce is
made possible for both wife and husband in an open discussion in the
Dalitwaada. The caste panchayat, village panchayat and the ammalakkala
muchhatlu, women’s collectives, all debates the rights and wrongs of the
couple and come to a socially acceptable conclusion. Where there is no
possibility of continuing to live as a wife and husband, the two may
divorce because that is the practical alternative. Of course, the Hindu
problem regarding widow-remarriage has never been a problem in
Dalitbahujan society. The democracy in the Dalitwaadas is a democracy that
works.
The relations between parents and children are far more democratic
in Dalitbahujan houses than in Hindu houses. A son or daughter addresses
the parents in the familiar singular mode and eats and drinks along with
them. There is very little of a hierarchy in the house, waada and caste;
vices and virtues are debated more openly in the family, waada and caste
than it is in Hindu society. While illiteracy in the Dalitwaadas
(illiteracy) is imposed on them by the brahminical system) places
limitations on their levels of knowledge, the available productive
knowledge is freely shared by all. People in the Dalitwaadas live on the
basis of equality. We generally do not find huge buildings on the one hand
and poor sheds on the other. By and large the whole of the Dalitwaada
lives in poverty, but within that poverty there is equality as they all
live in similar houses, eat similar food and wear similar clothes. This
equality minimizes jealousy and competition among them.
The persistent theory that human beings are by nature, selfish or
iniquitous or that the scope for selfishness is removed only when
inequality is reduced (as was done in some of the former socialist
systems) and its obverse: the theory that human systems do not survive if
inequalities are totally removed, both these theories can
be disproved by any systematic study of Dalitwaadas, where there is
no negative cut-throat competition and no withdrawing into lethargy. There
are umpteen examples to show that if there is work for three human days
for a person, and a Dalitbahujan is assigned to finish that work, he or
she would take two more people along and finish the task in one day—even
if it means unemployment for the next two days. This is because of the
democratic humanism that the Dalitwaadas are vested with. Amidst poverty
there is no dearth of humanity. This is the rich heritage and Dalitwaadas
can extend to the whole of Indian society.
In contrast to this, life in the Hindu waadas, particularly the
Brahmin or the Baniya households, is marked by selfishness, inequality and
cut-throat competition. This is primarily because Hindus are
non-productive and anti-labour people. Naturally, therefore, a Hindu
family visualizes its survival only in a totally hierarchical and
competitive system. This competition is for greater pleasure and
‘better’ living but even within the same Hindu ‘upper’ caste they
do not appreciate equality. For them equality goes against human nature
itself which they regard as thriving on inequality and selfishness. The
principle of ‘selfishness as natural’ has become the philosophical
foundation of Hinduism. This was the reason why it could not build a
society of internal strength and internal dynamism.
The ‘upper’ caste political structure is basically
authoritarian. Authoritarianism begins within a brahminical home and
extends to the rest of civil society. Given the socio-political hegemony
of the ‘upper’ castes, the structures that the brahminical family have
evolved are projected to be the structures of Indian society as a whole.
Its opposite, that is, Dalitbahujan structures, though they encompass a
far larger number of people, indeed the whole working mass of India, is
treated by brahminical literary, political and legal texts as nonexistent.
As a result, even historians and social scientists from other parts of the
world constructed Indian culture and history either in conformity with
brahminical theocracy or critiqued I t in its own terms without comparing
it with the secular and democratic social systems of the Dalitbahujans. If
only that had been done, every observer (if not from India, at least from
abroad) could have realized that India has always been divided into two
cultures and two civilizations: the Dalitbahujan and the brahminical. But
this fact has been systematically glossed over.
Dalitbahujan democracy and brahminical authoritarianism express
themselves in a conflicting manner in civil society. This conflict is an
ongoing process and can be found everywhere. If civil society and the
structures of the polity had not been hegemonized by brahminical consent
and coercion systems, Dalitbahujan democratic structures would have gained
the upper hand and the social system would have been built on the much
stronger ethics of production. Indian development would have been set on
an entirely different course. The defeat of the Indian systems by
colonialists would have become impossible. The resilience of the system
would have been thousand times greater. Hinduism is solely responsible for
the tragedy of this country.
What is important, however, is that though Hinduism has made every
attempt to destroy Dalitbahujan culture and civilization, it has not
succeeded. Attempts to provide respectable social status to Dalitbahujan
culture and civilization were made by Jyotirao Phule and Ambedkar. As we
have seen, the attempts to create a Dalitbahujan hegemony began
with the Mandal struggle in 1990. Thus the 1990 Mandal struggle
posed several new questions. The forces of democracy, that is the
Dalitbahujans and the minorities, and the forces of brahminical
authoritarianism are getting polarized. This polarization places the
Dalitization of society on the national agenda.
Man-woman
relations among Dalitbahujan castes are far more democratic and humane
than among the Hindus. This aspect has been examined in some detail in
preceding chapters, but it can be usefully reviewed here. Though the
institution of patriarchy has its sway over even the Dalitwaadas, a
certain degree of freedom for women is guaranteed by inbuilt structures.
Since Dalitbahujans do not have property reserves and every individual
must therefore work for the family, women are thoroughly integrated into
their productive labour system. Not only that, the women are the main
driving force of Dalitbahujan society. It is also true that because of the
lack of social reserves even young children need to work, which has built
a tremendous work ethic among them. All the same it is necessary for the
well-being of Dalitbahujan society that these children be provided
education. Education is an essential condition of life. As part of this
process, both women and men need to be educated.
The important point here is that the skill that Dalitbahujan women
have are enormous. They are excellent soil examiners, planters, breeders
and selectors of seeds. They have huge stores of medical knowledge. Most
of these skills are absolutely lacking among ‘upper’ caste women.
Brahminical society has reduced women to sex objects. The taboo systems
that was built into Hindu families destroyed their creative abilities. The
creativity of these women must be restored. Drawing upon the experiences
of Dalitbahujan women is the only way other societies of India can change
their course. Similarly, Dalitbahujan men are also productive beings. They
have huge reserves of the knowledge of nature. Their knowledge of plants,
animals, insects is extremely important for the preservation of human
species. Dalitbahujan men and women’s knowledge about soils, seeds,
tools and other materials is essential for the growth of science and
technology in this country. Without this source knowledge, which forms the
core of the knowledge systems, the apex knowledge systems would not have
developed.
The future is that of
Dalitbahujans in India. In order to dalitize society, the Dalitbahujan
leadership must know its strengths and weaknesses. The Dalitbahujans of
India have suffered hardships all through history. Modern democratic
socialist revolutions have now given them some scope to liberate
themselves. It is only through their liberation that the rest of the
society, namely, the ‘upper’ castes, can be liberated. But this
process can be very painful and tortuous. This was clear from two historic
struggles that have taken place so far. The first was the 1990 Mandal
struggle and the second was the 1993 Uttar Pradesh elections. In 1990 the
Dalitization of the administration was violently resisted. The Janata Dal
government was pulled down for the simple reason that it implemented a
small section of the Mandal Commission Report. In 1993, after the first
Dalitbahujan government was formed at the state level, brahminical forces
turned the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in to a place of bloody battle. As the
house assembled on its first day, 16 December, 1993, the brahminical
forces of Uttar Pradesh began throwing chappals and missiles at the
Dalitbahujan legislators. It was because the brahminical forces now
realized that the Dalitbahujan ‘raakshas’, ‘mlecchaas’,
‘Dravidas’ and ‘Chandalas’ had come to rule. But the Dalitbahujans
have shown their determination by retaliating. For the first time in
Indian history, as we have read in newspapers and seen on television, the
Brahmins have tasted what Dalitbahujan power can be. Perhaps this could be
a pointer to the future course of history.
Dalitizationof civil society, state and administrative apparatus is
not going to be an easy task. The Dalitbahujans want that it should be
achieved as peacefully as possible; they have never been lovers of
violence. But the enemy forces have survived only through violence.
Dalitbahujans have all the sympathies for ‘upper’ caste women as they
have also been victims of Hinduism. But a complex problem arises with the
fact that they have been integrated into Brahminism in caste and class
terms. Even Brahmin women think that Dalitbahujans are others.
However, the best way to push Dalitization into ‘upper’ caste
houses, is to address the women. The recent past has shown that the
women’s movement is receptive to Dalitbahujan questions. They see a
parallel in the nature of oppression. Though by and large ‘upper’
caste women live in better economic/class conditions, at least the most
conscious among them will quickly realize the need for Dalitization.
Already the ‘upper’ caste
women are choosing Dalitbahujan man-woman relations to brahminical
patriarchal relations. They seem to prefer the Dalitbahujan concepts of
divorce and remarriage to the wife-murder politics of ‘upper’ caste
families. The educated among them seem to think that the family must be
open, as against the wish of ‘upper’ caste men who feel that the
family must be a closed and hidden system.
The attempt to dalitize temples—though that in itself does not
have much positive implications in terms of democratizing the system—is
being demanded. Brahminical forces are resisting this in a big way. But,
whatever it is worth, it is important to capture the Hindu temples by
expelling the Brahmins from them as there is a lot of wealth in the
temples in the form of gold, silver and land. This wealth has to be
seized. At the same time it is important to see that the brahminical
God-culture does not get assimilated into Dalitbahujan culture.
Dalitbahujans whose consciousness has been brahminized must be made aware
of its danger. Productive Dalitbahujan culture should constantly be
privileged over Hindu ‘swaha’ culture. The thousands of existing
temples could be converted into public education centres, where the
Dalitbahujans begin to reschool the ‘upper’ castes.
This of course will require that they unlearn many things. The task
is much more difficult with the Brahmins and the Baniyas than it will be
with the neo-Kshatriyas. Yet another major area of Dalitzation will be to
push the Brahmin-Baniyas into productive work, whether it is rural or
urban. Both men and women of the so-called upper castes will resist this
with all the strength at their command. This is because among them
Hinduism has destroyed all positive elements that normally exist in a
human being. During the post-colonial period their energies were diverted
to manipulate education, employment, production and development subtly.
Their minds are poisoned with the notion that productive work is mean and
that productive castes are inferior. No ruling class in the world is as
dehumanized as the Indian brahminical castes. They can be rehumanized only
by pushing them into productive work and by completely diverting their
attention from the temple, the office, power-seeking, and so on.
Even in this respect the neo-Kshatriyas are in a slightly
advantageous position. Their roots are still in productive work, but
because they are slowly gaining political ascendancy, they are becoming
more and more brahminized even in terms of production relations. In
socio-political terms they must be first neutralized and then dalitized.
Transforming them is not as difficult as transforming the Brahmins and
Baniyas since their socio-political roots are within the Dalitbahujan
culture.
It must be remembered, however, that the anti-caste revolution in
India may take a more tortuous course than even the ‘proletarian
cultural revolution’ did in China. The Brahmins will make it so
difficult that even if they are asked to undertake productive work, they
will shout from their rooftops that atrocities on the ‘intellectuals’
are on the increase.
As of today, the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) belong mostly to the
‘upper’ castes. The post-capitalist markets into which these NRIs are
integrated did not de-caste them. This is very clear from their pro-Hindutvas
proclamations from abroad. These are the forces that financed Hindutva
with dollars. The categorical shift of the Delhi ‘intelligentsia’
towards Hindutva, as against the Uttar Pradesh illiterate Dalitbahujan
masses who preferred the Bahujan Samaj party and the Samajwadi party shows
the direction of the future.
The Dalitbahujan movements, therefore, should be aware of the
hurdles and complications that modern brahminical intellectuals—those
who are abroad and those who are within India—are going to create. The
hue and cry that they are going to raise against Dalitization among
international circles will be great. We should aim for a cultural
revolution that will avoid the loss of life. Dalitization must be handled
very skillfully. All the theories that brahminical intellectuals have
created in the name of nationalism, modernity, secularism and democracy
bear the diabolical seal of Brahminism and Hinduism. The Dalitbahujan
movements have not produced enough organic intellectuals to reinterpret
the whole literature that emerged during the nationalist period and the
post-colonical period. In order to dalitize society and de-Hinduize it
thoroughly, every word and every sentence that has been written by
brahminical thinkers, writers, politicians, historians, poets and art
critics—virtually everything in every field—must be reexamined
thoroughly. The task, however, is not going to be easy. To some extent,
capturing political power is easy. But the Dalitization process is much
more difficult, and if the Dalitization of society is not taken as a
serious task, the question of sustenance of political power will not be
possible. If the defeat of Shambhuka rajya or Ravana rajya are ancient
examples, the drifting of the Dravida Munnetra political power into
thehands of a Brahmin woman in Tamil Nadu is a recent example. It may not
be long before the same state is recaptured by Brahmin men themselves.
The only way to historicize the past and safeguard the future is to
create an army of organic intellectuals—men and women—from
Dalitbahujan forces. Dalitbahujan organic intellectuals must work out a
long-term strategy, both political and economic, to restructure social
relations in a massive way. If the intellectual domain is as tortured
today as the socio-political domain, it is because brahminical forces
refuse to recognize the new ideas of Dalitbahujan organic intellectuals.
Everything is shown in reverse order. If we say one thing, they understand
it only in ways that suit them. When we did not ask them any questions
they preached the ‘correct’ theories to us. Now that we are raising
questions, they raise counter-questions. They doubt our intentions or
integrity and our ability to sustain the battle. They suspect us in every
respect. When we point out that they may be wrong, suspicion becomes their
ideology. Now it is our turn to declare that suspecting them is a prime
tenet of our ideology. Then they will stop asking questions. If they come
at us from one end, we should begin from the other end. If the
Brahminwaada represents the ideal for them, the Dalitwaada should be the
ideal for us. Just as they are shouting from their rooftops (and they have
very big houses) ‘Hinduize India’, we must shout from our toddy palms,
from the fields, from treetops and from Dalitbahujan waadas, ‘Dalitize
India’. We must shout ‘we hate Hinduism, we hate Brahminism, we love
our culture and more than anything, we love ourselves.”
It is through loving ourselves and taking pride in our culture that
we can live a better life in future.