A village in Una, where Dalits were thrashed over a week ago, has become the battle field for political parties to gain mileage over “Dalit atrocities”. The men, said to be tannery workers who were stripped, tied to an SUV, flogged with iron rods and paraded by “Gau Rakshaks” or self-styled cow protectors. They were brutally beaten and their skin was peeled. Thanks to social media, the issue reached to the corridors of power, otherwise this is not the new thing at least where right wing organisations are active. In India, Dalits are still living under threat, thrashed and abused; their women are raped and paraded naked in the vicinity. Manual scavenging is a crime against humanity and yet the nation has failed to resolve it, so far. It looks as if this issue does not attract us anymore and except for lip services, we have left it to be resolved by the victims themselves. It’s the time to stand up and eliminate this type of practice. Mere laws will not abolish untouchability and caste system, greater social awakening and a movement will do. The fundamental argument made is that it is time for Dalits to change their image of being perpetual victims (always in need of state support through reservations and doles) to that of being in charge of their own destiny — to put it pithily, “Dalits are not only takers, they are givers.” And what better way to achieve this than Dalits becoming capitalists themselves, and welcoming with open arms, economic reforms and globalisation: “we see that there is an economic process, that capitalism is changing caste much faster than any human being. Therefore, in capitalism versus caste, there is a battle going on and Dalits should look at capitalism as a crusader against caste.”
Our history has volumes’ to narrate Dalit atrocities; Ekalavya came up to the level of Arjuna (perhaps brighter than Arjuna) not because a system supported him. He came up entirely on merit (Mind it, NO RESERVATION) but the system still broke him. It broke him by taking away the only thing he had. This has happened for generations and it has broken people’s will and their self-esteem. Arjuna remained worshipped but Ekalavya had to land in wrong battle field due to the circumstantial helplessness. How is modern form of caste in today times? The various institutions of caste were used as apparatuses to manage the divide and rule policies propagated by the British. The question then becomes as in what ways did the smuggled avant-gardism of imperialism changed the ‘registers’ of belief and social reality in India?
Look at the recent incidence, the cow vigilantes uploaded the video online as a “warning”. The clip went viral and led to the arrest of eight attackers. Six policemen have been suspended. However, no one dares to stop the crime happening, the onlookers were silent spectators, because they are conditioned with the mindset that a dead Cow is greater than human or humanity. Even after this, if you read some right winger’s post, they find no wrong in this incidence. More than a dozen young men have attempted suicide, vehicles have been burnt and highways have been blocked in various Gujarat cities during angry protests by Dalit groups. In Parliament, opposition parties united against the government, accusing it of allowing cow vigilante groups to pressurize Dalits in Gujarat. This is not the first incidence, many Muslim men were brutally beaten and murdered, those who were involved in cow trading. No one stood up for delivering justice to those victims, because they are either minority or Dalits, and ruling party belongs to saffron upper-class.
Now, Uttar Pradesh is a centre-point and everyone has condemned by calling this incidence a “social terror” and “organized crime against Dalits”. It’s a matter of winning elections in Uttar Pradesh, that’s why BJP is on backfoot and showing the ‘pachtava’. Otherwise, this matter wouldn’t have come to surface and conclusion. Independence that we gained in 1947 has no meaning for this upper caste, BJP and RSS leaders. Understand Kanshi Ram’s mantra that key to power come from the poor and they are vast and we need to change our perceptions and strengthen their struggle and leadership. We cannot ask people to sacrifice their lives for ‘leaders’. Those time have gone. Give space as you want elsewhere and provide a healing touch to people where community leaders have not yet reached. The upper caste tries to do anything, even lynching if it requires, to stop Dalits grow economically and educationally, so that the latter will never reach their level and challenge the former’s supremacy. This is the underlying cause of some of the lynchings that have happened across India and of the real situation prevailing in educational institutions.
Those who believe in political democracy must also believe in social and economic democracy or else the goal of establishing an egalitarian society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity would remain meaningless unless and until the attributes of the caste system vanishes. It is only the complete extermination of the caste system that would justify the need for doing away with the caste based reservation. There is no competing cultural vision from below for the mind and heart of India. Dalit-Bahujans are still absent in the contest of ideas, policies and visions—the fundamentals on which democratic competition takes place. This paralysis of the mind is linked to their systemic cultural, intellectual and spiritual destruction. Without reference to history, one cannot find even poor answers to the complex problems that keep them divided and demoralized. However, the corruption and submission of the current Dalit-OBC leadership has also aggravated the crisis. There is a burning need to renew and reconstruct an ideology—attempted in the past by Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar—that can pave the way to a broad-based unity for social reconstruction.
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