Dalits, Subalternity and Social Change in India

Ashok K. Pankaj, Ajit K. Pandey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429785184
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The linguistic origin of the term Dalit is Marathi, and pre-dates the militant-intellectual Dalit Panthers movement of the 1970s. It was not in popular use till the last quarter of the 20th century, the origin of the term Dalit, although in the 1930s, it was used as Marathi-Hindi translation of the word "Depressed Classes".

The changing nature of caste and Dalits has become a topic of increasing interest in India. This edited book is a collection of originally written chapters by eminent experts on the experiences of Dalits in India. It examines who constitute Dalits and engages with the mainstream subaltern perspective that treats Dalits as a political and economic category, a class phenomenon, and subsumes homogeneity of the entire Dalit population. This book argues that the socio-cultural deprivations of Dalits are their primary deprivations, characterized by heterogeneity of their experiences. It asserts that Dalits have a common urge to liberate from the oppressive and exploitative social arrangement which has been the guiding force of Dalit movement. This book has analysed this movement through three phases: the reformative, the transformative and the confrontationist.

An exploration of dynamic relations between subalternity, exclusion and social change, the book will be of interest to academics in the field of sociology, political science and contemporary India.

Part I
Introduction

1 Dalits, subalterns and social change in India

Ashok K. Pankaj and Ajit K. Pandey

Defining Dalits

The linguistic origin of the term “Dalit” is Marathi, and it pre-dates the militant-intellectual Dalit Panthers movement of the 1970s. There is a mention of the term “Dalit” in a Marathi-English dictionary, compiled in the mid-19th century by J. T. Moleswoth, an army officer of the East India Company (Dictionary 1947). It was, however, not in popular use till the last quarter of the 20th century, the origin of Dalit Panthers; although, in the 1930s, it was used as the Marathi-Hindi translation of the word “Depressed Classes”. Jotirao Fule, the famous leader of anti-caste social movement of the late 19th century, used the terms Shudras and Ati-Shudras for backward castes,¹ who later on came to be called other backward castes, and scheduled castes, respectively. B. R. Ambedkar, the iconic leader of the anti-caste social movement of the 20th century, preferred the term “Depressed Classes” to the Dalits, its Marathi-Hindi translation.

In the 1930s, Gandhi and Ambedkar engaged in a semantic and social duel for describing untouchables and for the course of social emancipation for them, respectively. Ambedkar addressed them as “Depressed Classes”; Gandhi coined a term Harijan² whose literal meaning is the “people of God”. Ambedkar rejected it as demeaning of untouchables. Notwithstanding Ambedkar’s opposition of the term Harijan, because of the charismatic influence of Gandhi over the masses and his command over the Congress, the vanguard of the freedom struggle, the term acquired quick popularity. It entered into the vocabulary during the last phase of the freedom struggle that had started discussing the course of the social and economic reconstruction of Independent India.

When Gandhi and Ambedkar were engaged in a fierce and acrimonious debate over the course of social emancipation of untouchables, the British Colonial Government cleverly adopted a neutral stand and placed them in a Schedule under the Government of India Act, 1935. Since then they have been known as Scheduled Castes. The Constitution of Independent India retained the term “Scheduled Castes”, adopted by the Government of India Act, 1935, that is used for all legal, administrative and official purposes. The Madhya Pradesh High Court,³ irked by the creeping of the term “Dalits” in official languages, held the view that the “Scheduled Caste” is the legally and constitutionally valid term; the term “Dalits” should not be used interchangeably with the term “Scheduled Castes” in the official correspondences and languages of the Government of Madhya Pradesh.

For a long time since Independence, the term Harijan, as adopted by Gandhi, was used in social and political discourse and Scheduled Castes in legal and constitutional domains. With the origin of Dalit Panthers in 1972, a militant organization of educated youths drawn mainly from the untouchable castes and inspired by the anti-race Black movement of the United States of America (USA), and impatient with the largely inconsequential erstwhile anti-caste social movements in India that were there since the 1920s, the term “Dalit” emerged in social and political parlance.

Fule, Ambedkar and Dalit Panthers

Jotirao Fule⁴ in the last quarter of the 19th century and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the first half of the 20th century were the torch-bearers of Dalit movement in the pre-Independence period. They became the icons of Dalit’s consciousness and social movements for equality and justice in the post-Independence period. They provided a scintillating critique of caste- and religion-based subjugation and exploitation of non-Brahmin population – Shudras (Backward castes) and Ati-Shudras (untouchables). Their political strategy lay in the formation of a broad social coalition of Dalit-Bahujan, that is, Shudras and Ati-Shudras, as a means to ameliorate their miserable conditions, which, as they argued, had been largely due to Brahaminical dominance and exploitation and social and economic injustice meted out to them over centuries.

Fule propounded a theory that claimed that Aryans were invaders and non- Aryans were the original inhabitants of India, and equated Brahmins and upper castes with the Aryans and non-Brahmins, that is, Shudras and Ati-Shudras with the non-Aryans. According to him, the Aryans first vanquished the non-Aryans, and then subjugated, enslaved and exploited them not only by the force of the material superiority of their civilization but also by deceit and ideology, especially of their religion. He explained that Aryans were the founders of Hinduism.

Fule vehemently attacked the ideology of caste that established graded inequality by birth and race. He denounced it as a deceitful instrument of Aryans/Brahmins to subjugate, enslave and exploit non-Aryans. He argued that the only way to end the sufferings of the Shudras and Ati-Shudras was to mobilize them against Hinduism and demolish its material and ideological bases. He chalked out a social and political strategy that consisted of educating Shudras and Ati-Shudras, as it had been denied to them, and their subsequent horizontal mobilization against their perpetual subjugation, exploitation and sufferings in the hands of Brahmins. He declared that as long as the system of “one sect distrusting and degrading another sect” continues, “the condition of Shudras will remain unaltered, and India never advance in greatness and prosperity” (1873, p. 33)

Apropos Fule, Ambedkar’s ideas of Dalits were inclusive of social, economic and political classes and included peasantry, labour, women and other oppressed sections of society. While Fule was primarily a social reformer, Ambedkar adopted a strategy that was wide in scope and included political and constitutional means as an important instrument for achieving the objectives of uprooting caste from Indian society. From the day of the First Depressed Classes Conference held in Nagpur in 1920, he rejected the race theory of caste that divided Indian society into Aryans and non-Aryans. He argued that “Aryans were not a race. They were a collection of people. The cement that held them together was their interest in the maintenance of a type of culture called Aryan culture” (cited in Omvedt, 1995, p. 48). He then explained the origin of caste in degradation of the original Vedic period and conquering of Buddhism that was based on progressive and egalitarian principles, by in-egalitarian principles of Brahminism. He gave a historical account of the origin of caste and subsequent degradation of the status of Shudras and women in Indian society. He divided the history of Indian civilization into three phases: (a) Vedic period, essentially tribal and characterized by a Varna system that was not based on birth, (b) revolutionary period of Buddhism, characterized by great advance in the status of women and Shudras, and (c) counter-revolutionary period, characterized by degradation in the status of women and Shudras and transmutation of varna into caste system under onslaught of Hinduism (ibid., p. 50). He wrote: “The triumphant Brahaminism began an onslaught on both the Shudras and the women in pursuit of the old idea, namely servility and Brahaminism did succeed in making the Shudras and the women servile classes” (ibid., p. 50).

Dalit Panthers defined “Dalits” as “members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, Neo-Budhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically, economically and in the name of religion” (p. 9). It sought the horizontal mobilization of “all sections of society that are suffering due to the economic and political oppression” (p. 9). It declared that “power, wealth, price, landlords, capitalist, money-lenders and their lackeys and parties indulging in religious or casteist politics” (p. 9) were its greatest enemies. It underlined that “food, clothing, shelter, employment, land, untouchability and social and physical injustice” were the main problems of the Dalits. It rejected caste- and religion-based interpretation of their sufferings and exploitations, as it stated in its manifesto:

The Problem of the dalits today, be they social, political or ethical, cannot be solved within the framework of religion and caste… . A scientific outlook, class consciousness and a completely atheistic approach and fighting for humanism alone could add an edge to the struggles of the dalits.

(p. 8)

The influence of Fule and Ambedkar, who preceded Dalit Panthers by a century, was unmistakable on the latter. Dalit Panthers adopted a broad definition, akin to a class phenomenon.

The quintessential of the concept of Dalits as a social category of depressed classes that converges with Shudras and Ait-Shudras, as propounded by Fule, Ambedkar and later on by the Dalit Panthers, is caste. In a broader term, “Dalits” incorporate all non-upper castes, that is, excluding Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaish in terms of Varna category. Fule, Ambedkar and Dalit Panthers included women across castes among the category of Dalits with varying degrees of attention. This definition leads to a binary classification of society into Dalits and non-Dalits.

Dalits: caste or class?

There is a conceptual affinity between “Dalits” and “class”. In the 1930s, Ambedkar had tried to build a broad social coalition of Dalits and Communists as a counter force against the Congress. Ambedkar, disillusioned with the adamant stand of Gandhi on the issue of separate electorate for the Dalits during the negotiation of the Second Round Table Conference and the subsequent fast of Gandhi, had denounced the Congress as a “Brahmin-bourgeois” organization. He, however, vehemently differed from the Marxists over the latter’s interpretation of caste in Indian society. They had explained caste as an economic division of labour and its cultural social manifestations as “superstructure”. Ambedkar contested “structure-superstructure” framework of interpretation of caste and argued that “caste is not a division of labour; it is a division of labourer” (cited by Omvedt, 1995, p. 49). For him, caste was a social phenomenon. Its origin lies in the ideology of servility of Brahaminism and not in the material conditions. The economic deprivations of the Shudras and Ati-Shudras have been sustained by caste, which perpetuates an artificial division of society into haves and have-nots. The Brahmins and upper castes represent haves and the Dalits represent have-nots. As Marx had argued that he turned Hegelian philosophy upside down, so in a sense Ambedkar turned Marxist interpretation of caste in India society upside down.

Then, are Dalits castes or a class of castes? While for Fule, Dalits are a class of castes and gender, for Ambedkar Dalits are a class cast in caste. The tactical position of Dalit Panthers is closer to that of Fule, as both of them looked for carving out a social base for the Dalit movement, yet the ultimate ambition of Dalit Panthers was the same as that of Ambedkar, that is, “annihilation of caste”.

There has been a vibrant debate on caste and class in India⁵ that can be suitably divided into the pre- and post-Mandal phases. While the dominant motif of the pre-Mandal phase discourse was that of “caste as a class”, in the post-Mandal phase “class in caste” acquired new salience, especially in the light of affirmative action measure and judicial interpretation⁶ of caste as class with reference to Article 16 of the Constitution, which uses the phrase “socially and educationally backward classes”. The Supreme Court settled down to a position that accepted “caste as class” and caste as the primary constituent of the socially and educationally backward classes. It also acknowledged caste as an important determinant of social and educational backwardness of the population in India.

Following the implementation of reservation of jobs for the OBCs in the early 1990s, as per the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, and subsequent virulent protest by the upper castes, the Dalit movement acquired a new salience by the ground swelling of support for affirmative action for the downtrodden. Although, the Mandal agitation was led mainly by the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the Scheduled Caste population joined it in solidarity with the OBCs and also for the sake of protecting affirmative action by the state, which was considered by Ambedkar as an important pillar of socio-economic mobility of the Dalits.

The SC-OBC solidarity for the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations for reservation of seats for the OBCs in government jobs was ephemeral. With the implementation of the job reservation policy for the OBCs, the purpose of solidarity depleted. The SC-OBC solidarity was also marred by some inherent tensions. The SCs were mostly landless and continued to be so; the OBCs were not landless. Many of the OBC, particularly the upper OBCs, like Yadavas, Koeris and Kurmis, owned sizeable amounts of land and were employers of SC labourers. The relations between SC landless labourers and OBC landowners were similar to those between the SC labourers and upper caste landowners. Due to a cumulative impact of land reforms in some states, changes in land ownership patterns and the green revolution, a large chunk of OBCs have acquired sizable amounts of land and became economically better off. They acquired education and many of them moved into government and other regular non-farm jobs. They emerged as the new “Kulaks” of rural India.⁷ The internal contradiction of SC-OBC solidarity raised its ugly head.

The SC-OBC solidarity of the Mandal phase did not last long. Following the Mandal Commission agitation, the OBC leaders flexed its political muscle in the North and outnumbered upper castes and others in Parliament and many State Legislatures. OBC leaders formed governments in the states of UP, Bihar, MP, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Jaffrelot⁸ has termed the rise of OBCs in north Indian politics as “India’s Silent Revolution”. The OBC leaders refused to share power with the SC leaders. The SCs fell apart, disillusioned by the complete dominance of the OBCs in the power-sharing arrangement.

In UP, the alliance of Mulayam Singh Yadav–led Samajwadi Party (SP) and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) broke up, following the refusal of the SP to hand over the Chief Minster position to the BSP, as per the power sharing arrangement made before formation of the government. Subsequently, Mayawati formed the BSP government, ironically with the support of the BJP, its arch ideological rival. In Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led by Laloo Prasad Yadav ignored the lower OBC and SC leaders in decision making process, thereby triggering a split in the party that resulted in the formation of the Koeri-Kurmi-led, OBC-based Samata Party under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and the Ram Bilas Paswan–led Lok Janshakti Party. In the post-Mandal phase, the SCs felt cheated by the OBC leadership and decided to tread their own independent path.

By the 1990s, OBCs in North India had acquired education, government jobs, land and economic resources and political power that edged them towards “sanskritization”. Many of them started claiming Kshatriya status and looked for a social and religious identity closer to that of the upper caste Hindus. For example, Yadavas claimed that they were descendants of Lord Krishna, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, as per the Hindu mythology. They called themselves as Yaduvanshis. Patel and Kurmi and Kushwaha claimed Kshatriya status, digging some mythological evidences that their ancestors were rulers and hence Kshatriya. They imbued the values and norms of the upper castes and adopted social behaviours similar to those of the upper castes. They started distancing from the SCs. They emerged as the new tormentors and exploiters of the SCs. Many of the atrocities on the SCs in this phase were committed by the OBCs. The rift between SCs and OBCs widened.

With the faltering of SC-OBC solidarity, the SCs decided to carve out a separate political niche for them. They realized that they would have to fight out their own battle to live their lives with dignity. A new chapter of the Dalit movement began in the 1990s. Unlike the earlier period, the epicentre of this phase of the movement was ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Notes on contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Preface
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Perspectives on Dalits as subalterns
• Part III Constructing new historiography
• Part IV Education as liberator
• Part V Changing socio-cultural space
• Part VI The last citizens of India
• Index