Blog RSSDFN Forum
Therapy for Elite
by Chandrabhan Prasad
From the Pioneer
Should we abandon the Indian elite as an ill-fated sect or deploy some reliable social tools to help them out from their lack of history conditioned social circumstance?
In a world where the speed of time has changed dramatically, the socially disjointed elite can only impede the wheel of modernity. After all, elite in all societies play a key role in clearing road blocks in the way of modernity.
Unfortunately, the Indian elite has become a roadblock in the way of modernity. In this concluding series on the predicament of the Indian elite, we offer a proven treatment called the Dalit therapy in our resolve to treat the elite. To recognise the significance of the Dalit therapy as an unfailing social medicine, we can recall the experience of the UP elections.
It is now widely acknowledged that a significant section of the countryside dwijas voted for BSP. In other words, BSP’s dwija voters were educationally and economically marginalised.
Here we are faced with an extraordinarily self-contradicting social situation. The Indian elite – a social sect hostile to anything Dalit, and the countryside dwijas – are the same social block in terms of origins. The dwijas in rural areas chose a Dalit as their ruler whereas the elite rejected Dalits as their potential colleagues. Why so? It is here that we can explore the miracles of the Dalit therapy.
Consider the case of a 70-year-old Brahmin and his decision to campaign for the BSP. Or, a 17-year-old Brahmin hoisting the BSP flag after the elections in Uttar Pradesh. What would have been playing in their minds while aspiring to be ruled by Dalits?
Sheer greed for power, one may say. Rank opportunism, probably. But, the same could have been true for the elite as they, too, are politically sidelined! And herein lies the secret of the Dalit therapy.
The 70-year-old Brahmin may remember his youth where he had seen a Dalit family living in penury. He may remember the time when an elderly Dalit waited for hours at his door for a rupee so that he could feed his family. He may recall the days when Dalits worked in his fields while it rained, or harvested wheat under the scorching sun. He remember a Dalit face – despised and dependent.
Things turned upside down in just half a century. Thanks to the State’s affirmative action and policies, coupled with an intense social reform process within, a child of that Dalit family has since entered school and gone on to become an engineer. Employed in one of the public sector companies, the younger Dalit changed the profile of his house – a new house came into being, women stopped working on dwijas fields, and their attire changed too.
The Dalit engineer bought a bike and visited his village twice a year. Almost two decade down the line, he is a proud owner of a car and drives 500 km to his village.
The Brahmin family on the other hand, has witnessed a steady decline. Left with no reliable source of income, the 70-year-old Brahmin hung around the house of that Dalit family.
Whenever the Dalit engineer made a trip home, the elderly Brahmin would want financial help, and the situation was now just the reverse. The Dalit became a giver and the Brahman a dependent.
The village dwijas have witnessed that transformation and have reconciled to a new social situation. Not that every Dalit household has transformed but a significant section has made it good. This is the Dalit therapy which the dwija in the village has undergone.
Not that the elite should undergo a similar process of fall. The elite should allow Dalits to become their colleagues where they can see how, given an opportunity, the Dalits can even outperform them.
Sharing workplaces and dining with them will emancipate the elite from their present cultural ghettoism.
Posted on: July 2, 2007
My reservations about SC verdict
By Kancha Ilaiah
Originally published in The Asian Age, June 19, 2007.
Recently, while rejecting the revision petition moved by the Centre seeking the revocation of the stay on OBC reservation in Central institutions, the Supreme Court used very harsh language.
The court’s line of argument was that if the Centre had not implemented OBC reservation for the last 50 years, what was the hurry now? Why couldn’t it wait for one more year?
By the same logic, we can also say that the caste system has been there for 3,000 years, so let it remain in place for another 100 years.
The Supreme Court’s position on the issue is uncannily similar to the position taken by the United States Supreme Court in the early stages of the abolition of slavery. It opposed the abolitionists for quite a long time.
From the days of Thomas Jefferson, the US judiciary was doing a racist reading of the equal rights promised by the American Constitution and was resisting reforms for a long time.
Similarly, the Indian apex court is also on a collision course with the Centre on the issue of reservation which implies the abolition of the evils of caste and untouchability.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence to show that the Supreme Court ever took a pro-active position on the issue of abolition of caste and untouchability.
Here it will help to delve into US history to see what we can learn from the conflicts between the executive and the judiciary during Jefferson’s period and Abraham Lincoln’s period. In a recent book, Winning the Future, penned by the former Republican Speaker of the American Congress, Newt Gingrich, this issue is referred to at length. Jeffersonians called the irresponsible judges who were using their class ideology, “the midnight judges.”
Jefferson said, “You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one that would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”
He further warned that the “the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the Constitution of the federal judiciary, an irresponsible body.
“Working like gravity by night and day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the states and the government of all be consolidated into one.”
However, we are unable to find a bold Jefferson among our politicians. Needless to say, there is no Lincoln either in India. Gingrich says that Lincoln was forced to lead the nation to a civil war as the Supreme Court of his time was refusing to accept the liberation of slaves as an essential ingredient of democratic polity.
Sadly, our Supreme Court has also been taking a similar approach in recent years towards issues of social justice. The very same Supreme Court had upheld 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in government jobs in the Mandal judgment. Its decision was that reservation should not cross 50 per cent.
In this context, there is no logic in disputing the Centre’s decision to give 27 per cent reservation to OBCs in Central educational institutions. If the Supreme Court bench thought that the 1931 census data was too old to be relied upon, why didn’t it ask the Centre to go for a caste census? OBC organizations have been asking for such a census for quite a long time.
We should remember that the court also praised the students of AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) as Abhimanyus for organising a strike against the reservation policy and asked the government to pay the doctors who struck work their salaries.
This very judicial system insists that the working class that goes on strike should not be paid wages.
So far we have not seen the Supreme Court or any high court directing governments to provide equal educational opportunities for all children of the country. Should we assume that Indian judges are unaware that there is no equality possible between the children of the elite who study in private English medium schools and that of the poor who study in government-run schools where education is conducted in regional languages? How many of our judges are willing to put their children in a Hindi medium school or some other regional language school?
How come the courts have not asked for a uniform medium of instruction in the country, at least up to the level of school education? If the courts do not understand the basic principle of a democratic system, they would lead society towards civil strife.
A political system has to work towards a process of socioeconomic transformation. And the guiding principle of that transformation is equality. The judiciary cannot and should not come in the way of this transformation.
Posted on: June 19, 2007
Will India Now Have Her First Woman President?
By Dr. Joseph D’souza, Click here to read original blog.
In a series of dramatic developments in New Delhi, the female Rajasthan Governor who refused to sign the anti-conversion law of the State-led BJP Government became the consensus candidate of the UPA government (the Congress Party and its allies) for the post of the next President of India. Women’s rights groups, civil society leaders, and large sections of the media are enthusiastic about Mrs. Pratibha Patil as the UPA candidate as the July 19th Presidential election nears. India seems to lead the way in putting women in power at the highest level of Government.
Though the post of President is seen as ceremonial, it does play an important role in India’s governance structure as the President has to sign all Central Government bills before they become law. If the President believes the Constitution is being violated in some way, bills can be sent back to the Parliament for reconsideration. The President also has enormous sway in an era of coalition politics when no single party is able to obtain the majority. The President decides which coalition is able to prove its majority in Parliament.
Mrs. Pratibha Patil’s main challenger in the Presidential election is going to be the current Vice-President, Mr. Shekawat, who has been a BJP political leader in the past. Presently, however, Mr. Shekawat does not have the required numbers to win the Presidential race.
The Left and some other allies of the ruling UPA alliance rejected two other political leaders nominated as first choice candidates by the Congress Party. The Congress Party seemed to have got it wrong, as it did not seem to gauge accurately the mood among its allies.
The Left and their allies were concerned that the next President of India had an impeccable record on the ‘communal’ front in light of the rise of right wing Hindutva political forces that time and again have assaulted the secular fabric of the nation. After all, the main agenda on which the present alliance was formed was the provision of a secular alternative to the communal agenda of the BJP party.
The Left party’s main concern about the two candidates who were not accepted was their perceived communal leanings. One of the candidates is the present Home Minister of India whose handling of some communal issues (including the handling of the anti-conversion law which was passed in Himachal Pradesh) has left some major political parties and major communities disappointed. There was also some criticism of the handling of two violent communal incidents in Gorakhpur and Belgaum.
In addition, there is widespread discontent within civil society on the draft bill curbing and restricting foreign aid to charities involved in social and educational work that is alleged to have been drafted by the present Home Ministry. While money through business is allowed to come freely (and by which India’s caste structured society benefits the elitist minority), money through aid for empowerment, health and education of the majority oppressed is being severely curtailed by restrictive laws. There is no acknowledgement that India’s new wealth and the new class of the super rich has not given rise to an equivalent new Indian generosity and philanthropy. Human rights groups believe that charities will be further harassed and intimidated by political parties who do not like the empowerment of the oppressed and marginalized peoples if the new draft bill goes through Parliament.
Representations have been made to the various allies of the present Government. Various petitions and delegations have approached leaders in the present Government to scrap the present draft bill on foreign contribution, as extremist political parties will harass and curb organizations that do not toe the line of their Government. During the BJP rule, scores of NGOs were harassed, intimidated and a few were even shut down.
Further, Dalit leaders have protested that the draft bill is anti-Dalit as much of the educational and health work going on among them will be threatened by political forces that do not want their empowerment.
There are some political leaders in the Congress Party who support the ‘soft-Hindutva’ line and it is because of them that anti-conversion laws and the present draft bill on foreign aid have been passed even under Congress rule when the party’s public posture is that they are secular, pro-poor, and care for minorities and the oppressed sections of society.
This ‘soft-spot’ for undemocratic agendas has been the downfall of the Congress Party. Some of their leaders not only hold a ‘soft-Hindutva line’ that results in anti-minority acts, but there are also others who hold a ‘soft-caste’ line thus allowing for widespread discrimination against Dalits. Thus, their base among the Dalits and backward castes in the north and among the minorities has largely eroded.
Those who have supported the present UPA alliance were shocked when the Congress Party-ruled Himachal Pradesh government passed the anti-conversion bill as a direct result of the ‘soft-Hindutva’ line, when one of the allies of the UPA government, the DMK, had scrapped the anti-conversion bill in Tamil Nadu soon after they came to power on a manifesto of holding to the secular, democratic traditions of India.
So, given Mrs. Pratibha Patil’s excellent track record on the communal front and following democratic traditions in her stints as Minister in Maharastra and as the Governor of Rajasthan, come July 19, based on the numerical strength of the UPA alliance and barring any major cross voting across political lines, India could welcome Mrs. Pratibha Patil as her first female President… and a strong secular, democratic President at that!
Posted on: June 19, 2007
"..and now disclosure of discrimination by IIT in Chennai…"
by Dr. Joseph D’souza. Read original blog at http://www.josephdsouza.com
Reflect on some of the major Indian headlines and other news stories in recent months:
*50,000 Tribals and Dalits convert to Buddhism*
*Caste violence triggered by the Gujjar community in Rajasthan*
*The growth of the Dera sect in Punjab, most of whom are Dalit Sikhs*
*The Chief Justice Misra Commission recommends reservations for Dalit Muslims and Sikhs*
*The OBC reservation issue referred to a full bench of the Supreme Court*
*Media and human rights groups focus on the human trafficking issue, most of them being SC/ST children and women*
*Election of the Dalit leader Mayawati as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh*
Despite all of these, a section of the upper caste intelligentsia and extremist right wing groups continues to deny the caste issue, blaming the social disruptions, the emergence of the caste vote and the Dalit voice on other forces. They say it is a conspiracy hatched by the foreign-born Sonia Gandhi or the Vatican or the West. There used to be a time when Indian political rulers would blame any Indian crisis on the ‘foreign hand’. In fact, when extremists murdered and burned Graham Staines and his two sons to death, the then-Defense Minister blamed it on the ‘foreign hand’, contrary to hard evidence.
Earlier I had reported of the caste configuration among the lecturers in Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Now read the story of the Chennai IIT and judge for yourself if we really must advocate for Dalit rights…
DALITS NOT WELCOME IN IIT MADRAS
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main31.asp?filename=Ne160607Dalits_not.asp
There are only a handful of Dalit students and faculty members at the elite institute, but they face widespread discrimination and harassment.
PC Vinoj Kumar Chennai
All the noise against extending reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in centrally-funded institutions might be a little irrelevant given that an institute like IIT Madras has parted with only a fraction of the 22.5 percent quota for students belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs). According to information provided by the institute’s deputy registrar, Dr K. Panchalan, in September 2005, Dalits accounted for only 11.9 percent of the number of students. They were even fewer in the higher courses — 2.3 percent in ms (Research) and 5.8 percent in Ph.D. Out of a total of 4,687 students, Dalits made up only 559.
Activists who have been fighting for proper implementation of reservations for Dalits describe IIT Madras as a modern day agraharam — a Brahmin enclave. Located on a 250 hectare wooded campus in the heart of the city, the majority of the 460 faculty members and students here are Brahmins. According to WB Vasantha Kandasamy, assistant professor in the Mathematics department, there are just four Dalits among the institute’s entire faculty, a meagre 0.86 percent of the total faculty strength. There are about 50 OBC faculty members, and the rest belong to the upper castes, she says.
Vasantha says Dalit Ph.D scholars are routinely harassed. “They are forced to change their topic of research midway. They are unduly delayed, and are failed in examinations and vivas. It is a stressful atmosphere for them.” She says her support of Dalit students got her into the bad books of the management.
There have been many agitations against the management in the past over not filling the Dalit quota and the alleged harassment of Dalit students. Activists say there were even fewer Dalit students and faculty members in the institute some years ago, and it was only because of efforts by parties like Paatali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Dravidar Kazhagam (DK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal (VC) and Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) that the situation improved. In 1996, K. Viswanath, general secretary of the IIT SC/ST Employees Welfare Association, remarked in a letter to the institute’s director that the institute was yet to have a professor from the SC/ST community even after 37 years of its existence. There were only two Dalits of the rank of assistant professor and there was just one Dalit scientific officer, he noted.
In 2000, the PDK published a book based on a study it did on the anti-Dalit attitude in the institute. The study noted that there were several departments at the institute where even after 41 years, “not a single Dalit student has been selected for doing Ph.D or has successfully completed his degree”. The study also stated that, “almost all M.Tech and ms Students in IIT were Brahmins.” The PDK is now demanding that the institute come out with a white paper providing details of the total number of Dalit students who have completed postgraduate and doctoral programmes. “The National Commission for SC/ST should closely monitor if reservation policy for Dalits is being strictly followed in student admissions,” says Viduthalai Rajendran, PDK general secretary.
The PDK is not alone in levelling such charges. Retired IAS officer V. Karuppan, who is state convener of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), recalls that in 2005 a “meritorious” Dalit student was denied admission to the Ph.D course in the Mathematics department. “They didn’t call him for an interview initially. But he was asked to appear for the interview after we argued his case with the authorities. But in the interview, they asked him irrelevant questions and failed him,” he says.
There have been many complaints of discrimination against Dalit students in the campus. The PDK study cites the case of a Dalit student Sujee Teppal, who had scored 94 percent in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry in the public intermediate exam. Sujee had also secured admission in bits, Ranchi and bits, Pilani but chose to attend IIT Madras, where in spite of her meritorious track record she was made to join the mandatory one-year “preparatory course” for Dalit students. According to the PDK study, “at the end of the course in which she only re-learnt her 12th standard syllabus, she was declared failed.” The institute refused to reverse its decision in spite of the intervention of the National Commission for SC/ST and the then state SC/ST minister Selvaraj in her favour.
Another serious charge against the institute is that successive directors have flouted rules in appointing faculty members, and do not advertise vacancies in newspapers. Former Congress MP Era Anbarasu has brought the issue to the notice of Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh in several letters. In the memorandum submitted to the minister on September 2, 2006, he states: “The ambiguity is apparent because even the number of vacancies is not announced. In order to broaden this arbitrariness, applications to the entry level position of assistant professor are invited for all the 15 departments at the same time. Norms and guidelines for selection are wilfully abandoned by the respective departments.”
Anbarasu wants a high-level committee to probe irregularities in appointments and the violation of reservation policies by the IIT management. He has levelled charges against director MS Ananth, whom he calls a “highly casteist man”. He says that disregarding all norms, Ananth has mostly chosen faculty members from his own community of Iyengar Brahmins. Of the six deans in the institute, four are from the Iyengar community.
In his memorandum to Singh, Anbarasu has demanded that the present director be replaced with someone from the OBC/SC/ST community as the institute has had only Brahmins as directors so far. “I met the minister (Arjun Singh) three or four times and discussed with him these issues. He promised to order a probe, but nothing has happened till now,” he says.
A PIL filed by Karuppan last year against the allegedly flawed selection process in IIT Madras was dismissed by the High Court. Karuppan has now filed a review petition. He also met the IIT director along with a senior leader of the CPI to discuss the reservation issue, and says the director told him that no policy of reservation for SC/ST was applicable to IIT Madras. Karuppan says there are several cases pending in courts against the institute’s selection and reservation policy. They include writ petitions by the IIT Backward Classes Employees Welfare Association, and the Vanniar Mahasangam.
An angry Thol Thirumavalavan, general secretary of the Dalit Panthers of India, says, “Dalits are only working as sweepers and scavengers in the institute”. He wants the IIT management to release a white paper containing details of appointments and admissions given to Dalits and OBCs. “The Tamil Nadu government should demand this information from the institute,” he says.
When Tehelka tried to meet IIT Director MS Ananth to get his views on the allegations against him and the institute, his secretary wanted this correspondent to send a mail stating the purpose for the interview. In the mail to the director, it was stated that the interview was needed “on the issue of SC/ST reservation policy in IIT, Madras.” His reaction on Anbarasu’s memorandum to the Union HRD minister levelling charges of corruption against him was also sought. However, his secretary said the director was not available for comments.
Posted on: June 16, 2007
Strange journey
by Kancha Ilaiah. Originally published in the Times of India, May 24, 2007
After Mayawati became chief minister of UP, the upper caste intelligentsia in the media assumed that Dalit-Bahujan unity had given way to a new era of Dalit-Brahmin unity.
Dalit intellectuals, who had pitched their hopes on the new alliance, are convinced that Delhi is not too far for Mayawati — and for Dalits as a whole.
There is an attempt to project this electoral victory as one against the Shudra-OBC communities.
This attempt is, in other words, one that undercuts a historical social churning process — uniting Shudra-Atishudra masses from the days of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule to building a Bahujan Samaj by uniting Dalit-Bahujan masses till the Kanshi Ram days.
The Dalit-Bahujan project was based on unity of the historically oppressed productive masses, who were working on land and in casteised artisanal household industries — from shoe-making to pot-making to weaving clothes.
This process was mediated by the interventions, social, spiritual and political, set in motion by B R Ambedkar.
The upper caste intelligentsia is trying to tell us that Mayawati, a Dalit woman leader, whom they hated till the other day, had proved all of them wrong, and therefore had become their heroine.
The Dalit-Bahujan unity proposal is based on production relations and the fact of the two groups being at the receiving end of Brahminical oppression.
The Brahmins wrote ritual texts which established a spiritual and social practice of oppression against Dalits and Bahujans. Will Mayawati’s victory alter these conditions?
Will Brahmins soil their hands with actual work of production, or would Dalits be allowed to head Hindu institutions?
The whole discourse around social engineering, as opposed to social churning, is basically an RSS theory.
Social engineering is opposed to social churning. This election might teach OBCs a lesson, that power is best attained by combining various caste combinations.
But will that power help in social churning and transformation that erodes caste barriers, slowly but surely? Even in movements organized around class lines, only unity of forces from below can turn these into instruments of social change.
The top and bottom cannot make a dissolvable mix.
Ambedkar formulated the theory that caste was not merely division of labour, but also of labourers.
To churn them into a social monolith, one should work among many labouring castes, no matter how difficult and time-consuming the process.
As for social engineering, if Left and RSS forces were to form an electoral alliance, they can come to power even in Delhi.
Even if a Left politician were to become prime minister, what socio-economic change is possible in this situation? A Dalit-Brahmin combine is akin to the unity of the communists and RSS.
The latter was tried out during the Janata Party days, but failed. Not that one wishes the BSP to fail in UP.
But if one sees this as the model for abolishing caste and building a prosperous, productive nation, that would be nothing but a mirage and the end of Ambedkarism.
Mayawati’s success lies in the failure of Mulayam Singh, who left out the Dalit leadership in his political formation.
Mulayam’s party is also another kind of OBC-upper caste combine. He ruled UP almost for a full term and did nothing subs-tantial for OBCs.
Upper castes and a small section of Yadavs had their way. How many OBCs emerged as industrialists or as major contractors during his tenure?
Or, how many poor OBCs were uplifted during his tenure? Did they enjoy improved access to egalitarian, English-medium education?
fight caste, even while being in power, one has to fight Brahminism. How would Mayawati fight Brahminism, with Brahmins sitting in her lap?
With a Dalit-Brahmin combination, she would have to function like any Congress Dalit chief minister.
The promotion of such CMs perhaps began with Damodaram Sanjeevaiah, a Dalit Congress chief minister in Andhra Pradesh in the early 60s.
Can Mayawati break new ground, when Dalit-Brahmin unity holds no potential for social churning?
The writer is a political scientist.
Posted on: June 4, 2007
Is Corporate and Rich India Watching the Explosion of Violence in Rajasthan?
by Joseph D’souza
Originally published on Dr. D’souza’s blog, on May 31, 2007
The Gurjar community in Rajasthan wants to be classified as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) and does not want the Other Backward Caste (OBC) tag. Their Muslim co-brothers belonging to the same tribe in Jammu and Kashmir already have Scheduled Tribe status. There are five million Gurjars in Northwestern India with a large majority in Rajasthan. While another similar tribe in Rajasthan, the Meenas, were given the ST status, the Gurjurs were kept out. Governments have not followed a fair and just policy in giving reservation (affirmative action status) to marginalized groups. Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims have been denied reservation benefits for decades.
The current BJP-led state Government in Rajasthan came to power promising the Gurjurs ST status. But now the same Government’s police have opened fire on 30,000 protesters and killed several people who were simply demanding that the promise be fulfilled since the BJP has been in power now for three years. The firing on protestors by the police has resulted in widespread violence all over Rajasthan. Gurjars have burned police stations, railway stations and have taken the violence across the state.
The caste monopoly and resulting discrimination during the decades after India’s independence (not to mention the discrimination of hundreds of years) have come to haunt today’s ‘Rising India’. The uneven economic and social development of the last two decades have made the problem worse for the oppressed tribes, the Dalits and the most backward castes. Many millions have lost their land and are displaced. Millions more work for a pittance and are exploited simply to boost the new economy.
The reservation system is now seen as the major way of dealing with poverty and social deprivation of the marginalized masses. This too will not meet the needs of the millions as Government job and education is severely limited.
What is extremely disappointing is that ‘Rising India’ does not care about the education and job opportunities for the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes. The Rising India with its 9% economic growth does not care about investing some of their profits in providing English school education for the masses. It is not thinking of building tens of thousands of new schools that give quality education with a worldview that gives equal dignity to all human beings.
Therefore, it is not surprising that now the Meena tribe in Rajasthan is rising against giving the Gurjars ST status because they do not want to share the limited reservation benefits. One hopes that tribal violence does not break out in Rajasthan and the adjoining States on the reservation issue.
Is Corporate and Rich India watching? Can India survive the gross disparities between the majority oppressed peoples and the minority privileged? The growing anger against the State will sooner or later erupt against the Corporate world if Rising India does not include the majority people in the recent extraordinary economic and social development. The Prime Minister’s recent words to the Corporate world to include the oppressed poor in their prosperity fell mostly on deaf years, especially when watching the rise of corporate CEO salaries.
For more, see this link…
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/05_2007/gurjar-protest-stops-rajasthan-trains-cancelled-41778.html
To go to Joseph D’souza’s blog site, visit http://www.josephdsouza.com
Posted on: May 31, 2007
Indian TV's Evolving Grasp on the Caste Churning in India
By Joseph D’souza
Barkha Dutt is one of our most prominent and smartest TV talk-show hosts. I remember the Barkha Dutt NDTV talk-show episode covering the issue of OBC reservation when the Dalit/OBC minority group in the audience walked out in disgust as the rest of the audience and program agenda was clearly pro-anti-reservationist. It seemed to me that this time Barkha was out of her depth on the caste churning and discourse in society and was disconnected with caste discrimination in India like so many of the urban elite in this country.
Soon, however, there was a change. Barkha wrote a piece on how the upper caste English-educated had an undue advantage in Indian society and how those who did not have the means for a private English-medium school education had to struggle to make it in the ‘Shining India’, and that this business of the ‘merit’ discussion was only valid if everyone (especially the Dalits and the OBC’s) had the same opportunity as those who claimed ‘merit’ (which was the merit of talent plus English education, plus private coaching, plus right orientation, plus right location, plus right upbringing, plus… the rest!).
Barkha has now done a brilliant piece (link enclosed below) on the Mayawati phenomena and expressed the same kind of disgust we have felt about the upper caste prejudice and writings about her coming to power. This is seen all over and especially on the web where the upper caste fraternity are having a field day lampooning Mayawati instead of coming to terms with the emerging, evolving India of the majority oppressed – the Dalit-Bahujans.
This is crass prejudice and arrogance based on nothing but India’s hidden apartheid of the caste system.
The oppressed majority will take time to learn how to manage the power and governance structures. Sure, Mayawati should not act with a vendetta against those whom she perceives as her opponents. Sure, she should be inclusive and not run with divisive politics. Sure, she will have to grow in her leadership role and not run using another feudal system of leadership. But Indian political leadership and governance has become increasingly feudal in nature and it is not just the Gandhi clan which is feudalistic.
Mayawati has promised social justice for the oppressed. She is pro-reservation for Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians. She is in fact in favor of some affirmative action even for the upper caste poor. We all hope she delivers and does not vacillate like she has done in the past and align with the communal and casteist forces for the sake of political power.
There is one further major point in Mayawati’s inclusiveness the media has missed. For a Dalit Chief Minister who has come to power on her own she has given far more members of the upper castes a share in power than the upper castes have ever given to the Dalits through the centuries given their population percentage. That is a telling comment on caste fairness!
Posted on: May 29, 2007
What Next for Dalit Christians?
Joseph D’souza
May 22, 2007
Finally, the Justice Mishra Commission has come out in favour of reservation for Dalit Christians and Muslims. The main argument, like the one in the petition before the Supreme Court, is that religion should not have been used as the criteria to determine Dalit reservation in the Presidential Order of 1950.
One member in the Commission, Asha Das, has dissented saying that the Parliament or Judiciary cannot change religious practice. Her argument is that Islam and Christianity as religions do not in principle have the caste system as part of their religious ethos. She is silent, however, on how Parliament was able to give reservation to Dalit Sikhs and Dalit Buddhists when both Sikhism and Buddhism also do not allow for the caste system. Further, she is silent on the research data which reveals that the caste system and caste-based discrimination of Dalits has penetrated all religions in India. Those who perpetrate crimes against Dalits do not first verify if their victims are Dalit Hindus or Dalit Christians. The fact that they are Dalits is enough to abuse and discriminate against them.
I think that despite the Mishra Commission’s recommendation, the Government is going to vacillate on the issue when the case appears for its hearing in the Supreme Court. The UPA Government has a strong upper caste lobby which is against any positive action or reservations for Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims. They are also against reservations for Other Backward Caste (OBC) students in higher institutions.
The extremist Hindutva lobby fears that if Dalit Christians are given reservations, then all Dalits everywhere will exit Hinduism into Christianity and other religions. They are going to try and block this initiative by any means necessary. Their agenda is to keep the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes trapped in the caste system. Their response to the Commission’s recommendation shows the hypocrisy of the anti-conversion laws forced into practice in state after state under the guise of preventing forced and fraudulent conversions. If anyone has used forced and fraudulent means to imprison and discriminate against millions of people (namely the 250 million Dalits) it is the Hindutva brigade. Instead of passing anti-conversion laws, why are they not working on laws that will abolish caste ideology and the practice of the caste system in India? It is caste slavery that is pushing Dalits and the Backward Castes into other faiths.
The fight for Dalit Christian reservation is largely led by Dalit Christian groups who are involved in the Dalit Freedom cause. Now non-Christian Dalit groups like Udit Raj’s Confederation and others also support Dalit Christian reservation.
Upper caste Christians are not really in the forefront of the struggle, even though there are some exceptions. The question for the predominantly upper caste Christian leadership of the Church is: How long will it take before you proactively remove casteism and the caste system in the Church? The writing is on the wall. Dalits will not be denied their just rights anymore both inside and outside the Church. The caste system is being revealed for what it really is – India’s Hidden Apartheid. How long before Church leadership removes this disgusting blemish of caste practice in the Church when it comes to marriage, community, leadership and fellowship? Will the Church in India (across denominational lines) split and break apart due to the unwillingness of the minority upper caste leadership in the Church to deal with the caste system within the Church? How can one argue for the unity of the Church based on the glaring unrighteousness and injustice within the Church?
I hope the international business community is detecting the major caste churning going on in India and is not fooled by the upper caste business community who live in perpetual self-denial about the caste system. The election of a Dalit as Chief Minister of India’s largest state (Uttar Pradesh) is the loudest political signal coming out of India this month. Multinationals cannot afford to walk around blindfolded to caste realities even as they rush in to enjoy the profits of the new Indian economy
The ‘India Rising’ is but one small facet of the India mosaic. The larger face of India is of the majority oppressed and facing discrimination, the poor, the suicidal farmers and the abused Dalits.
Joseph D’souza
Go to his blog by clicking here
Posted on: May 22, 2007
View Video about the Dalits and DFN
Click here to watch the video:
Click here to go the DFN Forum
Posted on: January 16, 2007
